Free Range Emu's... Can it be Done?

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can it be possible to have free range emu's? you can do it with chickens right, it sounds feasable to me...any suggestions?

-- Erik (enricoestabar@yahoo.com), March 11, 2001

Answers

seems like a big bird to have running loose. There is a guy in Newton KS where i grew up who raised them. They left boxes of lettice to feed them. Hate to see what kind of damage they could do in a garden. Be interesting to hear how it works out.

-- MikeinKS (mhonk@oz-online.net), March 11, 2001.

strong fences,, a WHOLE LOTTA land

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), March 11, 2001.

No.

-- David (bluewaterfarm@mindspring.com), March 11, 2001.

It was done in West Texas. As you drive down 10 you could see large acreage filled with Emu and Ostrich. We kept our 2 pair in cattle panels and t-posts, and they are wonderful as meat. They run loose in Austraila living off much less than we have here to offer. Ours always picked bugs from the trees, ate the grass, brush nearly everything. No fire ants in their pens! Course we fed ours laying pellets, and wormed them when they got here. We certainly didn't have the high management of the "other" emu folks, and we had certainly more luck than they did also. We even had a male set eggs for us. I think they are a highly adaptable bird, problem is with the emu, like with the boer goat, the folks who originally got into them had never sucessfully raised a dog before, and didn't have a clue as to how to manage them. And like the boer goat the original animals were worth so much money that culls were not killed like they should have been, splinting legs on emu, extra teats on boers, weakens the breed, then when the market drops, just who is going to sell a goat or bird that you paid a couple of thousand dollars for, for meat? We don't have either boers or emu anymore, we were some of the lucky ones who sold. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 12, 2001.

I spotted a FREE-RANGE emu once, running right down the middle of our road heading for town.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), March 12, 2001.


Eric,I had an emu that had become a pet and was always getting beaten up in the community pen he would jump out of the six foot fence.after putting him back several times i just gave up.He stayed in the yard and ate the cat food chased the chickens& cats,followed me around like a dog, made himself a basicaly lovable pet.(scared the hell out of the meter reader too!)He unfortunatly met with a bad end as he was frightened during a thunder storm and got down on the road.Of course he got hit by a car.MY FAULT!MY ANIMAL SHOULD HAVE BEEN PENNED!Fortunatly he was the only injury and fatality.I guess the moral is if you have the space they will generally stick around if they have food and are fussed over,but if they get frightened they can wind up in the next county before you know they are gone(they can run all day at 40mph)As much fun as it was to have him run around and greet folks that came up the drive I wish I had penned him up.He would be alive today instead of possum food.

-- greg (gsmith@tricountyi.net), March 13, 2001.

Hola from the southwest, Erik. I met some folks in Palestine, Texas who had their ostriches and emus running free. But they had a lot of land and one helluva fence! I'm sure it was at least 10' high. I think these were their meat birds, not the laying flock. I also have friends in Alto, Tx who raise them, but just keep them in large enclosures. I would think you'd have to consistently feed them in a central location to ensure rounding them all up, as they're not the brightest of birds. I'm not a meat-eater anymore, but I did have some emu steaks once with my friends in Alto.... goooooood stuff! I know the bottom has supposedly fallen out of this market, but I still think emus have a place on the homestead as they are easy keepers and have good, clean meat. And who knows, maybe the market will be back with all the talk of the Mad Cow and Hoof & Mouth diseases? Good luck! dh in nm

-- debra in nm (dhaden@nmtr.unm.edu), March 14, 2001.

I have a friend who raises emu for the meat and eggs. She blows the eggs and makes quite a bit of money selling the eggs on eBay.com. Artists love the eggs.

This same friend hatched one of the eggs in the incubator, and for the first week of life, the emu was with my friend 24/7; she even slept with it! -LOL- Today, this bird would rather be petted than eat, really affectionate and cuddly. The rest of the herd is normal!

A few years back, when the emu market was going nowhere, one of the ranchers turned his emus loose. Absolute havoc around the ranches here. I'm in big ranching country here in Texas. The birds scared the daylights out of the livestock. Cowboys, who make their living with the rope, couldn't rope the birds. Tough on the ego! -G- The sheriff finally told us to shoot the birds who were causing any problems.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), March 14, 2001.


Seen a "cow hand" lay a loop around an ostriches neck once.The dumb shit pulled the head off a $30,000 bird.Ever seen a chicken with it's head cut off? how about one that weighed 350 pounds? quite a rodeo that day.

-- greg (gsmith@tricountyi.net), March 15, 2001.

Now down to a serious answer to this question! :-)

Loose emu will run and run and run and wander for many miles. They're not smart enough to be trained like chooks and guineas (and the guineas make the chooks look like the chooks went to college! -LOL- ) Emus that have gotten loose usually have to be lured home, if you're lucky! Emus are a very, very old and primitive critter. One step above the dinosaur, they have lizard brains. :-)

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), March 16, 2001.



There is a ranch about 15 miles from us that has about 500 acres in game fence and when the emu market hit bottom here in south Texas people were just giving this guy emus right and left. Sometimes they just would pull up and push them out of the trailers and leave. They get along fine, but they have plenty of area to roam and a large pond. There are also some cattle a few horses and various types of pigs including pot-bellies which were were given to them when people grew tired of keeping them as pets. All the animals get along and are fairly tame except every now and then an emu might take a kick at you. They even all eat together. The man who owns the place also owns a tortilla company so he brings them by the 55 gallon drum and when it comes time to feed they just roll one out of the barn, tip it over and roll it on the ground spreading them out. I wonder if the emu market might go back up with the H&MD outbreak. All them people will be wishing they didn't eat their birds. I know the man we buy hay from butchered his. Good luck with your project, LaDena

-- LaDena Johnson (kjohnson@wcnet.net), March 17, 2001.

Depending on where you are, emu's have to be penned up properly. I have a few of my own that if we leave the gates open then they simply end up pacing in our driveway till we let them back in. I would like to let them run my whole 5 acres if I had the chance to finish fencing it in completely, but for now I just leave them in the pasture due to a highly trafficed dirt road. But if it works for you, COOL!

-- Joe (joeemufarmer@yahoo.com), June 08, 2001.

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