The life of Daryl the emu

[N F C]

Happy birthday Daryl! Well, almost... Daryl was born at 4 am Friday January 27th. So at 4 am he'll be 2 weeks old!



Daryl and Riddick are becoming good friends.

Happy birthday Daryl! I hope Riddick and him get along well...it won't be long and Daryl will be taller than him, lol

 

[pattyhen]

Happy birthday Daryl! Well, almost... Daryl was born at 4 am Friday January 27th. So at 4 am he'll be 2 weeks old!



Daryl and Riddick are becoming good friends.

Happy two week birthday Daryl. Your growing so fast and I can't get over how cute he is. Thank you so much for the pics.

Have a great day.

 

[briefvisit]

He'll be in waddle-bottom stage for a good while yet. Then you'll see on his neck the first tiniest black feathers of the black-head stage, when his head will go all fuzzy black, and he'll sprrrrrrrrrrrrrrrout tail feathers.

Got a lost chick, at just that stage, sitting in the house-clearing this afternoon. It's gotta be one of Eric's nine.

Here's one of the nine about two weeks ago:

Hew

 

[mich9510]

Well, it was about 60 degrees here in my neck of the woods so we decided to let Daryl explore the great outdoors. I know its still pretty cold but I wanted to let him exercise his legs a little bit.
We took him out and he raaaaaaaaan! He looked like the road runner from the cartoons! Around and around and he was peeping so loud! We actually weren't sure if he was terrified or excited. We only let him go for a few minutes. He was tough to catch. We put him back in the brooder and he laid down for a while. I tried to get a picture but he was zooming around too fast!

 

[pattyhen]

I bet that was cute watching him run around. I can understand why you couldn't get a good pic it was probably one big blur. We were in the 60s yesterday too my chickens, ducks, and guineas enjoyed it.

Have a great day and thank you for the update on Daryl.

 

[N F C]

Well, it was about 60 degrees here in my neck of the woods so we decided to let Daryl explore the great outdoors. I know its still pretty cold but I wanted to let him exercise his legs a little bit.
We took him out and he raaaaaaaaan! He looked like the road runner from the cartoons! Around and around and he was peeping so loud! We actually weren't sure if he was terrified or excited. We only let him go for a few minutes. He was tough to catch. We put him back in the brooder and he laid down for a while. I tried to get a picture but he was zooming around too fast!

I can only imagine how hard it will be catch him when he's full grown! Any place you can get some emu wrangling lessons?

 

[briefvisit]

I'm the one (my original username here is 'Supreme Emu') responsible for coining the term 'spazzy dance.' So . . . google 'emu spazzy dance.'

If you let Daryl outside at first-bird-call of dawn, for a few days in a row, you will see that running around is not from fright, but from pure delight in being a high-speed dinosaur. The motions of spazzy dances are mixed with completely crazy spurts of highest-speed runs; and I've been lucky enough to see even better spazzies than this:

If you watch a range of spazzy vids, you'll see clearly what I was saying about space: the chicks and adults charge to and fro along fences, clearly looking to run harder and faster. In the house-clearing here, they may cover 6-800 yards, in bursts of 200 at a time, in hardly a minute.

 

[briefvisit]

 

[N F C]

Any update on Daryl?

 

[mich9510]

Hello everyone! I just realized how long it's been since I posted anything about my buddy Daryl.
So here's what's been going on....
Daryl and his little chicken friends outgrew the baby pool brooder I made pretty quick. So I had to make another one. Luckily I work in a restaurant and large boxes are aplenty.
4 of the six chicks that were keeping Daryl company were sent to live in the baby chicken coop while the two smallest ones stay with Daryl. I would also like to add that Daryl and the chicks now spend the day outside and only come in when it's night. Well, two chicks come in with Daryl at night. It has to be two chicks. I tried just one but Daryl cried and cried so it has to be two.
Daryl and my boxer dog Riddick are best friends. Daryl follows him around the yard when Riddick is outside. They run and play together. Riddick is very gentle with Daryl. He pushes him with his nose but that's as rough as he gets.
Daryl doesn't really like to be touched. He'll let us stroke his neck, head and belly for a few seconds but that's all. He runs if we touch his back and freaks out then we pick him up. We definitely try not to pick him up and prefer to just herd him where we need him to go but he can be stubborn. The safest way to pick him up for both him and us seems to be to hold him with two hands, on under his belly and one under his chest with his legs dangling. His kicks but can't really get any leverage that way.
I don't know how much he weighs but at almost 5 weeks old he's very big. I'll post some pictures in my next post.
Daryl's favorite food is anything green. Kale, spinach, spring mix, beet greens, etc. He devours them. I chop up a paper plate full of greens twice per day for him. I try to leave them as whole as I can do he gets exercise ripping them apart. He also loves fruit of any kind as long as it's not too soft. Daryl will spit out a mushy blueberry or peach like it's poison. Not sure why. For this reason I can't get him to eat boiled eggs. I try to make the majority of his diet greens and fruit. I usually provide a small portion of protein such as meat (pork, Beef, chicken, just boiled with no additives). He really likes dried soldier fly larvae and worms. I have a worm farm of red wigglers and he'll just eat them until they run out. I also supplement with ratite pellets and whole grain chicken feed. He likes the whole grains occasionally and I catch him eating his ratite pellets when he thinks I'm not looking.