'They're still together?!?'
Yes!
I don't think anyone has learned as much about our methodology as you have.
So, one the one hand, the two times we've seen chicks reaching adult hood here -- Limpy Chick and Toosh Toosh, then Toosh Toosh's first clutch -- we had months of observations. So . . . that's good!
By the same token, it's only two data. So . . . that leaves us ready and eager to re-jigger it all.
One needs to learn to love this reality, Anitque, or go bonkers.
For example, we'd been observing the rothschildi here for a decade before we figured out that chicks (may) stay together after Dad gives them the boot.
In late spring/early summer, such chicks are indeed still technically chicks -- they still have black-head pin feathers -- but they're 90% the size of adult birds (which sometimes have neck feathers quite like the black-heads!) You might observe them from just 40 yards without noticing.
What if the clutch is just two chicks? or three? How would you distinguish them from any other two or three emus?
It was pure luck. A clutch of five post-Dad chicks snuck into the house-clearing to sneak a bit of grass. There were 'home-team' birds here, which enables us to get close to the fully wild emus. And I realised that this group were, in fact, chicks.
SE