How many eggs b4 the male Emu sets? How long can eggs last outside or in fridge and be viable?

[Albanydog]

We have a single pair of emus, this is the first year we are getting eggs, though our current female has laid before and our male has hatched eggs in previous years, though not last year as our female became egg bound and passed. These two have been together for a good 8+ month. For a time our female, Evie, laid here and there and everywhere and Mom took the eggs every time she found the nest and we sold them or gave them away. Mom decided to leave the eggs and see if they stayed in the same spot and would start setting. The nest reached 12 eggs and Mom decided to maybe hatch some or sell them so she has been removing the two newly laid eggs each time they are laid. The eggs in the nest are getting pretty pale and weathered, they have been there at least a month and our male is still not setting on them, but our female continues to lay like clockwork, every Wednesday and Saturday, according to Mom. I am wondering if anyone has a clue why our male would not be setting on the eggs and/or if there is anything we can do to encourage him? I understand the female will continue to lay eggs after he starts setting, is this correct? I am readying the Freezer Bator, which should have been done weeks ago, but better late then never. We would like to have a few chicks, just because, and would prefer the male hatched and raised them but if he is just going to let them go to waste I will give it a try. Mom tried hatchng 8 eggs, 65 days ago , in our little still air incubator, with no luck. Would love any advice about any of the questions I have brought up or how to have the most successful Emu hatching. Thanks!

 

[Erka97]

It sounds like perhaps your male isn't doing his jobs, if he's not setting and your eggs aren't hatching. Were your eggs quitters or just infertile?
I'm not sure about normal nest size for brooding males [internet says anywhere between 5 and 15 though there are people who know better than I on here], but I've seen people hatch eggs on here that had been stored for two months prior to setting, though of course it's better to incubate them as soon as possible.

 

[briefvisit]

How interesting! My Wild Guesses are:

Can we use the word ‘derangment’ in a non-negative sense? In the wild, a male and a female form a breeding-pair. They travel together. Come autumn, they stake out a territory. They fight to dominate it. If successful, the female lays over plus-minus ten days – into the nest they’ve chosen together – then the male plonks himself down, and starts incubating.
[And we’ll leave aside the female’s further exploits.]

So perhaps the ‘derangement’ is that your female has gone into pretty much open-ended egg-laying mode, so the pair isn’t a ‘breeding-pair’ in the normal chronological sense: stake out territory; copulate; lay; incubate.

My Crazy-Guess Solution? Get rid of all eggs. Dismantle the nest. Wait. Observe the ‘pair.’ See if they behave as a breeding-pair. Don’t interfere if egg-laying begins.

Here is a diary of what you hope to achieve:

Here is ‘Boy Emu’ kneeling up to turn his eggs: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641934/lightbox/post/9560900/id/5293486

Here is nest-building: 'about a hundred yards away in the gum trees, Boy Emu has been fussing about while standing in exactly the same spot. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume he’s building a nest.'
Post 54 here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/641934/mating-season-in-australia/50

Note: about five or six eggs – laid over some days by the female – is, we understand, the amount that ‘triggers’ the male into the ‘investment’ of an incubation.


[We have several observations of the male of a pair (of tame-wild birds under observation here) disappearing (certainly to begin incubating) in mid-winter – that is, within a time-frame of just three or four days:
BAM!! After months and months of both the male and the female turning up for their brekkie wheat at dawn every morning, only the female turns up. That’s how you know.]

Supreme Emu, Lake Muir, Western Australia

 

[Albanydog]

They are definitely breeding, we have seen them at varying times of the day and night for months now and poor Evie has a significant bald spot on the back of her head. Frankly I had no idea their breeding season would last so long. We checked the fertility of the eggs months ago before we sold any and they appeared fertile. I think the lack of success in Moms hatching attempt was "user error". I think it was a matter of her not monitoring them properly for heat, humidity and only turning them twice a day when 3 to 5 times would have been potentially more successful, especially using a small still air incubator, she needed to open it more and get the air flowing. The freezer bator has a built in fan and much larger area and I will be helping monitor the eggs this next time.

About a week ago we noticed the pair have started sleeping within a few feet of each other, where she has always preferred to sleep wherever our 2 llamas are bedding down, which is usually nowhere near where our male prefers to hang out. There was a time about 10 weeks ago when we thought the male might be "going broody" as he changed his usually sleeping spot and seemed to be setting all the time, day and night, he just didnt have any eggs under him. That is when she started laying eggs in the spot she is in now, inside the same 60x90ft fenced garden area with 8 foot of fencing all around that he had moved into, only he was setting about 40 feet straight up the fence-line from where she was laying all her eggs. After a few weeks he perked up and walked up and around the nest a couple times and then went and laid back down. This went on for about a week and then he just up and left the garden and went back to his normal behavior in the main pasture. I was wondering if he went broody and gave up because she wasn't laying where he wanted to be setting or if his strange behavior had nothing to do with her and hatching eggs! There sleeping together now seems a bit odd, given she is suppose to lay the eggs and take off while he sits, hatches and raises the young, but maybe the closer sleeping arrangement is her way of encouraging him to get with the program or something, who knows! It is literally just a guessing game at this point.

I am all for dismantling the nest and encouraging them to go elsewhere, I had to add a third gate at the end of the garden near the nest, thinking if he actually started to set on the eggs I would have to fence off the nest and they would already be familiar with the new gate when I shut the other two and took my garden back! I have corn waiting to go in the ground while these two are dork around in my garden! Heck, once the freezer Bator is at the right temp, maybe tomorrow, we could just set all the eggs she has already laid and see what happens. Then I can just close all three gates into the garden and they can both go find a nice grassy area or somewhere under a tree to restart their nest!