Urgent help please! Emu Injury

[Hobbits Mommie]

Morning, H.M. Tee hee -- I'm a retired technical-writing tutor.

Strider Update: wa ha ha -- Australians would say s/he is a dag. You can look it up!

Project:
there's a thing about emus that U.S. folks can't be expected to have picked up on. Although the taxonomic model is in flux, the 'range maps' -- which species live where in Australia -- will show you:

hollandiae: right-hand side of Oz.
rothschildi: bottom left.
woodwardi: top left

But it seems that the various emus exported to the United States were never distinguished by sub-species.* So we may wonder if the U.S. birds have become a sort of genetically blended sub-species.

My thought this morning came from seeing Strider in her/his 'muffler.' If you are enthusiastic, hit Youtube: can you find a video of emus living in the top half of Western Australia?

[Wanna learn more about wild emus without visiting me? Diligently search Youtube! Most of the videos are rubbish. But some are priceless:

]

Emus in such a video would be woodwardi, which live only in hot areas.

I wonder if strider's plumage and the plumage of a woodwardi chick at the same age would be different? Do 'autumn chicks' in a colder area develop thicker plumage? It would make perfect sense.

*And the gene pool is not too small.


S.E.

Ohhh my goodness. I didn't know they would swim. From a distance they remind me of our Flamingos here in Florida.

 

[briefvisit]

They love to 'wallow' I think is the right word. And I wonder if it has to do with them scratchin' itches. But both chicks and adults lie down in inches of water, and flop gloriously back and forth with their leggies in the air:

This is one of my all-time favourite photos. It's Eric with Alpha and Omega having one of their first ever swims

 

[briefvisit]

But it seems they swim well. Never witnessed it. But there are videos on BYC

 

[briefvisit]

Brief today:

new era: first ever observations of males getting their social mojo up and running. Here is a wild female whom LimpyChick and Tooshtoosh brought here. Fun to watch these newcomers (males in the past) getting tame, sneaking sneaking up to try the wheat.

 

[Hobbits Mommie]

They love to 'wallow' I think is the right word. And I wonder if it has to do with them scratchin' itches. But both chicks and adults lie down in inches of water, and flop gloriously back and forth with their leggies in the air:

View attachment 1585757
This is one of my all-time favourite photos. It's Eric with Alpha and Omega having one of their first ever swims

Do they have any natural predators there?

 

[briefvisit]

Heck yes. Historically, dingoes. Now foxes.

And goannas eat the eggs. We have a claim that herons predate on young chicks.

wedge-tailed eagles

 

[FishMtFarm]

I just wanna throw in my two cents from my own experience. I had three young emus about the same age as yours. They coexisted beautifully as they grew up together. One day one of the females had an awful wound on her head. She pretty much was scalped down to her skull. I thought for sure it was my fence but couldn’t find where. She was kept with another female and a male. It healed up nicely and all was well for a few weeks and then again her face and head had injuries. To make a long story short, this kept happening for two months. She would be injured but not the other two. I finally caught the other female and male pinning her to the ground and pecking and ripping at her and she layed there and took it! We ended up finding her a new home with a male of her own and no incident since. They need a lot of room and pasture with bushes and trees. And you need an even balance. She was a third wheel. I’d keep and eye on the other two.

 

[drumstick diva]

The first picture showing the rough fence posts, made me think he is rubbing himself against them (maybe something needs scratching.) I could envision that happening but, not explaining his head feathers yanked out.

Would be great if you could catch what is happening on a game cam. He looks good with the black wrap around his neck- very distinguished

 

[briefvisit]

'I finally caught the other female and male pinning her to the ground and pecking and ripping at her'

Amazing!! Datum by datum . . .

We trick ourselves into forgetting they're dinosaurs.

On one fantastic occasion, I hit Greedy Emu in the chest with a half a brick -- hit her so hard it staggered her -- because I was already holding Felicity off with a broom while both of them were trying to kill their sister, Number One, who had turned up at the house-clearing, greatly weakened, with a great chunk of wire wrapped around her upper thighs.

S.E.

 

[507382]

Hi guys. Appreciate the theories. Sorry in advance im on my phone which equals grammar errors.

So strider continues to heal. He no longer has neck sleeve and no one picks at him.new pin feathers are starting to emerge.

With that said....we made a yarn grid over their pen in case it was a predator bird attack. I also emu proofed the pen a bit more. I put this blue insulation stuff over the fence posts because yes they were all rubbing as they paced and even Fawkes started looking thin on his neck feathers! But pacing the fence isn't what happened to strider im sure of it. Because it happened so fast.

As far as them attacking each other. I observe then even when they think im not. From afar and they play and horse around but nothing major that I can see

However about a week ago I was in the yard doing things and I could see them starting to pace again. TRYING TO GET TO ME!!! So I know I'm a culprit for this behavior if I stay within sight! If i go away completely they don't do it! I come back less than an hour later of totally monitoring them and strider has a hurt beak and neck is raw a bit from this pacing!!

Anyway long story short I got them a ton of toys in town today and strung them up everywhere in the hopes of providing more enrichment! These guys are a huge challenge and it hurts me to the core not knowing if I will succeed in raising them injury free.i kinda feel like a failure in a sense.