Anyone up for a Hatchalong?

[The Sheriff]

Just curious Apron Strings, how experienced are you at vent sexing? Our avian vet said it is a little tricky because both genders have protrusions until a certain age then the male's start to grow and the female's stay the same. He vent sexed our at a few months old but said he would have to do it again several week slater to be sure. We went for the DNA sexing versus another two hour road trip with the emus in the back of the Hummer! Cheaper than gas for sure! Turned out he was right. They were both boys.

Keep us posted and keep the pics coming. I can never get enough emu pics!

Mary

Here is a funny picture of the vent sexing taking place. The vet looks a lot happier than Stuart does!

 

[The Sheriff]

Oops, double post.

 

[yinepu]

Just curious Apron Strings, how experienced are you at vent sexing? Our avian vet said it is a little tricky because both genders have protrusions until a certain age then the male's start to grow and the female's stay the same. He vent sexed our at a few months old but said he would have to do it again several week slater to be sure. We went for the DNA sexing versus another two hour road trip with the emus in the back of the Hummer! Cheaper than gas for sure! Turned out he was right. They were both boys.

Keep us posted and keep the pics coming. I can never get enough emu pics!

Mary

Here is a funny picture of the vent sexing taking place. The vet looks a lot happier than Stuart does!

I have been vent sexing chicks for about as long as I can remember.. but I'm opting for DNA testing of my emus...
I just don't want to be second guessing myself!

 

[The Sheriff]

Once the vet started showing us how to check the boys in a couple of months we knew we were opting for DNA sexing!

Good for you though! You'll get to find out if you were right or not.

 

[ApronStrings]

I'm not experienced at vent sexing in the least. Did it for the first time last Emu hatch season. The males have a larger (longer) protrusion whereas the females have more of a nub (clitoris). It wasn't easy with all three that I hatched. I did it right after hatching so as not to have any manure issues around the vent. One was a clear cut male, another a female, and one that could have been neither or both. We decided that he is an it until we send off for DNA sexing. He, er...it makes the male noises, but could still be hemaphrodite? We shall see in a couple weeks. That being the case, I want the DNA sexing done as I have a pair sold already. Like most on this forum, I'm no expert just a farmer tryng her hand at these silly birds from down under mate.

 

[yinepu]

C-1 is almost out of his shell.. should be sometime this evening...

I was a little worried about him since he lost 17.27% plus the egg sounded late Saturday night..

gonna have to keep an eye on him just in case he develops any problems

Funny thing is his clutch mate (egg C) hatched on Sunday .. I guess C-1 wanted to be fashionably late!..

 

[yinepu]

Well.. while I was out tending to the other critters C-1 decided to finish hatching (I really thought he would have taken a few more hours).. he had a bit of a bloody navel.. but I put iodine solution on it (for livestock) and some quick stop powder

I haven't weighed him yet since he was none too happy about the iodine .. so I put him back in the incubator and figured I would weigh him in a few hours.. the opening in the navel is small.. so it should finish closing up in an hour or so.. just hope I got to it before any bacteria could enter and cause problems down the road

I'll take some pics of him later on

 

[Raptor65]

What is the cause of the bloody navel? I'm going around and making my final checklist of everything I need after the hatch such as feed, would betadine from my local pharmacy be alright or is there a different formula I should use? Ditto on the blood stop, what is recommended?
I'm not gonna be able to get any Ratite starter locally and ordering a bag online is bound to be murder so I'm looking to mix some Chicken layer pellets with some Rabbit pellets 50/50, the mix comes out looking like this compared to the Mazuri Ratite starter:

Feed​

Crude Protein​

Crude Fat​

Crude Fiber​

Calcium​

Phosphorus​

Salt​

Lysine​

Methionine​

Chicken Layer​

16.00%​

2.70%​

4.00%​

2.50%​

0.40%​

0.25%​

0.70%​

0.20%​

Rabbit Pellets​

17.00%​

1.90%​

20.00%​

0.90%​

0.25%​

0.48%​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Mix​

16.50%​

2.30%​

12.00%​

1.70%​

0.33%​

0.36%​

0.70%​

0.20%​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Difference (Starter Mix)​

4.50%​

0.20%​

5.00%​

0.48%​

0.08%​

1.24%​

0.40%​

0.50%​

Difference (Feed Mix)​

0.50%​

0.30%​

1.00%​

0.55%​

0.33%​

0.29%​

0.14%​

0.16%​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Mazuri Ratite Starter​

21.00%​

2.50%​

7.00%​

1.22%​

0.40%​

1.60%​

1.10%​

0.70%​

Mazuri Emu Feed​

17.00%​

2.00%​

11.00%​

1.15%​

0.65%​

0.65%​

0.84%​

0.36%​

Was $20 for 100 pounds of combined feed but I'm wondering about the Protein and Salt, should these be raised? The Fiber is also 5% too high, will that be a problem or will providing grit prevent problems?
I can get some Chick starter crumble with 23% protein from the same place and mix it 3 ways that will raise the protein content to 18.67% but I don't remember the rest of the nutrition for the Chick starter but it'll probably lower the Fiber by a fair bit as well. Just wondering how this mix looks to the more experienced members of the forum here, there seems to be a lot of differing opinions out there on Emu diets.

 

[msheets]

Congrats yinepu! Hopefully the bloody navel won't cause any problems...ok does anyone know if it's possible for an egg on day 26 to move? I got mine out to see if I could find the stinker & egg E started rolling. I moved it to several spots & after becoming steady it would roll, it did it 3 times. Also I couldn't find a smelly egg & the incubator isn't really smelling now...so who knows what's going on lol.

 

[Pollitollito]

tHIS IS SO FUNNY!!!! THE VETS FACE V/S STUART JAJAJAJAJJAJ OMG FUNNYYYY

VET FACE AND STUART BEFORE

AND AFTER

HE WILL NEVER BE THE SAME...