Emu predators and shelter flooring

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/cFFiIk5

Just for fun. These are black heads, about . . . six months?

Now, if you scooped one of these chicks up, you'd find two spring-steel drumsticks, and not a lot more.

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/L7KCVjw

These chicks are about 8 months. It's Toosh Toosh's first clutch.

SE

 

[briefvisit]

https://imgur.com/n0jl0B5

This chick is ten or eleven months old. The photo was taken after about 60 mms of winter rain. Now, I rarely ever get to handle 'my' emus -- because they aren't mine; they're tame-wild -- but I do know that even as soaked as this chick is, its feathers are still much bigger than it is.

Look carefully at its neck and the top of its back. You can see on its neck the stuck-together clumps of feathers. And you can see sorta 'deeper' the outline of its neck under all the feathers. There's not much there!

Likewise its back at the base of its neck -- top side. These feathers really are matted down. That is almost the outline of the chick's body underneath.

You can see by comparing the top and the bottom that this almost-one-year-old emu is a lightweight critter.


My point? If you have good reason to think your birds are ill or really underweight, then off to the vet they go!

But if they don't seem ill, then feed them; watch them eat; watch their general behaviour; post here; and see what happens.

SE