# Emu or Rheas, own some?



## secuono (Jan 3, 2020)

Crazy new thoughts.

Rheas are smaller, but far less common. Are they containable in 4ft fencing, like emu, when hand raised & tame?

Anyone breed to eat them, either one?
How do you get them to brood, maturity age, how long before you butcher? Heat needed for chicks?

How many do you need to be happy?

What should they eat? 
I've read different things to feed when you can't get ratite feed, like layer pellet mixed with rabbit feed. 

Can they live with other animals?


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## Baymule (Jan 3, 2020)

At the height of stupidity a breeding pair of emus sold for $40,000. When the bottom fell out, people turned them loose. They can disembowel a person with one kick. What the heck do you want with them?


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## thistlebloom (Jan 3, 2020)

I had a neighbor a long time ago whose boyfriend gave her two eggs to hatch out. At that time the eggs were$600 apiece.
  The emus escaped her property one time and they were heck to catch. They are possibly the dumbest animals on Gods earth.
She had wood rail pasture fencing around all the pastures, with a hot wire along the top. The emus got shocked constantly and never learned to stay away from it. She asked the vet what to do about it and he told her to let him know the next time it happened and he'd bring the BBQ sauce.
 I would not advise keeping them with other stock.


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## secuono (Jan 3, 2020)

Baymule said:


> At the height of stupidity a breeding pair of emus sold for $40,000. When the bottom fell out, people turned them loose. They can disembowel a person with one kick. What the heck do you want with them?



Alpaca sold for 50k plus. 

Curiosity.


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## secuono (Jan 3, 2020)

thistlebloom said:


> I had a neighbor a long time ago whose boyfriend gave her two eggs to hatch out. At that time the eggs were$600 apiece.
> The emus escaped her property one time and they were heck to catch. They are possibly the dumbest animals on Gods earth.
> She had wood rail pasture fencing around all the pastures, with a hot wire along the top. The emus got shocked constantly and never learned to stay away from it. She asked the vet what to do about it and he told her to let him know the next time it happened and he'd bring the BBQ sauce.
> I would not advise keeping them with other stock.



Ginormous chickens, they also don't learn(hotwire).


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## secuono (Jan 3, 2020)

They're expensive and totally new, so I won't jump into keeping them blind.

Hoping to figure them out, IDK why people keep them, besides for the novelty of it.


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## thistlebloom (Jan 3, 2020)

secuono said:


> They're expensive and totally new, so I won't jump into keeping them blind.
> 
> Hoping to figure them out, IDK why people keep them, besides for the novelty of it.



You must mean Rheas, because emus have been around for 40 years.


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## secuono (Jan 4, 2020)

thistlebloom said:


> You must mean Rheas, because emus have been around for 40 years.



New to me, either one. Biggest bird I've kept is Peking duck.
Still expensive, 200-400 an egg or unsexed chick, when I did a quick local search.


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## YourRabbitGirl (Jan 7, 2020)

secuono said:


> Crazy new thoughts.
> 
> Rheas are smaller, but far less common. Are they containable in 4ft fencing, like emu, when hand raised & tame?
> 
> ...


Emus are generally very gentle birds and generally are friendly, depending on how they are raised. ... We have never killed any of our emus, they were our pets. The exception to this is the rheas. The male rheas are very aggressive and can be dangerous.


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## Finnie (Jan 9, 2020)

A long time ago, I stumbled across the Ratite section over on BYC, and started reading some of the threads. This one in particular was interesting and informative:








						Emu pictures and stories.... post them here
					

Please join me and post your emu pictures and stories here.   My dear friend, The Sheriff, sent me a surprise package; 3 emu eggs!  I incubated them. Day 50 came (March 10, 2012), and I was shocked that 2 hatched (one was a stinker and tossed out).      The first one out waited patiently for the...




					www.backyardchickens.com
				




There were a few other ones that followed some people’s hatches, and another especially interesting one was by an Australian guy who lived in the boonies and documented the lives of the semi-tame wild emus that inhabited his property. 

It was all very fascinating, and made me kind of wish emus were a possibility for me. I would suggest reading some of the threads about emus on BYC and see if you don’t learn everything you might need to know. That will either convince you to get some, or confirm why not to. I’ll try to see if I can find that guy’s threads. He had about 3 different user names there over the years since he kept losing his old account information.


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## Finnie (Jan 9, 2020)

Ok, I found one of the threads from the guy and it mentions two of his usernames. Supreme Emu and Tame Emu Guy. The last (current?) one is briefvisit.









						Supreme Emu Visiting
					

Tame Emu Guy is really Supreme Emu – I’ve just popped in: I have a new email address.   Three emus in residence: Eric and Mrs Eric, who are fairly wild. Greedy the Emu left a couple of months ago. Felicity Emu returned after an absence of seven months. An emu who sometimes passes through brought...




					www.backyardchickens.com
				




This link is to the thread where he had to tell everyone his new username. I think if you go to All Threads Started by Supreme Emu, you will find the start of his documenting his emu “flock”. I don’t know. Maybe I’m the only person who enjoys going back and reading old stories about people’s lives and animals.  
It was pretty cool, though, getting to “know” someone living in the outback.


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## Baymule (Jan 9, 2020)

@Finnie that is very thoughtful of you and will be a big help to @secuono


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## Finnie (Jan 9, 2020)

Baymule said:


> @Finnie that is very thoughtful of you and will be a big help to @secuono


Aw, gee, thanks!


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## 410farmer (Jan 9, 2020)

secuono said:


> New to me, either one. Biggest bird I've kept is Peking duck.
> Still expensive, 200-400 an egg or unsexed chick, when I did a quick local search.


There’s a nursery near my home that has a pet emu pretty laid back. I seen a egg for 25 on Craigslist and chicks was 125 last year. I’m not sure how they do shipped but eBay have eggs for 50 each


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## YourRabbitGirl (Jan 10, 2020)

thistlebloom said:


> You must mean Rheas, because emus have been around for 40 years.


Well. both of them sounds like hard work... I think i'll stick with goats and cows.. or maybe hamsters hahaha!!


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## YourRabbitGirl (Mar 25, 2020)

secuono said:


> Crazy new thoughts.
> 
> Rheas are smaller, but far less common. Are they containable in 4ft fencing, like emu, when hand raised & tame?
> 
> ...


This is will emu behaviour, you should try to stroke your arm, most emus tolerate it. But you need to continue to get a very tame emu while it's still a chick and make it bond with you. You should try feeding it by hand as well.


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## YourRabbitGirl (Apr 1, 2020)

secuono said:


> Crazy new thoughts.
> 
> Rheas are smaller, but far less common. Are they containable in 4ft fencing, like emu, when hand raised & tame?
> 
> ...


No, Rheas, they don't make good pets. They are wild animals, and they have not been bred by humans for a long time to ensure a docile and friendly animal. Some people keep them on farms, but you need to thoroughly understand how to take care of these birds if you want to use them in agriculture.


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