FEMALE Emu setting on nest indefinately?

[Albanydog]

Breeding season is over here in Oregon, or it should be. Evie, Moms female emu, laid her last egg for this year on May 1st and Mom took it and put it in the incubator. Several days ago Mom noticed that Evie was not coming up to eat or hanging out with Eli or the Llamas, like she usually does, so she went looking for her. She found Evie sitting on her abandoned nest down in the lower field. To our knowledge she has not been off the nest since! Our male, Eli, injured his leg (a torn tendon) years ago and has struggled to breed her at all and we suspect he knows that he has been unsuccessful at fertilizing the eggs, so he won't sit on the nests at all. That first year we noticed, what seemed like, Evie taking him down to the nest to show him where it was and lecture him about getting to work and start setting, but he didn't. We have tried to hatch a few eggs every year, without success. We have cracked a few open eggs when they were fresh and after incubation and none have appeared to be fertile. Everyone says breeding season is over but we did see signs two weeks ago that they may had tried to breed overnight, lots of feathers on the ground, but then again they may have just been molting heavily or maybe one of them had a run in with some sort of predator, we really have no clue. We are just wondering if anyone has ever heard of a female emu switching roles and trying to hatch the eggs themselves, or if they have another theory for us as to why Evie would be sitting on her eggs?
Perhaps she just thinks she needs to lay an egg so she just keeps sitting their waiting for it to pass? Given Eli has good and bad days with his torn tendon it is always possible that he successfully bred her at some point and she thinks it is now or never. Frankly, we are baffled!

Obviously if she continues to sit Mom will have to decide if we take her food and water, because she certainly did not build up enough fat to sit long enough to hatch eggs, or if we are just going to take the eggs away from her. Since it has only been a few days we are not freaking out yet but want to get ahead of any possibilities.

*We are on the Central Oregon Coast, Near Newport Oregon 97365, and have been unable to locate a veterinarian willing or able to preform any type of surgery to repair Eli's injured leg. A mobile vet came out and diagnosed the problem after it happened. Very upsetting to be unable to help your pet with anything other then pain medication. Currently Mom is trying several different CBD remedies, without success. We have tried several for Pets as well as those for humans and discovered not all CBD items are the same, some barely have any CBD, some have absolutely none according to some of the news reports. Anyway, so far, none help him at all, and Mom always tries them herself too, to make sure they are not too strong or do not have a bunch of THC snuck in them to get Eli high.

ADDITIONAL TO ANY INPUT ON EVIE'S EGG SITTING
****** 1) If anyone knows of a veterinarian willing, able and/or interested in helping Eli please contact me via PM, just in case I get sidetracked and miss your post on the forum.
*******2) If anyone can recommend a specific CBD product (Name, manufacturer etc) that actually works for pain, perhaps share a picture of the label so we know what we are looking for, we would be very grateful. Thank you

 

[briefvisit]

'lots of feathers on the ground'
The male pulls feathers from the back of the female's neck during the copulation.

'if she continues to sit Mom will have to decide if we take her food and water'
If she is in good condition, and not cold, my wild guess would be that she'll be fine for easily a fortnight.

'That first year we noticed, what seemed like, Evie taking him down to the nest to show him where it was'
When a breeding-pair is established, in the last fortnight or so before the first laying, Mr. and Mrs. Emu do indeed arrange dinky little trysts in the trees, during which they stand solemnly, looking at a tiny patch of ground, and shove a few sticks around (but they don't build any more of a nest than a scratch on the ground).

'We are just wondering if anyone has ever heard of a female emu switching roles'
Research the hatching-practices of the five ratites. From memory, ostriches share the hatching.

My Two Cents' Worth:
we've discussed this, sorta indirectly, for years: captive birds have it good in many ways -- they live way longer.

But every wild emu lives its life in the unending drama of the emu world, played out with many others, across vast spaces. It does not surprise me that just two birds, in just one space, for years, would behave abnormally.

Think this over: Dad educates the members of his clutch.
The young adults may take several years to get the hang of the long and complicated process of breeding -- Felicity didn't breed til her fifth year. It involves prolonged travel with foreign emus over new territory, and the choosing of the mate, and the establishment of the pair, and the campaign to establish territory, and the actual mating/laying/incubation. Young adults take several years to get the hang of this.
And all emus all their lives are witness to and involved in the kaleidoscopic events of emoo life. Mobs of twenty five or so sometimes cruise across country together. And on one notable afternoon here (the old days. I had my binos), I observed 64 pass through the house-clearing here in a single afternoon: talking, manoeuvring, fighting; Dads with chicks strutting along behind.

But captive birds get none of this.

 

[Albanydog]

Interesting. Evie is still sitting. Mom took down some food and water and Evie stood up and was able to count the eggs and she still had the same old eggs, no new ones. There is no way the eggs are viable, just wondering if anyone has ever seen this behavior. It will be interesting to see how log she stays with it. She did eat what mom took to her.

Mom was sure that people would think we had just mistaken our male for a female but we posted on Facebook about it also and you are the only person to even respond, so I guess everyone else is sort of dumbfounded as well.