I joined up with a hundred or so of my closest cyber friends over the holidays and we set eggs to all hatch on New Year’s Eve. There were contests for the first New Year’s chick, best hatch rate, etc. Sometime during the 21 days we were incubating our eggs, someone decided to bring up the subject of emus. Suddenly everyone just had to have one. The trouble is, they are not that easy to get your hands on and they are difficult to incubate. My incubator won’t even fit an emu egg. I read about them and decided a couple or three emus was exactly what we needed around here. They are excellent guard animals, and I still have the issue of the wandering neighborhood dogs, so it seemed perfect. Along with learning that they are good guard animals I also learned they can reach six feet tall, weigh well over a hundred pounds and run forty five miles an hour. I was not deterred. I searched the internet and my beloved BYC and found a woman who had some incubating, ready to hatch in March. Arrangements were made to buy the emu chicks.
I took the perfect opportunity to break the news to Michael who responded quite well, considering he had been set-up. We waited and waited, getting more anxious all the time. Finally today, the first of our three emu babies became available. Eve, my online friend who breeds emus had a little girl, a week old, ready to be picked up. I was in the middle of making a cheesecake and Michael was waiting for the DirectTV repairman. It was decided that I should drop what I was doing and drive 2 hours to get the emu. Luckily for me the drive was cut in half and I met the breeder at a feed store midway. She kindly sold me the sweet emu chick at a discounted rate, gave me a waterer and some feed and we were headed home.
We stopped by the local feed store on our way home to hopefully pick up emu feed I ordered four weeks ago. I took the emu baby into the store with me to really drive home the point that I NEED THIS EMU FEED! As we were walking up the stairs a lady stopped to admire the chick. “I have never seen a duck like that in my life!” she exclaimed. I explained that it was not a duck, rather an emu. She now has to have one too! We didn’t get our emu food today but we made a lot of people smile and got someone’s promise to call on Monday and find out what happened to our order.
Michael rushed me as I emerged from the car with the baby. It has been “his emu” ever since.
I made a temporary brooder for the baby with food, water, an old T-short to snuggle with and a heat lamp. I even hung brightly colored sparkly objects from the cage for it to play with. Emus love bling! Realizing ahead of time that this is probably TMI, people have been known to monitor their emus every move in order to retrieve a diamond earring!
Anyway, this emu baby was set-up with fine new digs and a power Mac with 24 inch screen, already dialed in to BYC.
She has food, water, and toys.
I have no idea why I went to all the trouble.
She’s not even using it!
Ah, a man and his emu.
Glee Salveson says
I love your Icelandic chickens! My kids are travelling to Iceland for two weeks in June, wish they could bring some eggs back. Do you ever make hatching eggs available? I also live in Northern Calif., in Paradise (Butte co.)…Your farm is the cutest! I also had Nigerians when we lived in Siskiyou Co,, but worry about the lions here on the Ridge. Miss them! Glee Salveson