Ostrich Egg Gathering Technique... Commando Style! OUCH!

[29PalmsRanch]

So yesterday was one of those Saturdays EVERY backyard and commercial farmer/rancher hates... Intermittent thunderstorms... all day... YUCK. Nothing gets done outside. It turns into an inside job day all day long and I hate those days. One of the reasons I really hate those days is because we have to outsmart very big birds during the day instead of at dawn or sunset.

Let me explain. We usually check our ostrich nests at dawn and sunset. Sometimes the odd egg will appear with sun rise. The birds are pretty docile at this time of the day. It's pretty common to see them walking the fence, getting drinks, calcium, yawning whatever As the sun begins to set they all settle down in their own parts of the pasture. It's another great time to get eggs. Very safe. No worries.

But when it rains? We check after every break in weather. And sure enough they were putting them on the ground in between bursts of nasty weather all day yesterday. See the bird in my profile pic? That's Molenex. He's a HUGE blue/black cross. He's about 6 years old, completely grown out, and he's BRIGHT pink in the beak and on his shins. The bird is in season and while he's cool where he's fed and watered and elsewhere in the pasture... he's VERY territorial regarding "his" two hens and their nest.

He's never tried to kick me, but I've never pushed him hard either. He's rushed my farmhand, but never thrown a foot at him either. I'm sure if you pushed him past that rushing point, you'd live to regret it. Anyway, my wife walked one of the Mastiff's down the drive that borders the fence where his nest is. She comes back and says Hey there are two eggs in Molenex's nest. It was about to rain again so...

I put on running shoes and thought Molenex was distracted. I started sprinting and went 50 yards, went over a 7 foot fence, and landed right in front of the bird. I looked up at him and said in a VERY loud voice, YOU BEST BACK UP BIG BOY OR I'M GOING TO DOT THAT EYE I CAN'T EVEN REACH! And to my surprise, he did. Hah! So I scooped up the two eggs and high tailed it back over the fence all proud of myself. Molenex even came over and gave my thumb a peck

So I got the eggs marked, in the incubator and sat down to do some book work. Then 2 hours later I tried to get up. Guess who got the last laugh? Molenex

My back is COMPLETELY fried. I guess I tore something up in that brief egg commando moment. I'll be ok in a couple of days no doubt. My wife says I need to start running again. Yummy... Another day on the ostrich ranch

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hey, 29PR!

Enjoyed the story.

Hmmm . . . your ratites ‘settle down in their own parts of the pasture.’ That’s interesting. The ‘night-time female-booming network’ of winter (breeding-season) is cranking up again here; and your birds follow that pattern, that is, of breeding-pairs of ratites being spaced out.

Could we have some photos of the biggest bird?

Supreme Emu
Western Australia

 

[29PalmsRanch]

Hey How's it going down under? Our birds have split into mostly trios. The males run everything else off, even hens, that aren't a part of their 'group' of 2 - 3. I said mostly because we have a younger male who is 3 years old who has paired off with one hen. Everyone else grabbed two

They have ranged out across an 11 acre pasture and have made nests in their own 'territories'. We used an old configuration of old breeder pens that were here when we bought the ranch. But they were made out of t posts and normal field fence. We had two problems with that. The first was the ostriches when spooked would just walk into it and then walk up and over it. It was only 4 feet with a top wire of barbless double strand wire and that's never going to work with birds this big. The second is that the maintenance of those fences was constant. And I'm not into that at all. It you look at my profile picture, I'm standing in front of the main pasture with new post and rail in front of me. We tore all of the breeder fencing down this past winter and just opened the entire pasture up. Then we let the birds all in there together to work out their pecking order before the breeding season this year. After this season's breeding is over, we'll reconstruct those breeder runs out of post and rail which has proven to be the most expensive configuration but the least maintenance. We set the 12 foot posts in 3 feet of concrete. And then screw 2 x 6 x 16 treated rails together, in a staggered pattern. I haven't had to replace a board or up right a downed fence on those new fence lines since they went up. A strand of barbless 2 strand wire is ran along the tops of the posts so the birds can't get their heads over the fence.

If you click on my profile picture, that big monster is my second tallest bird. I'd go out and take a picture now, but it's 2am and pitch black out there He's easily over 7 feet tall without extending his neck and blowing himself up. And that's the one I 'raced' for the egg day before yesterday. I have another rooster who isn't quite as bulky as him yet but he's a good 6 - 8 inches taller. The rest of my boys are big, but not quite as big as those two.

Your females boom??? Mine cluck. My roosters boom like crazy though Love to watch that. Man the first time I heard that was in the middle of the night when we first bought our flock. I thought I was going out of my mind or a neighbor was playing a joke on me )) So the first rooster I saw booming I named Count. Because he sounded like the Count from Sesame Street from when I was a kid )))

How long have you been into Emus?

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, 29!

Five years ago this month, I rented an isolated farmhouse that came complete with wild emus eating the fruit from the trees in the old orchard.

Lots of data is so very hard to get. Nowhere have I yet seen anything about what we observed last winter: female emus exchange calls with the females that ‘hold’ adjacent territories, obviously warning them. That is, there is a patchwork of recognised territories (at that time of year).

So, the fact that a bunch of ostriches in a big field all stake out (necessarily small) territories is a piece of the puzzle. Thanks.

Supreme Emu

 

[29PalmsRanch]

HI Supreme

That is awesome! I've never had an emu but it's neat that your females are holding territories. For whatever reason, my males play the dominant role. There are some flair ups between females but that is rare and it's usually just a lot of posturing and hissing until one of them runs away. I lost a hen to a shattered leg yesterday. It was one of my most active layers. I'm pretty bummed out about it. And it's the strangest injury. One hole in the front of her upper leg, in the drumstick if you will. We found a piece of bone that apparently came flying out of the leg. I removed the upper leg and put it into a cooler packed with ice so that I can dissect it down layer by layer later this morning. I cut into it yesterday and found a good 8 inches of the upper part of her leg was just shattered into three main pieces and a lot of bone fragments. My wife said she had seen the hen's male mating her in that area. However I have never seen any injury like that due to mating. Scratches, missing feathers, etc? Sure. But a huge broken bone like that? It is a new one on me. There is no other wound on the bird. None. My initial thought was she was shot. But I couldn't find any evidence of a bullet in her leg or an exit wound. If it was low caliber, an exit wound might not be there anyway. So I'm going to cut it down section by section to see what else I can learn about the injury other than the fact that it was catastrophic and a complete mystery.

Have you ever seen a broken leg on one of your birds due to mating? It just doesn't sound plausible to me.

Thanks,
Michael

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Sorry to hear of your loss.

My experience of observing matings is very limited – two matings in five years. It’s a fact of having no fences.

It’s the different experiences – captive, non-captive, etc. – that makes this site a joy for me: gathering pieces of the puzzle.
I have ‘retired’ from observing, but anyone really determined to study ratites might well start cross-referencing information on all the species (and I wanna figure out why the male emu is the one that incubates the whole time).

Supreme Emu

 

[29PalmsRanch]

Thanks Life goes on. I miss that hen. She was tops.

Matings? I'll take video for you. We see it on a daily basis. I keep my flock in a wide open 11 acre pasture and then we have a compartment that is an acre. We use the smaller one to isolate birds if there is an aggression issue (VERY rare), if one is sick (VERY VERY rare), and they use it themselves to when they want to get away from the rest of the flock (more common).

We had two hens who laid a total of 4 eggs in the past 48 hours. They put all 4 into their nest. And in the beginning of the day yesterday both hens were in the nest. Then they got up, my wife came and got me and we were going to run out and get their eggs. BUT the male they are 'with' decided that wasn't a great idea. I walked out to the fence line where their nest is So he goes down into the nest and starts rotating the eggs. Then what's he do? He sits on them. I was like COME ON Molenex! Are you serious?! Ok whatever.

My wife said he sat there most of the day. We sometimes do an evening supplemental feeding. And yesterday evening... they got one. He got off the nest and wandered down to the feeding area to get his, while my wife stole the eggs.

I can tell you that my male breeders will run ANYTHING away from their nests that they are not mating with. I don't let my birds brood, but I have seen males sit on eggs. They usually don't do it for just one or two. The behavior we usually see relates to one or two eggs in which the hens will hover around the nest, fixing this piece of dirt or that one and rolling the eggs around. If there are more than 2 or 3 eggs in the nest then inevitably the male will start taking over the care, rolling, and brooding of the nest during the day anyway.

Didn't you mention earlier that your females boomed? Is there anyway to get video of that? I have never seen a hen boom, but boy do my males go at it Holy smokes they are loud. Their necks when filled with air remind me of a bag pipe bag lololol!