Hey, 29Palms,
I like the idea that pet-emu owners and I can swap info about the environment of the pet birds.
It took me a good while to appreciate how many of the grass species in the diet of the wild birds here (including my ‘tame-wild’ birds) are introduced species. Aspects of this have rated a mention on Planet Rothschildi a few times.
It is, however, fairly hard to get really close observations of what the birds choose to eat here in ‘the wild.’ If the birds are really wild, you can’t get close. If it’s Felicity or Greedy, every time you get close, they stop grazing, and come to see if you have anything Yummy for emus.
However . . . there were two chicks ‘resident’ here, with their dad, for several months during spring and summer, and I was able to observe them grazing at length, from ten to fifteen feet (including with binoculars, if that helped).
It was an education for me: the two chicks (as big as a house through the binos) ingested an almost startling amount and array of plant foods: grasses, seed pods, flowers, berries – you should see them go!!!! ‘Snatch, gobble; snatch, gobble, snatch, gobble.’
One movement, the ‘strip-while-snatching’ move, was used on grasses that had ‘heads’ reminiscent of wheat. I’ve seen adult birds do it, too (through the binos).
Since that block of observations, I’ve been enthusiastically recommending the hanging of bunches of greens in chicks’ pens, not only for the roughage, but ‘cause I suspect that that the muscular action of stripping the greens is important exercise for the young uns.
So, yeh, let’s experiment!!
Here are two photos of the chicks in question, Alpha and Omega, the 2012 clutch of bad old Eric the Emu (pictured). You can see how they thrived.
Supreme Emu
Western Australia
I like the idea that pet-emu owners and I can swap info about the environment of the pet birds.
It took me a good while to appreciate how many of the grass species in the diet of the wild birds here (including my ‘tame-wild’ birds) are introduced species. Aspects of this have rated a mention on Planet Rothschildi a few times.
It is, however, fairly hard to get really close observations of what the birds choose to eat here in ‘the wild.’ If the birds are really wild, you can’t get close. If it’s Felicity or Greedy, every time you get close, they stop grazing, and come to see if you have anything Yummy for emus.
However . . . there were two chicks ‘resident’ here, with their dad, for several months during spring and summer, and I was able to observe them grazing at length, from ten to fifteen feet (including with binoculars, if that helped).
It was an education for me: the two chicks (as big as a house through the binos) ingested an almost startling amount and array of plant foods: grasses, seed pods, flowers, berries – you should see them go!!!! ‘Snatch, gobble; snatch, gobble, snatch, gobble.’
One movement, the ‘strip-while-snatching’ move, was used on grasses that had ‘heads’ reminiscent of wheat. I’ve seen adult birds do it, too (through the binos).
Since that block of observations, I’ve been enthusiastically recommending the hanging of bunches of greens in chicks’ pens, not only for the roughage, but ‘cause I suspect that that the muscular action of stripping the greens is important exercise for the young uns.
So, yeh, let’s experiment!!
Here are two photos of the chicks in question, Alpha and Omega, the 2012 clutch of bad old Eric the Emu (pictured). You can see how they thrived.
Supreme Emu
Western Australia
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I think it's awesome that you have wild emus on your property by the way 
