Curled/bent/distorted toe on 3 year old emu

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This is a photo of the famous double-alpha female 'Greedy.' She has her feathers puffed. But not her vocal sac.

 

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https://imgur.com/NQxFCXF

 

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[Hmmm . . . my videos have all gone wonky.]

Okay, you are looking for one of two classical stances. The second is the head-down-swan-neck inter-territorial-booming stance, which I don't seem to have a shot of at this second (though there are several on Planet Rothschildi threads)
The second is this one, the upright stance. You can see LimpyChick has her chest feathers puffed, and we may assume that her vocal sac is . . . in there somewhere

 

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Now, if you are fortunate enough to be able to pat the chest of an all-puffed-up female, there's no mistaking the sac. As you run your hand down, you'll go, 'OMG! There's a big soft sac under there!!'
And: as we are ornithologists, and desirous of understanding, here's a thing:

firstly, you must understand that so much emoo stuff has degrees. For example, a tiny bit of sideways boogie, or a lot. A tiny bit of feathers raised, or a lot.

And one thing is: if a female should chance to be in Absolute All-Out Bigged-Up Mode, with sideways boogie and maxi-feather-puff and vocalising, you will see that the whole ensemble of feathers and sac swings. If you could get two females to do this in perfect side by side unison, you'd think, 'I gotta buy that woman a bra for Christmas!'

[And a rare delight is to see a breeding-pair, in defence of their territory -- usually the female only does the fighting -- snap into a synchronised Sideways Bigged-Up Display]

 

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' I'm glad to read about the varying ages they might choose to mate etc ... hearing 2-3 years originally, we were worried by now, at 3.5 years old'

I have been waiting to write about this. As you mentioned, there are reports of captive (farmed) emus mating before two years of age. But this makes just no sense from what I've seen. Here is My Krazee Theory:

https://imgur.com/6UeFlSv

 

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These chicks are . . . 19 months? It's a favourite photo of mine. The point is that you need to look really close to see that they are chicks. Or are they? They sit in a clump. So cute -- chicks! And if you were very close, you'd see the veeeeeery last fluffy pin feathers of the black head stage.

But my point here is that emu life is regulated by the seasons.

See the tiny bit of green behind them? That's the 'fresh pick' of autumn. They're headed for their second winter. Then, on thte first day of spring, 'emu birthday', they begin their third year.

So in this photo, they may be 99% physically mature, but they are still sitting in a cosy clump, like chicks.

And around them is the hustle and bustle of mature -- indeed serious battle-hardened females like Greedy -- engaged in what the owners of captive emus really don't dig, the months-long yearly Darwinian conflict for mates and territory.

 

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These young adults would be nuts to wade straight into this. They just lack the experience.

So they don't!!

 

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They stay neutral that autumn and winter. Then in spring they're really adults -- but the mating hasn't started yet. It doesn't start until mid-summer of the third year. So a 'first mating-season bird' is about 29 months old before he/she throws his/her hat into the ring. Or maybe not!


Our observations -- not quite enough data -- are that a bird may not successfully mate until its fourth year. That's two years as chicks. One whole year getting to know the social ropes. And success in its fourth year.

I've repeatedly noticed males following females around like lost puppies. And I observed Felicity all through her third and fourth years, utterly unable to gain a toe-hold of territory from her double-alpha sister.

So my explanation for My Krazee Theory is a feeling -- gained from the observations -- that:

physical and 'social' maturity are two quite different things.

And I t h i n k that this accounts for the early mating among captive birds:

somehow the natural process of fighting for and gaining control of territory, which can take months in the wild, is somehow 'short-circuited' by proximity and plentiful food . . .

???

SE

 

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NEXT:

'Funnily enough that has continued to be the case 'behavior wise', but the pairings are all over the place (our longest lasting 'pair' last 'not-breeding-after-all' season would be two females, and conversely the boys appear to want to set each other's eggs!)'

All this stuff is so interesting to me because it is the opposite of my experience. Of course, it's fanciful, but what we might do is:

wave a magic wand, and release you entire gaggle of emus right in front of my garden. Let's say also -- pivotally important -- that we could know of their travels.

Then we'd get a longneck of stout, and sit and watch for a couple of months:

 

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Your birds clearly have some sense of emooo conflict. O k a y . . .

But it's only about a smidgeon of space. I think they'd be at a loss for a season as they tried to figure out the relationship between conflict and territory and mating.

We strongly suspect that newly-formed breeding-pairs cover very large distances -- and why they do that is a topic for another day. The point is that by about early autumn, they decide that THIS is where they want to make a stand. So your birds would have to evolve from squabbles over a patch of ground or a handful of food to systematically undertaking, over several months, to defeat any and all comers.

I kid you not, e-Barnes, the conflicts rage week in week out as the aspiring pair (mostly the female . . . ) tries to gain ascendancy.