He-mu & She-mu, our resident emus, came to us in April 2011 from an elderly couple that discovered an accidental breeding and didn’t want to raise anymore. They have been raised with close human contact, therefore are very friendly. She-mu is the dominant bird out of the two. She lays between 9 and 12 eggs and leaves while He-mu gets a trophy for being father of the year and protecting the nest. Of course, we don’t have fertilized eggs because December is such a cold month here in the US. In Australia, it would be quite warm, allowing the daddy emus to go on short jaunts without the eggs getting chilled. Here, the eggs get too cold for procreation, so we pull them. They lay about 55 to 60 eggs per season. They are not known for their incredible brains like many birds but did win the Great Emu War in 1932. Western Australia was being overrun so the government gave the military full access to cull 20,000. It was a dismal failure as the emus were very good about staying just out of range and the ability to serpentine. Very few were killed, and after one year and the birds were granted a reprieve due to the success of barrier fencing. Apparently, these birds have great respect or confusion over a man made obstruction.