Introducing Emu to varied flock

[Nicophorus]

I've had my two young half grown Emu in a pen adjacent to the barn for a few weeks now. The chickens/geese get let out every mourning and spend the day in the yard next to the Emu pen. Of course there is no problem with a fence between the two.

Lately i've been letting the Emu out at dusk so they can get use to the chicken yard during dusk/dawn before I let the chickens out of the day.

Today for the first time I let the Emu out into the acre the chickens/geese use during the day. Watching closely to see what happens.

The chickens seemed nervous and did not want the Emus getting close. When an Emu approached, the chicken would panic and run, which excited the Emu and made them run after the Chickens following closely behind and doing high steps/kicks toward the chickens. The geese were more calm and stood their ground and the Emu's responded calmly to them. But as the Emus got more curious the Geese gave ground, which then lead to a similar "get away from me!" run while the Emus started to chase.

That was enough for today so put the emus back in their seperate area to give everyone a break.

Now... what im worried about is the Emus do not seem like the sharpest tools in the shed. I can't "train" them like a dog or even my Donkey, and let them know I do not want them chaseing the other birds. All I can hope for is each day the Emus get less and less interested in chaseing/approaching the other birds and everyone just stays out of everyone elses way.

Is this realistic? Vetran Emu owners, how do I go about integrating these two half grown Emus into my flock of chickens/geese/guiena hens/peacocks? Are they already too old and will continue to chase and stress the other birds? Should I just continue leaving them out under supervision longer and longer each day and hope for the best, or what?

 

[perchie.girl]

Not an emu owner but am reading Emu posts alot because they are such funny creatures.

What about having safe places for the chickens to get into with a bit of an hover hang..... Like a stout picnic table or some saw horses with a heavy base set up just tall enough to make the Emus run around them. The chickens and geese would go under the Emus would be deflected .... out of sight out of mind kind of situation....

Just a couple of thoughts from a strictly observer here. I am used to single minded birds though.... I have guineas.

 

[Nicophorus]

They have things like that. Half of my large "shed" (more like a prefabricated storage room/garage) is up on stilts since its built on slope, so they have there to run under. Or they could (and did) run into the barn under variors wire cages I have up on sawhorses.

I'll update this post with ongoing results for the curious... I do hope Emus will "learn" to be ok with other animals and not hurt them.

 

[casuarius]

They'll get used to them in time. They're mostly trying to play. Emus naturally chase and kick most everything in site while growing up.