Female emu setting a nest?

[tmacca]

We were told we have 3 female emus (all 5 years old) and this year for the first time there are eggs! Initially we found 3 just scattered on the hard dirt in the open, but then a week later found a complete nest of 9 eggs - covered in leaves and sticks.
So....do females set a nest and cover their eggs with leaves etc or do only male emus do this?
All of our emus 'boom' and no-one is currently sitting on the nest. So would I assume that the eggs are infertile and we could collect them to use? Or is one of our emus masquerading as a female??
Thanks for any advice

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC! @Pyxis, can you help here?

 

[Pyxis]

I've not heard of a female emu making a nest, but I'll be honest and say I don't really know. You could get DNA sexing to double check the genders.

I almost want to ask if, since you're in Australia, you might have a wild male visiting your ladies, but I assume they're fenced in and a male couldn't get in with them - and even if he could, I'm sure you'd notice him, haha.

Also, I read in your intro post that you just kind of inherited these guys with the property. Since they're a native animal, make sure you have the permit that you need to keep them. I've seen them confiscated from people before since they're not allowed to just be kept as pets without a permit.

 

[tmacca]

I've not heard of a female emu making a nest, but I'll be honest and say I don't really know. You could get DNA sexing to double check the genders.

I almost want to ask if, since you're in Australia, you might have a wild male visiting your ladies, but I assume they're fenced in and a male couldn't get in with them - and even if he could, I'm sure you'd notice him, haha.

Also, I read in your intro post that you just kind of inherited these guys with the property. Since they're a native animal, make sure you have the permit that you need to keep them. I've seen them confiscated from people before since they're not allowed to just be kept as pets without a permit.

Thanks for the reply. As you thought - the emus are fenced into our property and a male would not be able to get in. There also don't seem to be any wild emus around our area. And we would definitely notice another emu in the midst

And we do have a permit to keep native animals - so all is good. We transferred the permit from the previous owners and have since renewed it again. If we end up getting chicks out of these eggs, then I will have to do another one!

Thanks again