questions about brooding emus

[Dingo]

It's been hot here the past few days with our highs reaching the 90's. Quoba and Adina have been feeling the heat and sit in their brooder panting, we have a fan on them and the light is high enough so it's basically just supplying light. Last night was the first night they slept with a fan on them and as far from their red light as they could get (temp reading at that spot was 80 degrees). Would you turn off the light all together? they're almost 2 weeks old do they need it with these temps? Can their bodies manage regulating their temps at 2 weeks?
I also took them outside today so they could run and get some natural light and they were both panting within 5 minutes of being outside. I am sure it was partly due to them running like crazy drunken chickens but I dont want them overheating.

 

[Supreme Emu]

Dingo, I don't know. However . . .

emus chicks in Oz are growing up through Spring. The coldest areas of their range are still bloody cold in Spring (the Alps over East). The hottest areas of their range (say, north-west W.A.) are already eighty plus by mid-Spring.

One ten is a piece of cake here in Summer, Dingo; and we hit one twenty in the shade on a couple of days last year. This made my emus sit up and pay attention. I've seen them panting heavily . . . but still cruising about in full sunlight.

Now, BYC readers, I'm choosing my words carefully here. The following IS correct: the temperatures in areas that emus inhabit hit one forty. (I've run home from shift-work in the mines up north when it was over one ten.)

Does this help?

Supreme Emu, Rocky Gully, W.A., Australia

 

[chickenzoo]

I always raised my in the house with AC, so I had them in a big rubbermaid bin with a low heat lamp on one side and enough space so they could get away from it or use it and I picked mine up at 2 weeks old....... I would try to give an area where at night if they need it they can get to it but get away from it if they don't. If the seem to not use it at all then turn it off and see if they start huddling...........

 

[Dingo]

Okay, guess I'll be playing with their lamp, was so much easier when they were still in the eggs

 

[Supreme Emu]

I've wondered about this: do they huddle? My emus display lots of obvious siblings-are-happier-together behaviour, but I've never seen them asleep, 'cause they head off into the bush at dusk.

(Fences confuse them terribly. On a couple of occasions, two of the chicks were down at the fig tree, and the other wandered all the way around into the backyard -- which put the back-yard fence between the one inside and the two outside. Watching was heart-breaking: the one inside rapidly began to panic, desperate to move in a straight line toward its siblings. The trick, I found, is to lure them (with food -- is there another lure?) until they are in line of sight. Then the one inside will bolt to the others.)

Supreme Emu

 

[Dingo]

yes they do see happier when together, or at least with a human. They also sleep huddled together even when they're panting heavily, if one gets up to move the other will also and usually they lay down together again.

 

[Animallover606]

Dingo they are to cute at first I thought they were stuffed animals. Snuggle Buddies!