BriefVisit ... ? Emu chick natural nutrition?

[briefvisit]

Heck, my eyes are so bad: here is the thread I wanted to put in my post above. Somewhere in here is specific data on young wild chicks -- Alpha and Omega -- here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/planet-rothschildi.714603/

 

[briefvisit]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/content/type/61/id/5361719/

Havin' all manner of trouble with this site. (Pretty blind, me). This thread is 'Planet Rothschildi,' the second block of formal observations, including the diet of wild chicks. The photo is of a wild emu chick 'nursery' at which we formally observed. What fun that time was!!

 

[Ebarnes-21]

Wow great thread! Its good to see/read the body language and interactions of the wild emu. Fascinating to hear how the chicks respond to dad's cues for instance.

We have nothing so exciting as Emu to watch here in NZ, mostly wild goat, but I do love to sit in the bush and watch them without their knowing about it. If you're 'caught', someone will snort, that is their alarm call and it has the effect of letting a hand grenade off in their midst!

 

[Ebarnes-21]

Ooops, posted twice. Having a little difficulty myself ... mostly because of my dialup internet Lol, everything takes so long to not load I can't tell if I've already done something!

Note to self: I've posted this already ... don't forget that ...

 

[briefvisit]

Kiwis have the kiwi. I would be ecstatic to have any observations.

Five members of the family, campers. All on different continents. All slightly different behaviours.

 

[Ebarnes-21]

Ah they are hard to watch though. They only come out at night and they nest in tunnels!

They do not tend to do well anywhere near human habitation, there's something about the smell (similar to rotten fish to be honest) that attracts dogs, and makes them playful ... typically the dogs don't actually have to attack to kill them, as the lack of a keel makes them very fragile ... worst case scenario, a firm nudge from a dog's nose can puncture a lung. That is why when you carry a kiwi you always cradle it upside down like a baby.

So, we have none in the bush right here. There is some in the really old, untouched bush out the back. 5Km away you can start to see tracks. You'll just see mysterious "holes" poked into the litter, or pine needles if they're out in the planted forest. You can hear them at night, but actually seeing shy little kiwi bird nosing along under cover is pretty tough in the dark. No question of seeing chicks unless you're working with DOC to care for them ... the survival rate in the wild is around 5%. (rats, stoats, possum ...) Life is risky for a kiwi!

In saying that, some of those kiwi out there have been in areas absolutely Loaded with rats and possum. They're doing OK despite almost no DOC help in that area. I know a possum run so old and well used it is worn 4" down into the soil! I call it State Highway 1. There are still old bait stations from the farms before the pine forest was planted 30 years ago strapped to the old fences.

There is a plague of Kiwi predators up there. Yet the kiwi are still there, and plenty of them. You can put out 20 one-catch possum traps sometimes only 4 metres apart and get 21 possum in a night ('Married' couple in one trap). Total: 200 possum in two weeks out of a 500 metre line. Followed by twice as many rats if you keep going. Don't think these possum are the same size as the same species in Aussie either ... these are big even for NZ, we're talking 5-7Kg possum.

The (adult) kiwi share those same runs right beside the possum. I don't know how they do it. Clutch size is 1, maybe 2. Not all hatch. He has to sit on that egg (which is as big as a small emu egg) almost as long as an Emu. Some species the mate helps, some she doesn't. They do hold monogamous pair relationships, sometimes for 20 years.

Every night some sod could sneak in wanting to eat his egg! He is not a fighter, he will try his best to defend it but against a stoat or possum what poor little Kiwi dad has a chance? Often when all is lost he would rather smash his own egg and flee than let it fall into "Enemy Hands".

Even if all has gone well so far, he has to run the gauntlet past all those predators with just one or maybe two dumb bumbling hatchlings. Poor little guys must be emotional wrecks!

Imagine the stress levels of that first night out with the chick. There is no longer the option of smash and run. Food means worms and beetles. It takes time to hunt them, and literally everything else that moves is bigger or more vicious than you and wants to eat your precious new baby.

95% of his chicks will be eaten by something before they are mature. He lives for 20-30 years (if nothing eats him). The math is not complicated ... he doesn't have much success.

Somehow those Kiwi up the back are holding their own without DOC care. I don't get how ... must be a harrowing existence.

The huge egg (quite monstrous actually if you see the display in the museum of the kiwi egg shell inside the kiwi skeleton) is an evolutionary strategy to combat the predator issue. Instead of laying a dozen small eggs like most birds do, they invest huge energy into one single giant egg. It takes a month for the female to form the egg, and the little lady couldn't hope to incubate it after that. The male has that task, and much like an emu he is glued to that egg for nearly two months.

The advantage is in that the chick is hatched very large and well grown. Much stronger and faster. The disadvantage is there are so few chicks involved ... and some meddling bunch of primates imported all these new carnivorous mammals.

 

[briefvisit]

Reading as we speak, and note:

I am one blind old academic who decided that if I was gonna observe emoooz, I'd do it thoroughly. You'd be ASTOUNDED at how bad the existing literature is. And no one said observations are easy. In one year, I walked a thousand miles while observing, and have come home in winter numbed to the bone to get a teaspoon of data to add to the pile. What fun!!!

 

[briefvisit]

Ah they are hard to watch though. They only come out at night and they nest in tunnels!

They do not tend to do well anywhere near human habitation, there's something about the smell (similar to rotten fish to be honest) that attracts dogs, and makes them playful ... typically the dogs don't actually have to attack to kill them, as the lack of a keel makes them very fragile ... worst case scenario, a firm nudge from a dog's nose can puncture a lung. That is why when you carry a kiwi you always cradle it upside down like a baby.

So, we have none in the bush right here. There is some in the really old, untouched bush out the back. 5Km away you can start to see tracks. You'll just see mysterious "holes" poked into the litter, or pine needles if they're out in the planted forest. You can hear them at night, but actually seeing shy little kiwi bird nosing along under cover is pretty tough in the dark. No question of seeing chicks unless you're working with DOC to care for them ... the survival rate in the wild is around 5%. (rats, stoats, possum ...) Life is risky for a kiwi!

In saying that, some of those kiwi out there have been in areas absolutely Loaded with rats and possum. They're doing OK despite almost no DOC help in that area. I know a possum run so old and well used it is worn 4" down into the soil! I call it State Highway 1. There are still old bait stations from the farms before the pine forest was planted 30 years ago strapped to the old fences.

There is a plague of Kiwi predators up there. Yet the kiwi are still there, and plenty of them. You can put out 20 one-catch possum traps sometimes only 4 metres apart and get 21 possum in a night ('Married' couple in one trap). Total: 200 possum in two weeks out of a 500 metre line. Followed by twice as many rats if you keep going. Don't think these possum are the same size as the same species in Aussie either ... these are big even for NZ, we're talking 5-7Kg possum.

The (adult) kiwi share those same runs right beside the possum. I don't know how they do it. Clutch size is 1, maybe 2. Not all hatch. He has to sit on that egg (which is as big as a small emu egg) almost as long as an Emu. Some species the mate helps, some she doesn't. They do hold monogamous pair relationships, sometimes for 20 years.

Every night some sod could sneak in wanting to eat his egg! He is not a fighter, he will try his best to defend it but against a stoat or possum what poor little Kiwi dad has a chance? Often when all is lost he would rather smash his own egg and flee than let it fall into "Enemy Hands".

Even if all has gone well so far, he has to run the gauntlet past all those predators with just one or maybe two dumb bumbling hatchlings. Poor little guys must be emotional wrecks!

Imagine the stress levels of that first night out with the chick. There is no longer the option of smash and run. Food means worms and beetles. It takes time to hunt them, and literally everything else that moves is bigger or more vicious than you and wants to eat your precious new baby.

95% of his chicks will be eaten by something before they are mature. He lives for 20-30 years (if nothing eats him). The math is not complicated ... he doesn't have much success.

Somehow those Kiwi up the back are holding their own without DOC care. I don't get how ... must be a harrowing existence.

The huge egg (quite monstrous actually if you see the display in the museum of the kiwi egg shell inside the kiwi skeleton) is an evolutionary strategy to combat the predator issue. Instead of laying a dozen small eggs like most birds do, they invest huge energy into one single giant egg. It takes a month for the female to form the egg, and the little lady couldn't hope to incubate it after that. The male has that task, and much like an emu he is glued to that egg for nearly two months.

The advantage is in that the chick is hatched very large and well grown. Much stronger and faster. The disadvantage is there are so few chicks involved ... and some meddling bunch of primates imported all these new carnivorous mammals.

Heartiest congratulations!! This is a tremendous introduction. Fabulous data -- which is great for me 'cause the more I know about ratites the more I know about emus. Have spent so much time trying to figure out emu-chick attrition rates. At first thought higher, then lower. But yours seem to even higher. Good heavens. Will re-read this later. And I challenge you -- if you have the time for a huge project -- to get a picture of a kiwi chick in the wild

 

[Ebarnes-21]

Well, come to think of it, I have more information ... amazing what you pick up in little news articles and information campaigns ...

The attrition rates are improved in the properly DOC-protected reserves ... ie, where the predators are well controlled. There the survival rate is 40%. But you can't take that as a "Natural" environment. It takes constant human intervention to support it. That is an improvement on 20 years ago when they basically had no safe zones and had to raid a nest and take the eggs if they wanted them to live at all.

Particularly risky because for some reason Kiwi eggs won't grow started in artificial incubation, so they have to pinch them halfway through. First you have to chase off daddy bird before he breaks the egg, and he will take you on too! Then wrap it up warm and bring it out of the boondocks without bumping it around or losing heat.

I know this because I went through a study of transporting Emu eggs used as stand-ins for Kiwi eggs ... I read it because I needed to take the incubator and live emu eggs up north to pick up more live emu eggs ... they did it because they were worried rough quad rides might damage their hatch rates. (They don't apparently).

Of course, the Natural environment was very different. No possum, no stoat. There were rats here at one stage, prehistorically, but they went extinct until they were re-introduced by accident. (A unique accomplishment, actual rats going extinct!) It could be the rats that made them grow the big eggs. A big chick has a chance against a rat.

There were no other mammals here. The Maori did bring dogs with them, but a) that was very recent history, and b) they didn't last long, the Maori ate them ...

We did have several species of owl that would have been a challenge to chicks, but not so much considering the size. I can't see a little Morepork carrying off a kiwi chick. They have to deal with Weka, another bird that eats the eggs.

The burrows are rather unique, obviously the species has had a long history of predation issues. They have about 50 burrows each over their territory. They have whiskers like a cat to help them underground.

In some species in the reserves where reasonable survival rates are expected, the chicks stay with the parents (both parents stay together all year) long enough to actually help guard the next generation of chicks. In the southern species the female takes over keeping the eggs warm while the male feeds, but the poor little northern guys up here do it all on their own.

But the southern kiwi usually only lay one egg a year, where other species may have as many as four spread over different seasons. I don't know what the half grown chicks do while dad is sitting on the next egg! Knowing that Mrs Kiwi hangs around, maybe she cares for the chick while Mr Kiwi sits on the next egg. Or maybe that is weaning time ... "Bad luck kid your Mum laid again".

There was one really cute story of a pair on a reserve in the mid north island a few years ago, they laid two eggs in two burrows, and each sat on one, taking turns on each egg ... Mrs Kiwi cannot heat the eggs enough by herself but she can stop them from really chilling off apparently. They hatched them both at once. Heck of a job I would think, but it gives great credit to the IQ of that pair to work out how to do that. Their genes just got an evolutionary boost. Bear in mind they were a northern species that normally do not share nest duties! Think of all the details they had to consciously think through to pull that off.

They have extremely poor eyesight, having altered to be nocturnal quite recently they have tiny eyes, black and white vision with very little light gathering. They locate bugs deep underground by smell and hearing.

The reason for their being nocturnal is that in their world (a long time ago) all the big predatory birds are hunting during the day, you have an extinct Haast eagle with a 3 metre wingspan for instance, that used to be a problem to Maori because it would carry of human toddlers, definitely not good for kiwi at all.

Ironic really, little kiwi bird becomes nocturnal to avoid daytime predators. Daytime predators die out, humans import nocturnal predators. Now what??

Who knows what the Moa did for them. Now that would be scary!

They bath in water, but they don't normally drink any.

Maybe I will take some time stalking them next time I'm trapping up SH1 area. Actually I have just the thing to get pics of them, namely a small infra-red illuminated motion activated camera. (I used it in the chookrun to ID the egg thief). You could guarantee a hit off the main run, but the really interesting bit would be to watch a nest burrow. They would be well back in the bush I would expect, Kiwi range for a long way and I've never seen burrows in that area.

DOC cheat and use gps trackers to find those of course ... They set up traps with audio Kiwi calls ... I saw a video once of a Kiwi attacking and destroying a unit in an attempt to defend their territory from the intruder! So I guess they are just as territorial as Emu.

I must now go and turn my emu eggs ... day 48 for my two live early eggs, and the wiggles are so enthusiastic they almost jump.

Met a tame Emu hen when we went to get the second eggs, she is 25, lives on their lawn, and follows gullible visitors around, periodically lying down in front of them (like, on your feet) to demand scratches and cuddles.

 

[briefvisit]

'I know this because I went through a study of transporting Emu eggs used as stand-ins for Kiwi eggs . . . ' So . . . assuming that somewhere sometime a kiwi inadvertently hatched an emu, there's some kiwi somewhere lying on a psychiatrist's couch explaining how the baby just got biggie biggie big.