Who else would spend their wedding anniversary heading off on a 450km round trip just to pick up some baby emus? They certainly weren’t a gift from me to him or him to me, but somehow we ended up with the task some years ago of fetching these nutty birds who were to become the latest addition to our little rural community.
Was their enclosure ready? Of course not. So, where were they going to have to go meantime? Our place of course. Arriving home late we agreed the safest place was probably barricaded in the laundry, as these were only little guys and needed warmth and shelter at night. Good decision? Nooooo.
After witnessing the mess seven emu chicks can make in two days cooped up in the laundry before being allowed out into our yard, the mind boggles as to how Noah and his family kept abreast with cleaning up the ark as they catered to the needs of their floating zoo. The prospect of 40 days and nights confined with my new charges, let alone such an array of wildlife with no hoses, no disinfectant and no means of escape would have to do something very detrimental to your emotional state, if not your olfactory senses.
Even with the floor covered I lost count of how many hours it took to clean the floor, walls, laundry trough, shelves, washing machine; you name it, if there was any possible surface that could remotely be covered in emu pooh, it was.
For most of us our experiences of emus have come mainly from wandering through wildlife parks, some of which allow them to roam free outside the enclosures. Closely guarding your lunch from that persistent pecker, avoiding those beady black eyes which sum you up in an instant and convince you they are in authority, it is easy to be intimidated, giving you every reason to give them a wide berth just in case they do something unpredictable. For me, the occasional sighting of these long legged speed machines in the wild has always been from a distance, so being launched into a close relationship with these quirky creatures was a real eye opener.
It didn't take long to discover that they absolutely ooze personality. Imagine if you can witnessing their 'flop down, roll over, kick the legs in the air, jump up, stretch the neck, hiss and take off round the yard like a screaming banshee' routine. Or sitting in a circle, backsides out, beaks in, when one suddenly jumps up, races round the circle for a few laps, then flops down again, passing on the baton to the next one who does the same thing, then another, and another. Were they doing time trials or what? Or racing around excitedly when we played music, or all sitting on the sprinkler on a hot day. Not the usual image we have of these gangly, cumbersome creatures, but their antics kept me mesmerized for hours.
From tiny stripey youngsters who would run up and gather round each morning eagerly awaiting breakfast like kids waiting for a special treat when Mum comes home from shopping, they grew into ‘blackheads’, the stage I reckon where they are most attractive. Their very spunky black spiky hairdos gave them real charisma, they grew taller and became bolder, even venturing to steal the washing out of the basket before it could make it on to the line.
We learnt one valuable lesson in emu psychology the day we tossed a pair of red undies on the head of one who’d decided they were easy pickings from the washing basket. Did they stay on his head? Nope, they made their way right down his neck, and suddenly all hell broke loose. I guess it may reflect what happens in the wild when they observe that something is definitely out of place in the pack, for in the instant that the other six pairs of eyes took in this moment their attitude to their comrade went from mate to murderous mob. With peckers working overtime they flew at him and the offending article with such ferocity we had to chase the poor victim down and whip the ‘red rag to a bull’ from him, whereupon the others simply walked away as if nothing had happened. Emus are obviously extremely blinkered when it comes to what is acceptable and what is not.
Unfortunately the crunch came when they ripped my favourite shirt and stripped it of its buttons while hanging on the line, which they promptly ate. They like their roughage. Fortunately it was around this time that these poohing machines which I had come to the conclusion needed to go fertilise some other patch of land, finally had an enclosure to go to. Moving them from one spot to another was a laugh a minute, and moving them to an even bigger site when they reached adulthood was an absolute comedy routine. Sadly, all my photo evidence is from the pre digital era, so your imagination will have to fill in the gaps.
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