Look at what we woke up to today... EMU CHICKS!!

[ChanceRider]

My male emu, Enoch, began sitting on his nest on 12/29 and right on schedule his eggs are beginning to hatch out! DH and I went into the breeder pen to separate the female, BoomBoom, from the male and his chicks as she will stomp the chicks to death. I pulled these 2 chicks from him and put them into our brooder. We think he has at least 6 more to hatch out. The week of 3/9 I have 30 Cornish chicks being shipped, so I'll need to come up with another brooder. Hehehe, good thing my husband is SO understanding!

Introducing our as-yet-unnamed day old chicks...

 

[princess araucana]

Wow! so cute!!!! how big are they? I want one! (only if they did not grow up so big, I live in small neighborhood!)

 

[Master S.M.C]

Why would mom stomp them to death.

 

[ChanceRider]

With emus, the males sit on the eggs and hatch them out, so the female has no real connection to the eggs/chicks. Any time something "foreign" gets into their pen they give chase and try to stomp the "threat". They have chased one of my cats (didn't catch it) and have killed skunks that make the mistake of getting into the pen.

The chick's bodies are about the size of a large fist. As they grow they'll lose their protective striping. Enoch is extremely tame and loves getting hugs and pets. Even sitting on his eggs and chicks he was gentle with me when I removed the chicks.

Here's a pic of Enoch a few years ago on his nest...

and here's a pic of him, also a few years ago, along with his chicks...

 

[pnp4kidz]

How cool is that!
do you let him keep a chick or two as a reward for good setting?

 

[NancyDz]

Interesting... my brother ( who also lives in Somerset) had a breeding pair who had chicks every year and he never separated them... I guess he got lucky!


Very cute chicks! Congrats!

I love that rumbling noise Emu's make that sounds like drumming.. Used to love watching my brothers.. man when they run around it looks so
funny... we would stand by the fence laughing until we were crying when he first got them.

Nancy

 

[ChanceRider]

Quote:
If your brother has been in Somerset for a while, he might know of the large (a few hundred birds) emu ranch that used to be down the road from us, right off County Rd E-16 (aka Mt Aukum Rd). When those birds got to drumming it was the neatest sound. It's the females that make the drumming sound... LOL, which is how my female, BoomBoom, got her name.

Maybe BoomBoom's behavior is not the norm, or your brother was lucky and has a "nicer" female.

pnp... I took the chicks away so I could hand raise them which results in much easier to handle adult birds later on, so I probably won't let him raise any.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Okay, I am seriously afraid of Emu's but those chicks are adorable.

I don't even know WHY I'm afraid of them, they just creep me out. Maybe it's their human like big brown eyes or the way they seem to see everything....
I'm afraid I will get my eyes pecked out.

Do you only have them pets or do they serve some other purpose?

 

[artemis_415]

HI, DO YOU KNOW IF THE BABY EMUS CAN BE RAISED WITH FULL SIZE CHICKENS FOR AWHILE

 

[Blackbird]

AWW! Do you ship emus to places like say, Minnesota?