EMU sounds

[PinkChickLover]

I have 2 emus that was supposed to be males and one of tem has started making a strange sound the other is not making any sounds. The one who is making the sound is going to 1 on easter day and the other is 2-3 weeks older. Does this mean that the one that makes a sound is a female.

 

[Yoda]

I honestly do not know how to tell the difference in young ones. I send the egg shells out for DNA testing. If you can get a little bit of blood you can go to the link below and print an order form and even call them to ask how to get a sample of each bird. I know you can put the blood sample right onto the order form and when dry just mail it out and you will know the sexes in a day or two.

www.zoogendna.com

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Yeh, Pinkchicklover, what Yoda says makes sense to me. The three options are:

1. You pay pennies, and have a chick DNA-tested.
2. (b) you rely on the patterns on the chicks’ heads – apparently not highly accurate
3. You wait until the bird is mature enough to vocalise:

a wild emu is adult at about two – that would be the second breeding-season after it hatched. Until that age, Pcl, chicks/yearlings cheep and fart and burp and make a bunch of other sexually-non-specific sounds. However, there will come a day when:

a bird will raise its ruff; pull its neck back into a ‘swan-neck pose’; sort of ‘hunker down’ a bit; and produce an absolutely unmistakable series of deep ‘booms’ – that’s a female.

Otherwise, you’re shouting into the wind. Emus produce a surprising range of vocalisations overall, and until the female distinguishes itself (she’s using a ‘vocal sac’ that only she has, I understand – standard girl equipment), you can go nuts trying to work out if ‘grunt’ or ‘guurk’ or ‘@&^%$’ is a female or a male noise.

Later, when you have experience observing known pairs, you’ll get fairly good at picking the male grunts, which, however, are often produced in response to booms.

I had a female chick. We named it ‘Felicity.’ It ‘turned out’ to be male. We spent time explaining to visitors that we had a tame male emu named ‘Felicity.’ Felicity produced a string of booms one day – wrong! female!

Final Note: apparently, captive birds can breed at a much younger age, so you might hear the booms at a younger age. You’re in Alabama, so your bird is captive. (I’m in Western Australia. I have no experience of captive birds, more’s the pity.

[Come and visit Planet Rothschildi! There is a wild female vocalising about two hundred feet from my keyboard right now!])

Supreme Emu

 

[Raptor65]

Gerry is a year old and I've still yet to hear him make a sound other than the little "good morning" squeal he does while stretching when I go out to feed him and the horses, sounds a bit like a toy locomotive. If you want to wait for them to vocalize you may be waiting awhile.

 

[yinepu]

Dorian started grunting in January.. he hatched out on February 29th of last year.. he's also the alpha male

Paco hatched out of February 26th of last year and hasn't made any grunting noises at all.. so I have to wonder if Dorian (being the alpha male) will be the only one of the boys to grunt.

 

[Ellamumu]

My Ella will be a year old on April 6 and he/she just peeps and whistles which I love, will that sound entirely disappear ?

 

[ES Emus]

Quote:
Sorry Chrissy, but when Ella reaches maturity, he/she will stop with the peeps and whistles and start with drummng, booming, or grunting noises, especially during mating or nesting seasons. You will never forget it when you start hearing strange "unbirdlike" noises coming from the direction of your emu. When our first emu began making a booming noise, we thought it was a passing car's stereo's bass turned up way too loud! Bill

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
Dorian sounds like a contented pig when he grunts... I had to do a double take the first time I heard it cause he sounded exactly like the pot belly pig I had years ago!

 

[ES Emus]

Quote:
yep, to most emu owners, the start of the "mature" emu sounds marks a milestone in the rearing of their bird(s)...

 

[Ellamumu]

Thanks for the info, this is my first emu and has quickly become farm favorite! I had no idea how funny and lovable they were or else I would have got one 20 years ago!