Emmie The Mad Emu
In September 2001 a beautiful emu appeared on our property. We soon learned that she was tame and would follow us around all day pushing her way in when we were trying to plant trees. Emmie has evidently been raised by humans and unlike wild emu's does not jump fences.
At first we wanted to release her back into the wild but the local Ranger warned she would probably be killed by road traffic and he was right. One day some guests left the gate open and Emmie followed them out. We found her walking along the middle of Portland Road towards Nelson but was happy to follow us back home.
Experience has shown that Emmie
cannot always be tr
usted. She occasionally becomes
excited and aggressive usually with neck feathers bristling
and making a deep throated honking noise. Whilst her beak cannot hurt
anyone those claws are a different story She hates dogs and chases
bicycles. As a result she is kept fenced off when visitors are present.
Emu's eat anything vegetable - fruit, bread, spaghetti, food scraps, anything. Visitors are encouraged to feed her by hand over the fence.
When using the Ride-on Mower she often goes berserk - Bounding away into the distance then racing around in circles and then charging and turning away at the last moment often repeating the whole procedure.
What a graceful animal . She bounds along like a ballet dancer or when frightened will speed away with head down , tail up, legs whirring around just like the "Road Runner"
Like a chicken, Emu's store food in their crop and eat a few bits of gravel to help break it up. When renovating the Dairy we found her in the back of the plumbers van getting stuck into his nuts & bolts
Emmie has proved to be an
excellent attraction for visitors, especially children, as shown in our
Visitors Book.