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Ancient birds

Emus belong to an ancient group of flightless birds known as ratites, which includes the cassowary,the kiwi, the ostrich and rhea. Ratites are one of the earliest offshoots in bird evolution so have aspecial place in evolutionary studies.

EMU OSTRICH CASSOWARY RHEA KIWI

The Emu is common throughout much of inland Australia except for dense rainforest andareas that are waterless or highly urban.

The most likely place to see them, though, is open pastoral country. Theyre very inquisitive birds andare the source of many tourist stories about the swallowing of keys and bits of cameras.

In Queensland, around the Warrego and Bogan rivers, Aboriginal hunters would lure emus by climbinga tree, lowering a ball of Emu feathers and rags and twirling it rapidly. The fascinated emus wouldgather near the tree and be speared from above. They need to be lured because there is no way to

catch up with an Emu. At speeds of up to 70 km/hour, emus really can "run the pants off a kangaroo".

Emus are also good swimmers. They love water and on a hot day like nothing better than a cool dip inthe creek, the dam, the horse trough or even under the sprinkler.

Pairing up

Male and female emus start pairing up aroundDecember or January - anytime after the summersolstice on December 21-22. Emu courting is a livelyaffair. The sound alone is said to be unforgettable.The birds, particularly females, fill their throatpouches with air to make a drumming sound, which

can be heard hundreds of meters away.

Feathers are fluffed and there is a lot of dipping andducking, grunting and bobbing around. The malesmay also fight, chasing each other away fromfemales by powerful frontal kicks.

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Alliance Agro DevelopersAnna Nagar West, CHENNAI-600040, INDIA.Phone: +91 44 26157778 Mobile: +91 99406 57777.WEB:http://allianceagro.com E.Mail: info@allianceagro.comBroody Blokes

Around April, as the days get noticeably shorter, mating begins. In some parts of the country, mating isalso timed to start just before the rainy season. If the rains are late then the emus will delay breeding.The reason for this link is yet unknown.

Emus are very seasonal. University of Western Australia researchers have found that short days(photoperiod) depress the birds appetites, particularly the males, and trigger hormones that stimulatetheir breeding.

The pair mate every day or so, with the female laying an egg every 2 or 3 days, until a clutch isformed. Most clutches have about 8 to10 eggs but can go as high as 20.

After about seven eggs the male gets 'broody' and sits on them for the entire incubation period. Ittakes 8 weeks (56 days) to hatch an Emu chick! During this time he doesn't eat or drink - just lives offhis fat and any nearby dew on the grass. The only time he stands up is to turn the eggs, which he does10-12 times a day. The father also stays and looks after the chicks for up to 18 months, leading themto feeding areas and showing them what to eat.

Shabby female behavior: the girls take off

As soon as the male goes broody the female stops mating with him, although she often continues tolay eggs in the nest. These eggs, however, can be fertilized by other male emus. One survey of 106chicks showed 51% were not fathered by the nesting male! Eventually the female leaves the first malealtogether. She may mate with one or two other males after the first one and can have up to 3 nestsper season, especially if the rains have been good.

Masculine sacrifice

The broody male loses up to a third of his body weight and becomes increasingly dazed and forlorn. Itsthought he could be in a state of ketosis - when the bodys metabolism burns only fat it produces

ketones which are toxic. Incubatingmales also experience a rapid fall intestosterone. By midsummer, though,males are able to aggressively protecttheir young.

As to the advantages of breeding inautumn-winter, this means that thechicks will hatch two months later inspring, when the weather is warmer andthere is the best chance of food beingaround.

The chicks begin to hatch as early asJune and as late as the beginning ofSeptember. July and August aregenerally the peak times. In the wild

there is a very high predation rate on the eggs but scientist Stephen Davies says if the chicks manageto hatch out they then have about a 70-80% chance of reaching adulthood.

Chicks grow very quickly putting on 1 kg/week at first. They reach their full height when theyre about ayear old, but don't breed until their 2nd year, at about 20 months.

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Alliance Agro DevelopersAnna Nagar West, CHENNAI-600040, INDIA.Phone: +91 44 26157778 Mobile: +91 99406 57777.WEB:http://allianceagro.com E.Mail: info@allianceagro.comSurvival in a hot dry land

Emus are well adapted for living in a hot dry land. Unlike other animals such as kangaroos, emusremain active even in the hottest parts of the day, foraging and walking. Scientists Shane Maloneyand Terry Dawson have found that the emus two-tone plumage gives them very clever protection

from the sun. The trick is in the colour.

The black tips of Emu feathers absorb largeamounts of heat from the sun, but the rest of theirplumage then keeps that heat away from the birdsskin. Only about 2% of the solar radiation that hitsan Emu gets through to the skin. Any wind thenconvicts the heat in the feather tips away from thebird.

The emus walking speed, about 1-2 meters/sec,provides just the right amount of breeze to removethis absorbed heat. Without their feathers the heat

load on an Emu on a hot day would be more thanthey could dissipate and they would soon succumbto heat stroke.

The reason that you can't see emusbreathing on a cold morning

Emus noses are well adapted for saving water. They have large highly folded passages called nasalturbinate. Cool air breathed in, passes through these passages and is warmed on its way to the emuslungs. But warming up the air causes the emus nose to get colder. So, when the Emu breathes outwarm air, it travels back through the emus cold nose, gets cooled and water condenses. The water isthen reabsorbed into the body.

In the hot times of the year emus often use a different strategy panting into keep cool. They increasethe rate of their breathing which in turn increases the amount of water evaporated from the Emu intothe air. This cools them, but does mean the Emu must drink regularly.

Emus can pant for hours without getting light-headed from low levels of carbon dioxide (alkalosis).Humans trying the same thing would quickly be out for the count.

Their diet in the wild varies quite widely. They like green autumn shoots, winter herbs, seeds, andsome fruits and flowers. Theyll eat insects when theyre available, such as grasshopper plagues.Green shoots of wheat and later on ripe wheat are also regardedfavorably. They need to drink everyday.

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Emu FarmingEmu farming took off in Australia in 1988 when the West Australian government permitted theAboriginal owners of Willuna Station to sell Emu chicks to the public. (Emus are protected and no oneis allowed to take birds from the wild.)

With a legal supply of chicks, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people began to develop Emu farms and findmarkets for Emu products. In the early 1990s the industryboomed but high set up costs and limited market outletshave since cut the industry back to a much smaller size.There are around 160 Emu farms in Australia, with a total ofabout 32,000 emus.

Emu farmer, Kip Venn, says 5,000 to 7,000 emus makes areasonable sized farm. Also, Kip says that with a stockingrate about 5 emus/acre, theyre so easy on the land youcan't see where they've been.

Some farms like Kepis are free range - the emus areallowed room to roam. He puts 20 emus per 4 acre pen,and lets them choose their own mate. Initially some farmsfarmed more intensively and 'force paired birds' but highfood and labor costs have lead to a more open rangeapproach.

On the Venns farm about 80-90% of eggs successfullyhatch. Rather than the male sitting on the eggs, many farms incubate the eggs and rear the chicksseparately. Foxes and other pests can be a problem if eggs are left in open.

Emu products include meat, oil, leather and feathers. Most Australian states have at least onespecialist Emu abattoir.

White settlers in Australia used to hunt emus for theirmeat and their oil, which they used in lamps.Outback housewives made omelets from their eggs,which they first broke into a basin and let standovernight so they could skim off the oil which rose tothe top. The eggs weigh about 650 grams - over halfa kilo. If youre cooking with them the rule of thumb is1 Emu egg equals about 10-12 normal chicken eggs.

Emus were made extinct in Tasmania in 1865 bysettlers and sealers who killed large numbers forfood. They're also extinct on Kangaroo Island and

King Island.

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Emus on the move

Emus move to keep contact with food supplies. Somepeople call them migratory but 'roaming' or 'nomadic'

is more appropriate.

In Western Australia there is a definite movement ofemus southward in winter and northward in summer.At this time emus will travel 900-1000 km this is mostprobably tied to rainfall - they follow the green grass.West Australian scientist Stephen Davies thinks theymay use cloudbanks to navigate.

All birds move except incubating males. Barriers likerabbit and Emu proof fences have made these migrations much more difficult. However by addingextra watering sites for domestic animals in more arid areas, pastoralists have probably helped emusto stay longer in some areas before going south. When theyre on the move emus don't like to travel in

big flocks. Its unusual for them to be in groups of more than 20, except when they hit artificial barriers.

Migrations in Eastern Australian dont seem to be as easily defined, although eastern emus certainlydo travel in response to seasons. In the drought of 1992 there were many reports of emus swimmingacross the Murray River!

Wheat Farmers v Emus:

Wheat trampling by emus is a problem. Whenwheat is ripe it's less flexible. Western Australiahas a 1,100 km Emu proof fence stretching fromaround Esperance in the south to north ofGeraldton which keeps them out of the wheat belt.

It was built in 1901 and occasionally when emusmove out of the pastoral areas south westward inwinter they mass along the fence. As many as70,000 emus have been known to die at the fence!

Once in 1932 the army was also sent out withmachine guns to decimate the numbers. In thepast, Queensland emus were thought to aid thespread of prickly pear and many were shot theretoo