Our newest adventure, EMU's!

[KsKingBee]

We are no strangers to raising fowl; we have chickens, ducks, damn guineas, pheasants, and about 500 peafowl. We came across a coming three year pair of Standards and couldn't resist buying them. I hate and joke about newbys buying birds unprepared but here we are.

We live on 160 acres and have Valais sheep, our new emu are accustomed to sheep and goats, chickens and dogs so they have no fear of the other animals and share a paddock and barn with the sheep. The emu are very friendly and eat from hand and don't mind being petted. (I so wish there was a stickies index for emu...)

I'd like to get some advice on how emu interact with each other. Limu wants to be with Mumu but she takes one look at him and he will crawl over the four foot field wire to get away from her then paces the pen to get back in only to go through this time after time. Monday evening he went on a walkabout and came home Wed morning, tired and hungry. Put him in the pen and out he comes, so they now have separate paddocks.

I understand we are coming into the breeding season so I am wondering how to proceed? Should I just let him climb the fence when she decides she wants to breed? Limu is the one with the blue head.

 

[briefvisit]

'stickies index'?

 

[KsKingBee]

'stickies index'?

Yeah, like in the Peafowl forum, at the top of the page there are a list of informative topics, threads pertaining to genetics, health and medications, housing, etc.

 

[briefvisit]

'I'd like to get some advice on how emu interact with each other.'

Well, I am wild-emu-observer guy. So ask away

Supreme Emu, Lake Muir, Western Australia

 

[briefvisit]

Well, here’s a start: in the wild, male and female emus form breeding-pairs plus-minus late summer. Then they seem to have a sort of ‘honeymoon,’ during which they travel about together.

[This is absurdly simplistic.]



Then, around plus-minus mid-autumn, they will find a nice patch of bush/pasture, and begin trying to establish dominance. If the pair is powerful enough, they will establish a fairly sound ‘command’ of their territory by early winter.



The next stage, towards mid-winter, is that you may observe matings. The female can lay fertile eggs for a week or more after a mating. Then one day (if you are observing here in the wild) the male will disappear – he has a nest full of eggs somewhere in the bush, and he is incubating.



Note about Space: the following we’ve discussed many times:



the dynamics of emu life -- access to water, access to pastures, access to extra yummy food sources, gaining command of a territory to breed on – involves plenty of emus to choose from, and running away if the bird you’ve encountered is more powerful.

Pet/captive emu owners sort of don’t see this aspect. They think in terms of one or two or three or four emus, and put them in a paddock, and voila, baby emus! But I am fairly sure that it is not automatic that a male and a female kept together will mate – I look forward to your observations.

 

[briefvisit]

file:///C:/Users/Mark/Desktop/20250903_085220.mp4

 

[briefvisit]

This is 'Limpy Chick.' He and his partner, 'Offsider,' bred here last winter, and turned up in mid-winter with ten chicks. (Seven surviving nine weeks later.)

We can observe Limpy Chick because he himself was a chick whose Dad brought him here when he was little. The chicks will eat sultanas from your hand.

 

[KsKingBee]

'I'd like to get some advice on how emu interact with each other.'

Well, I am wild-emu-observer guy. So ask away

Supreme Emu, Lake Muir, Western Australia

The pair I have are coming into their first breeding season and have been raised together. When we went to pick them up Saturday, the gal who had them said that the hen, Mumu, was being 'hormonal' and ran the male off into the overgrown woods. He came back that evening and we transported them at night to our home and let them out in the new paddock with a few lambs. The next day, the male, Limu, kept jumping out the the paddock and would pace the fence wanting back in but every time we put him back in he would freak out and hop out. I gave up and went to mow the lawn as Limu wandered about checking out the other bird pens. That Monday evening we could not find him and didn't see him at all the next day. I figured he was on a walkabout and the coyotes got him but on Wednesday morning he was back pacing the fence Mumu was in. We let him in, and again he would jump out. It was like he wanted to be with her but he was frightened of her. We ended up putting her in a different paddock and him in the original and they have both been quietly enjoying their space except for one evening Limu paced her paddock fence. For the most part they eat together with adjoining feed pans and I see no animosity.

I feel like he is quite bonded to her but she may not feel the same or am I missing something that has to do with the onset of the breeding season?

 

[KsKingBee]

Well, here’s a start: in the wild, male and female emus form breeding-pairs plus-minus late summer. Then they seem to have a sort of ‘honeymoon,’ during which they travel about together.

[This is absurdly simplistic.]



Then, around plus-minus mid-autumn, they will find a nice patch of bush/pasture, and begin trying to establish dominance. If the pair is powerful enough, they will establish a fairly sound ‘command’ of their territory by early winter.



The next stage, towards mid-winter, is that you may observe matings. The female can lay fertile eggs for a week or more after a mating. Then one day (if you are observing here in the wild) the male will disappear – he has a nest full of eggs somewhere in the bush, and he is incubating.



Note about Space: the following we’ve discussed many times:



the dynamics of emu life -- access to water, access to pastures, access to extra yummy food sources, gaining command of a territory to breed on – involves plenty of emus to choose from, and running away if the bird you’ve encountered is more powerful.

Pet/captive emu owners sort of don’t see this aspect. They think in terms of one or two or three or four emus, and put them in a paddock, and voila, baby emus! But I am fairly sure that it is not automatic that a male and a female kept together will mate – I look forward to your observations.

Mid-winter here is well below freezing every night, sometimes in the negative *F. How does the male keep the eggs from getting ruined in the cold?

I am not really interested in producing a lot of chicks, maybe enough to offset the feed bill. What I am interested in is watching and interacting with these fascinating birds.

And of feed: I read you only supplement a little wheat as you are totally wild and free range but is there a recommended protein level we should shoot for? So far I have been feeding about a half gallon of equal parts pheasant pellets, scratch grains, and dog food. Today I learned they much prefer the lamb feed.

 

[briefvisit]

Got coffee. Will try to break down This Big Subject into bite-sized chunks -- certainly I am enthusiastic to help and understand. So:

'How does the male keep the eggs from getting ruined in the cold?'

To begin, the range of temperatures across the habitat of emus varies enormously, but your question is valid, and we've discussed it in the past.

My best (brief) swing at this is that there is a period of some days between the egg being laid, and it becoming non-viable. There's some miracle here whereby the female lays eggs over some number of days, and the male stashes them.

Now comes the annoying part about interacting with me/Planet Rothschildi: we have a lot of data on some things; a little on other things; none on some things; wild guesses about everything; and regular changes of our conclusions.

SE