Since this forum is so active (*sarcasm*), I thought I'd try to add a little to spruce it up. I don't expect to ever see any replies to this, but I wanted it out there for people to happen across, and there was a question about it a few posts down (and a few years earlier?!) about this particular topic.
Very few people are actively breeding cassowaries in the US - talking about C. casuarius here, not either of the other two rarer species. I know of one for sure breeder in CA, and I've heard anecdotal reports of someone in FL, some in northern LA, and maybe some Amish folks in OH or PA who breed them. None of these except the person in CA has been confirmed for me. There are a few zoos who have them - I know the Denver Zoo, particularly, used to breed them - but I'm referring to private keepers only here. There are some lone individuals, mainly males, floating around out there.
Considering the fragile nature of the cassowary's wild population, I believe captive propagation to be extremely important for them. Their forests in Australia and New Guinea are being destroyed at a phenomenal rate, so it's not likely that they will exist for many more centuries in the wild. As unfortunate as it is, captive propagation may be their last hope.
I've been working with ratites since 1996 when I was just a 7th grader in middle school. From that time, my love of these peculiar, giant birds has grown to a passion. I now breed emus and rheas yearly (including recently getting into the blond and white mutation in emus), and am trying to hatch some ostriches for future breeding. I've wanted to work with cassowaries, despite their less than flowery reputations, ever since I learned people actually had them privately. Better yet, I found out a couple years ago that a couple not 1 hr from me had a pair! After getting over being amazed and getting to see their birds, I thought "great, I finally found a place to get them in the future!"
Unfortunately, they'd already had those birds for nearly 5 years and had never produced any chicks. They usually let the male sit the nest, and he always chose poor areas. The first year they had them, they took the eggs, but they appeared to be infertile. Last summer, I got the really disappointing news that their male died while sitting on a nest. This sort of ended my hope of getting any at a later point.
Fortune appeared to smile upon me last fall though, when a friend told me of a couple in MO who had a relatively young male (4.5 yrs) they needed to sell. Not thinking it was at all possible, since they were 7 to 8 hrs away and I didn't have a trailer, I called anyway. They wanted a very nominal sum for him, and set my mind to getting him. I can be a very determined person when it comes to these birds. We ended up renting a medium Uhaul trailer and took a (long!) trip. He was everything they described and more. He was beautiful, in perfect condition, and he was completey docile! We stood in a closed-in barn with them not more than 15x15' and looked at him while talking for at least half an hour. My only experience in person with cassowaries at this point was my friend's birds, whose female is a nightmare on two legs. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous being in such close proximity with such a "dangerous species."
So, I ended up getting my cassowary after all. The couple near me who owned the now-lone female decided to let me bring him there to try to get him to mate with their female, so a couple weeks ago, I did just that. After leaving them in adjacent pens for a week and not seeing any aggressive behavior between them, we went ahead and let them into the same pen.
So far, so good. The birds appear to get along and the female didn't try to destroy him. She did her display a couple times, which if you've never seen a female cassowary's display, it's truly a thing to behold! Now is the waiting game to get fertile eggs and get them to hatch. Needless to say, I never thought I would've gone from not having any cassowaries and having no hope of getting them, to suddenly having the opportunity to produce my own chicks.
If you've made it through this far, then congratulations. I had some free time, so I decided to type this up for whomever was interested in reading. If anyone reads this who is interested in learning more about first-hand accounts of cassowaries, feel free to e-mail me directly at info@rivervalleyexotics.com. I never get tired of talking about these birds. So now all I need is a couple of Darwin's rheas and I'll be set! (yeah, that's gonna happen) As a reward for reading so much of my drivel, here are the photos of the initial introduction between Darwin (my male) and Cassie (their female).
