About Us
Hi there! Thanks for visiting our website. We are Carrie and Michael Schoultz. Our farm is nestled in Donaldson, Arkansas, where we raise our beautiful, very loved mobs of standard color, rare blonde, and very rare white emu. Our multi-gene-diverse mobs have bloodlines out of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Florida, Texas, Kentucky, California, North Carolina, and New York.
Dedicated to Rex
After losing one of our very first emus years ago to a slipped tendon (RIP Rex), it became a personal mission of mine to learn as much as possible about emus (leg problems specifically).
I found out that the information I was given as to their diet and environmental needs was wrong and that correct information on emus overall was very lacking. I started following people's stories online and took a deep dive into all science-based research I could find about leg problems in all species of birds because there is hardly any emu specific.
There are so many differing opinions out there, but over the years I have consistently found several common factors in Ratites and other bird species concerning leg issues:
Brooder space combined with overfeeding, mishandling of eggs, suboptimal incubation conditions (humidity in particular), and/or inadequate egg turning.
It was once thought that emu should be kept in smaller spaces to help "protect" their legs. Consider this: in nature, newly hatched chicks have been seen walking up to several miles in search of water, and they eat in small amounts (not all-you-can-eat crumble). Emu chicks in nature start out eating bugs, seeds, grains, grasses, and poop of their parents. Due to their fast growth, leg muscle strength is imperative to support their weight. When you hear about leg problems most people assume it was caused by poor genetics, slick surfaces, or vitamin deficiencies. I do believe these things can be a factor but I do not think it is as simple as that. The terrain in nature is far from what we would deem emu chicks "safe," and I believe their bodies were designed for the unpredictability of it. If you have ever seen an emu chick run, roll, and play, you would see that they are very durable, and if they slipped a tendon or splayed a leg every time they jumped or tripped, there would be no emus at all.
Lack of essential vitamins, mishandling of eggs, suboptimal temperature, humidity, and airflow during the incubating process has been proven to cause chick malpositioning, anatomic deformations characterized by retarded growth of long bones resulting in slipped tendons (perosis), rotational, splay, yolk sac abnormalities, and other obvious physical deformities in different types of bird species. The fact that fewer leg problems are seen on farms where eggs are turned through a 180-degree angle during incubation, supports the theory that insufficient turning hampers proper development in eggs, leading to generally weaker and more problem-prone chicks. I can't help but wonder why there doesn't seem to be a noticeable amount of leg problems observed in nature. I believe the majority of problems are starting during incubation. In my research and in talking to people who have hatched chicks with leg issues, it is often when they first started hatching, i.e., not understanding or monitoring proper weight loss. And then hatching perfectly normal chicks (from the same breeders) later on, i.e., more experience + better monitoring = healthier chicks. Vitamin deficiency-related leg problems were more difficult to research because of the inconsistency of feeding the same diet to breeders and the randomness of leg problems occurring even when vitamins are being supplemented to chicks.
Having multi-gene diverse emus, providing non-slick surfaces and appropriate vitamins is, of course, important, but other contributing factors should be acknowledged and, in doing so, could make a difference.
I do think sometimes there is no explanation for why these types of things happen, maybe Mother Nature just had other plans. Safety first (and common sense) always of course, but I want to help ease the minds of new emu owners or those considering owning emus. These magnificent birds are very hardy and have been around a very long time (after all, their descendants were dinosaurs).
I will never forget Rex; my love for Emus all started with him. I promised myself and him that I would keep searching for answers and sharing with others so, this website is dedicated to him.
-Carrie