Why have my Emus started fighting?

[Ellamumu]

Just wondering if your emus started getting along again, my 2 boys had their first disagreement today, no kicking or biting , but the younger one kept chasing and hissing at the older one, and the older one kept running to me for loving. I put them in separate pens for the day and now they seem to have gotten over it but I'm afraid to leave them together if I'm not home.

 

[Avipt]

Hi!
Im afraid not, one still seem to try be above the other one chasing him kicking etc

 

[briefvisit]

Actually, Ella, it might be wise to have them apart while you're not home. See if they make it up. I have long wondered about the problems of not simply having lots and lots of pens in which to keep birds separate.

Saw more than ten wild birds today. Walked over to Oudman's. Never seen so many blessings. The ground is literally littered with them.

Five beautiful birds -- a flock -- have been here two days in a row. Had seven birds in the house-clearing at the same time.

Eric and Mrs. Eric are still here. I wonder if they will breed here? I hear Eric vocalising at night, which is a first. Usually it's the female.

se

 

[ES Emus]

Hi!
Im afraid not, one still seem to try be above the other one chasing him kicking etc

How big is your pen? Even though they have been held in captivity of decades, they are still essentially wild birds and as such, often are territorial with an alpha bird ruling its own space. In the wild, the dominant bird will often just chase any intruding birds it views as threatening, with no real clashes until the birds start to choose their mates. In captivity, it is not that simple, and if the threatened birds do not have enough space to run away, physical confrontations can occur which could range from just bluffing to mortal combat if a bird gets cornered and cannot get away.

 

[Avipt]

Well we have them in our yard, but our yard is connected to very large open fields, so when they meet the larger one chases the smaller one away and then they keep at their seperate spaces. But since they are very social around us humans they tend to get close to eachother when we are out in the yard and then they are at it again. And sometimes they can be together. Its a difficult situation.

 

[Ellamumu]

Yeah I'm keeping my boys separate when I'm not home, I have plenty of corrals so they can be side by side in different corrals. The younger bird Ed is much larger than my older bird El and he's very excitable and crazy. What I've noticed is Ed will walk up to El, stare at him, and El will get upset and start running and then Ed goes nuts chasing him, not kicking or biting but still El gets scared and runs into the barn and hides or runs to me for hugging, so I don't know whats up. If I'm out there with them they walk around peacefully, they sit together eat together sit in my lap together, but as soon as i go in the house I hear the running and have to go break it up, and Ed stops it as soon as I'm in sight, Ed apparently has the right name aka eddie haskel lol.

 

[Nicophorus]

I've recently had to move a male emu into his own pen because the others were picking on him. It would be so much more convenient to just keep them all in one large enclosure, but now I am beginning to see the value of dividing things up into long "runs", like everyone else seems to do.

 

[briefvisit]

Yeh, Ella. Territoriral fights and fences don't go well. The weaker bird will just run madly . . . away.

To may amazement, I once saw Sassybird and Felicity square off with a fence between them -- about three and a half feet. Once they got to the 'lock eyes and crouch' stage, they had completely forgotten the fence, and attacked each other right over top of it.

SE

 

[Ellamumu]

Ed just really knows how to get the best of El, he figured out a long time ago that EL is blind in his left eye so if you're going to be sneaky, be sneaky on the left side, which is another reason I don't want El running wildly because my corrals are big but not evenly shaped and they have things like rocks and trees so he could run into something if he is being chased.