Now that all the craze over ratites has long since passed, it is time to start looking at the practicality of these birds. A short 10 to 15 years ago, these animals fetched prices only the social elite or those willing to mortgage their lives could afford. Unfortunately, a lot of these people lost a lot of money. Around '95 to '96, the market took a huge crash and many people lost everything, or so they thought. Lots of people began slaughtering, giving away, or worse, releasing their birds because they could no longer justify to themselves a good reason for continuing to feed these "worthless" animals. It was around this time, in the late spring of '96, that I acquired my first pair of emus for $40 each, a drop in the bucket compared to the $3-6,000 they were fetching just two years earlier. These two birds made an impact on me that can't be described in enough suitable words. Watching them grow from the 24" tall striped chicks they were, to the 5' adults they became was the most amazing experience I've ever had raising an animal. I couldn't understand why so many people were giving up on these birds so quickly. So what if they weren't able to make enough to buy a car with the sale of one breeder pair? So what if they were having to spend a little money on the feed of these birds? After all, they had pretty variable tastes in food, and a suitable all-purpose feed could be bought for $4.50 or less for a 50 lb bag and could easily last a pair a couple weeks. I loved my birds to death, and when I heard of people taking 30 emus at a time down to the "bottoms" areas around here and dumping them, it just killed me. Many of the locals would use these released birds as target practice for their trucks and rifles.
Unfortunately, due to a move we were making, I had to get rid of the four emus I had (I had added another two to the "flock" as rescues a local vet had taken in). I hated doing it but I had no other choice. When we moved back 6 months later, I began looking to get more of these giant birds that had captured my heart. I was able to adopt a pair of adult emus from a local lady, and an adult male rhea from another lady. I kept these birds for a couple years, and then, about two years, in the same year, all three birds died. The rhea was harassed by a neighbor's dog until it ran into the pen and mortally wounded itself, and both emus died, one after another, for reasons mostly unknown. They were a mated pair that had been together for many years before I even got them, so the demise of one may very well have helped lead to the demise of the other. Before the emus died though, I was able to watch the male sit and hatch two clutches of eggs. There is nothing like watching these modern dinosaurs tenderly raising the babies they obviously care for so much. A rarity for emus, both the male and female assisted in the rearing of the chicks. Once the chicks reached a few weeks in age and were nice and strong (being partly raised in very natural conditions), I gave them away to other people I hoped would catch the "fever." Unfortunately, these people ended up being poor caretakers and either lost their birds due to escape, or they died.
Fast forward to today: Recently I was fortunate enough to acquire 1.2 8 year old breeder rheas. Rheas were a species that I had always wanted to raise, but when I had a male, I was never able to find a female for him. To me, they looked like ostriches, but a lot prettier, and a lot more easy to manage due to their smaller size. These birds had been laying already in the '04 season, and one of the females laid one more egg while in my care. Out of the 4 we had to incubate, we unfortunately were only able to get the one egg that was laid here to hatch, and then that baby didn't survive. But, hopes are high for the coming breeding season. We're planning to incubate around 30 eggs total and keep back 10 to 15, a mix of whites and grays. We are mainly wanting to build up a nicely sized flock and to give our older birds and much neede break.
I guess the reason for this post was to see if anyone else out there was still keeping and caring for these amazing birds, despite their now very low market value compared to what it was in the past. I may forget this post is here, so if you want to chat ratites, shoot me an e-mail anytime, rvsnakes@direcway.com.
-Chance
