Rattles and roos born at Lincoln Park Zoo

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Lincoln Park Zoo is jumping with joy and slithering with excitement these days.

Lincoln Park Zoo's kangaroo family is growing! One little male just recently escaped from his mom's pouch and another baby still inside that's all upside-down legs.

"We've got two female kangaroos that both had joeys recently. One joey is out of the pouch and his name is Jack. The other female still has her joey in the pouch. (It) hasn't come out very much. You'll see the legs come out every once in awhile," Dave Bernier, general curator at Lincoln Park Zoo, said.

The best time to see the baby kangaroos are either right when the zoo opens or later in afternoon.

Behind-the-scenes at Lincoln Park Zoo, a baker's dozen of Massasauga rattlesnakes. The six-inch long venomous snakes are the result of a union between scary and two-foot long mom.

"We are ecstatic. Earlier this month we discovered that one of our female Massasauga rattlesnakes gave birth to thirteen young. A tremendous number," Dan Boehm, zoological manager, said.

The Massasauga is endangered in Illinois. But why save a poisonous snake? First of all they're good for the eco system; they eat rodents. Besides that they're not very dangerous.

"They're very shy, very secretive, very reluctant to bite. They just want to be left alone," Boehm said.

These babies are the result of efforts by the rattlesnake species survival plan which is dedicated to the mating of just the right mom and dad snake. But how do you get snakes to be romantic?

"We cool them in the winter. Warm them up in the summer. Put them together, cross our fingers and hope they're a pair that's compatible and that they'll breed and bring young for us a year later," Boehm said. "This one went very well."

Snakes and kangaroos. Rattles and roos. A day at the zoo.