Rescued Emu refuses to eat anything but grass and sweet corn

Hello, I read forums all the time here in BYC and LOVE all the help on raising my chickens! My husband and I decided that since we have ten acres we would buy a pair of emu chicks. Unfortunately we lost our male within three months, and our little female is doing just fine.....although she's bonded more with the chickens than us. We wanted to find a male, in hopes that we would be able to keep them in the same enclosure to keep each other company. I happened to go to our feed store around the corner and there was a young male (18 months or so) walking the fence line. I went home and told my husband that there was a random male emu at the back of the fence at the feed store and he went down to check it out. I asked the worker what they were feeding him and his answer was "just sweet corn". He obviously is grazing on grass and bugs, but the poor fella is scrawny! We bought him, managed to load him into a horse trailer, and have him in a larger pen. He loves his baby pool, sprinkler time, and doesn't seem to mind my husband. He WILL NOT eat anything but the corn. I tried mixing in the corn with other feed........he will pick the corn out and leave the rest! It's been four days and I have googled until my eyes want to bleed. I am finding little information on raising/rescuing emus! The information I do find that is helpful is all coming from BYC and I know that if anyone can help me out here it's emu owners who take the time to visit and share the experiences on the forums. Please, please, please help!

Deep breath!! An 18-month emu in fair condition, with a good environment, is gonna do okay.

I see in the wild birds that they live well on quite lopsided diets: all this for a while, then lots of something else, then not much of anything for a couple of weeks.

Emus have tastes in foods just as they have personalities. (Felicity Emu is a real sook, but Greedy would scoff up most anything, including pasta salad.) More kniowledgeable readers will chime in with info on specific supplements. Meanwhile though, 4SA, make it a game. Try the bird with every potentially Yummy for Emus food that you can think of. For example, what? this bird won't eat dried apple? sultanas? figs?


We look forward to your reports

SE

Thank you! Yesterday I tried boiled eggs, just because the chickens love them! I got the big yuck face and lots of head shaking. Today will be leftover apples from the kids and whatever Swiss chard the chicks haven't gotten to. Yes, it's quite the game!

Yeh, the Yuck Face cracks me up every time!

se

We handle rescued emus and have had birds that would initially not eat feed. We have had success by mixing in a sweet feed with whatever they were eating and slowly weaning them off of whatever they were eating. Once they get a taste of the molasses in the sweet feed,, they will usually zero in on the feed and you can slowly add more pellets and less feed, but it can take some time to get them to completely convert... Be patient, they may refuse to eat anything else at first, but they are not going to starve themselves.

Thank you, yes he only goes for the sweet corn that the feed store was giving him.....and of course grazes in our pasture. He picks just the corn out of the pan and I mixed sweet feed in thinking surely he would go for it. Yuck face again........stumped....He does not have a "fluffy feathery" body like most emus....he has lost a lot of it due to a dog attack (and possibly poor diet??) while still living at the store. He has been with us since last Sunday, and doesn't seemed stressed anymore. He loves my kids and is very gentle with them, sitting down and letting them scratch his back and rub his neck. He hates my husband and I, because of the move I guess....but we work with him daily. We put our small female emu chick in with him, he pecked and stomped....so she is back in a different enclosure. Work, work, work to do with this fella!