Yaaay Emu! Does she have a name or is it just number one? She looks like a big one...
Hey, V.S.!
Her name is 'Number One.'
When I took this farmhouse, in ill health, eight years ago, I noticed a grizzled old emu scoffing the fruit that falls from the remnants of the old orchard. So I tamed him by chopping up peaches.
Some months later, he hove out of the gums with three chicks. I tamed them by feeding them for a thousand days.
And before my health gave right out, I spent several years writing formal ornithological reports, and became something of an authority.
These birds are not pets. There are no fences. They are ‘tame-wild.’
[ Here is one thread:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/714603/planet-rothschildi ]
At this point, it’s unlikely that anyone in the world has observed a family of emus in the wild for this long, and Felicity is known from the U.K. to the Mexican border:
Eric and Mrs. Eric, then their chicks Greedy, Felicity, and Number One, then two years later, Alpha Chick and Omega Chick, then Greedy mated here with ‘Boy Emu,’ then Felicity mated here with ‘Noddy Big Ears Emu,' then Eric’s ‘clutch’ of one – ‘Uno Chick.’
In winter (here), it seems v. likely that Number One will mate with ‘Francis,’ and he will get to spend eight weeks sitting in the pouring rain, waiting for the chicks to hatch.
Here is Uno Chick at about one year (fine specimen):