The man behind Victoria’s popular Farmer Darryl’s Mobile Animal Zoo has overcome many obstacles to get to where he is today. He spoke to DJEMBE ARCHIBALD.
Darryl Sheridan, or as he’s more commonly known, Farmer Darryl, is more than the smiling man with animals-a-plenty. He is also a survivor of a deadly disease.
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Darryl grew up on a farm in Donald, 125km north-west of Bendigo in western Victoria, the second of five brothers.
He said he had a challenging childhood, but his mother made sure he and his brothers had everything they could.
“Unfortunately, my father took his own life when he was 36,” Darryl said.
“He was just struggling a little bit on the farm and so he left Mum, my oldest brother who was nine, and my youngest brother was six months.
“In saying that, you know, we didn’t really miss out on anything.
“Mum kind of fitted the role of dual parents. She took us to footy and we played basketball and we had tennis and we went to really good schools and she had a very supportive family.”
It was his childhood farm that gave him the dream of being a farmer.
“When Dad used to bring home orphan calves or orphan lambs, that was my job, I would look after them,” Darryl said.
“I always thought from a young age that I would be a farmer.”
However, his career didn’t start in the paddocks — he worked in a carpet shop full-time while fulfilling his farming desires in his spare time.
He moved to Kyneton, had a wife and three kids, and then his health took a turn for the worse.
“My wife had just given birth to our third son. I went down to the hospital to pick him up and then when I got home, I went to bed and I never really got out of bed after that,” Darryl said.
He later found out he had meningococcal meningitis.
His symptoms started with a sensitivity to light, swollen legs that left him unable to walk and blood blisters all over his body.
Darryl’s wife, who was recovering from a caesarian birth, was left to take care of their newborn while he was waiting for a doctor.
He waited two days with his symptoms and when help did come, the paramedic didn’t want to be in Darryl’s room, telling him to get himself on to a stretcher.
Darryl waved goodbye to his wife, twin boys and newborn son, and by 5pm that night, he had fallen into a coma at the hospital.
He was transferred to Bendigo, where he was diagnosed with meningitis and his symptoms weren’t waning.
“By that stage, my arms had gone black and my legs had gone black, so I’d gone septic,” Darryl said.
“When I see adults that have had meningococcal, they've had their limbs amputated. I think my diagnosis was probably so bad, they didn’t expect me to live and didn’t think it was worthwhile cutting my limbs off.
“I was so fortunate that they didn't do it anyway.”
His family stayed by his side for a week while he struggled through the disease.
When he was discharged he was in intense pain, having a long road to recovery ahead of him, with his first step being learning to walk again.
“My legs were really swollen and they were full of fluid, so that was fairly difficult,” he said.
He had swelling around his brain and was told to simply take it easy, but with a farm, wife and young boys to take care of, that was easier said than done.
“I had three months off work, then my sick leave ran out, so then I went back to work and I started to get my life back in order,” he said.
Then he started Farmer Darryl’s Mobile Animal Farm.
He didn’t initially plan to start a petting zoo, but he was asked if he could bring his animals to events here and there. Now he is a staple of field days and agricultural shows across the state.
“I visited the kinder and I visited the school, and then I started setting up at the Epsom market in Bendigo,” Darryl said.
“Bendigo was really the first place that the animal farm took off, and people in Bendigo just really loved it and they really embraced me.
“Even now, you know, 26 years later, I'm still doing some of those events that I did 26 years ago.”
Although the farm took off, he was still struggling to work with the impact of meningococcal lingering.
He said a lesson he was still learning, and that all farmers should know, was to listen to your body when it tells you to slow down.
“Well, there’s been two other instances in my life where, you know, I’ve had serious illness and I haven’t listened to my body, and I’ve thought, because I’m fit and healthy and because I work, it’s not going to happen to me,” he said.
Farmer Darryl said although he had some bad diagnoses, he would not let anything get in the way of attending his regular events like the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo.
His Kyneton farm is still running, having about 42ha of land and 350 animals, including cows, sheep, goats, deers, chickens, ducks, rabbits and guinea pigs.
To learn more about Farmer Darryl, head to www.farmerdarryl.com