Planet Rothschildi

[Calla]

Can anyone tell me why some blessings have no stones in them ?

Most probably didn't get any plums lol.

My emus all have different tastes, now they are adults, or some, nearly.

Dori and Jasmin love bread, Rosie and Zeppi love just fresh greens, no bread...apart from their daily Mixed flakes mix and layers pellets.

The 2 young girls, love apples, strawberries, grapes and all greens, sliced carrots, no bread....non of the others do.

My mind boggles when feeding time...who likes what lol ..

Supreme Emu, not tired ?? you will get lots of different grasses following season, specially from seeds which have not digested, or do not, like perhaps wheat ?? Clover flowers is another one, they will get sown .....and you get lots of clovers, all my Emu love the leaves too.

Calla

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

It would be interesting to swap emus!!

I wonder how a pet emu would react when it got out of its crate here. I wonder how Greedy or Eric would react to a permanent source of food to hand (so to speak . . . ).

The first thing I'd be looking for is what the wild birds did in the leisure time available to them once they didn't have to graze graze graze graze.

And we'd carefully watch the new-free-ranging pet birds' reaction to having to work six hours a day to avoid outright hunger.

S.E.

 

[kbgh]

If the male was that assertive, perhaps that is why he had 6 or 7 chicks. He is a good protector.

 

[kbgh]

A lot of birds eat seeds that merely pass through. In some cases nature uses this method as 1. a method of dispersing seeds and 2. a method of preparing seeds to germinate. Some seeds just have little to no nutritive value or the outer coverings of the seeds are simply too hard to digest.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Hi, K.B.

Good protector? Yes, I had the same thought. I really really did enjoy my brief encounter with the bird. If he had been a pre-historic moa, I’d have been outright petrified.

I sense that the flightlessness of the ratites makes us think they are dumb or clumsy or inadequate, a curiosity. But their fighting skills are not at all lessened by their flightlessness. I’m not sure that many people have seen a serious stoush between these birds. Whoa!!! We know they can kick, but they also deliver mind-boggling pecks. Sometimes one bird pecks another bird’s beak. (I’ve only witnessed this two or three times.) You can hear the ‘click’ from fifty or eighty feet.



The grass thing: hmmm . . . it makes sense that seeds would make it through unground; but I do wonder that so much of a blessing would be, what is in effect, ‘straw’ that has had a free ride. Doesn’t seem efficient.


S.E.

 

[kbgh]

Think about this. It doesn't take much seed to get a patch of grass started and then it can spread. The emus travel great distances and therefore spread the seeds far and wide. Add to that the blessings also make a great fertilizer to give the seeds a boost, and you have mother nature's own compact reseeding package. Food for thought.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Oh, I agree with you, K.B. What puzzles me is what I see: blessing after blessing with big chunks of coarse undigested grass stalks in them – yet a blessing ten feet away might be composed of a finely-ground mush. The mush is great fertiliser, but I doubt that the undigested grass is.

Summer is returning; the sun is out. The sound of the bees in the big gum by the house is almost a roar.
The chicks are just becoming so tame so fast – that is, without the least assistance from me.

Supreme Emu

 

[kbgh]

Perhaps it is the difference of various speices of grassses. Or maybe the mush are actually from digested seed heads.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Felicity and Felix visit:

Felicity’s consort shall be ‘Felix.’ He really is a beamy bird, though it seems as though he’s wearing a suit of feathers one size too large for him – or his head and neck are a size too small. I’m unsure which.

Error: last visit I wondered why Felicity insists on vocalising if it only draws Eric’s attention; but she is talking to Felix.

Next: I realised that we have never discussed why breeding-pairs don’t generally fight in pairs!! Yes, they do sometimes co-operate. I’ve seen Greedy and Boy Emu do it. However, if we think carefully about this: wouldn’t it be evolutionarily advantageous for a pair to fight in concerted unison? Why don’t they always do it? Felicity and Felix together could thrash Eric off the fruit trees in a mere moment.

Supreme Emu has just spent an informative and sunny half hour sitting down in the gums behind the fig trees, watching the interactions between Eric Plus and Felicity and Felix.

The connection between Supreme Emu and any tame bird and that tame bird’s consort or chicks is one of the best ‘instruments’ we have available to us. The wild bird is beholden to the tame bird, and wouldn’t be observable if the tame bird didn’t signal that Supreme Emu is just a part of the furniture.

Now, if Supreme Emu disappears suddenly off the air, it will be because the Psychiatric Emergency Team just happened by, and found an old man clad in a sarong and red Goodwill-shop socks and binoculars charging about in the blue gums.

Going live now:

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

It’s all very leisurely and emu-like – but the ballet is going on around the fifth pile of wheat. The are five birds in the photo above.

Territoriality and food are two sides of the same coin. Eric Plus have just bypassed food! You can see them poking their collective noses into where F. and F. are, to keep them on the move. They’ve been to-ing and fro-ing for over an hour: Felicity is skirting the clearing. Felix is ‘in formation’ closely behind Felicity.

This is more than food. Felicity came into the clearing about fifteen minutes ago. She wanted to make her presence known. (If she eats another grain of wheat, she’ll burst.) Eric Plus, meanwhile, have the remnants of file handfuls of wheat to polish off; but they choose to . . . .

‘Kay, Felicity is in the clearing, vocalising, with ruff partly raised. She’s pushing Eric’s buttons!!



And now withdraw as . . .



Eric Plus mosey on stage (with Eric scratching his toosh). Where is Felicity? She’s in the direction that the chicks are heading!