Ratites-Ostrich, Rhea & Emu

[juanmora19910209]

I want to work with animals. ♥

[MistyOjaiGirl]

OMG the emu's chicks are awesome! Love the stripes!

[elisei00]

GO BACK TO Britain! Australia is for indians!

[sragil]

Emu's have green eggs? I didn't know that.

[16and30]

there is a subspecie of a rhea. they call it the "lesser rhea"

[Asterion2010]

I love this video and I put it in my play list. I am an artist and I work with ostrich, rhea and emu eggshells. So this video was a special treat to me.

Carla

[dudemantwo]

God had a good day when he created our big birds...

[Ihaveamadkr3w]

cassowarys?

[dafttool]

I only have photos of the ratites I worked with, but mention Cassowaries & Kiwis in the sidebar.

[youloveicecream]

sweet

[youloveicecream]

wheres the kiwi

[dafttool]

You're right. These are pictures of ratites I worked with. I don't have any photos of kiwis (or cassowaries) because I've never worked with them. But I should add info on them in the sidebar just to be fair.

[zombierobopirate]

you forgot kiwi

[futurama140]

sorry stupid question... its posted at the end...

[dafttool]

That's alright. Ocean Lab's Satillite.

[futurama140]

what is this song? it sounds so familiar...

[chrisistoolish1]

LMFAO!!!

[pattyinla]

Gorgeous pics and I learned quite a bit from it. Well done!

[LovenDisneyStars65]

OMG OSTRICHES ROCK DEF ON MY FAVES!!!

[xristo702]

Rheas look like they would be nice pets...but I guess their temperament isn't nearly as nice as what you'd expect from an emu.

Oh well...nice work.

[mazdaspeedpower]

haha. my girlfriends name is Rhea. and I just found out that it's this bird...and she also said the Diarhea thing...haha

[lm108]

what do u call a Rhea that Die's. Take a guess. Lol.

[nicolenigro]

Well hello dafttool. I see I found you off the political boards again... I was looking for a video about Emu's for MySpace, cuz I have a pic of one in my pics and a friend of mine left a comment asking what one was. Thanks for posting this!

[hintofDelusion]

Can anyone tell me where i can find a footage of the male Emu courtship dance?

I saw it the other day on TV, but apparently its very rare to get video recording of it, as the Emu's like to do their courting in seclusion, so the programme said. So that was a rare sight and footage. But i can't find it anywhere!!!

[dafttool]

Sorry, I don't know beyond doing google and youtube searches. I saw a lot of strutting around, especially during mating season, but I can't recall ever seeing an actual dance such as the one ostriches do. Emus are very private animals, liking to keep to themselves most of the time. They like having vegetation to hide in and enjoy their privacy.

[candygirl173]

I actually own a couple of emus and they walk strange and will peck at almost anything shiney! One almost ate my earring once!

[dafttool]

Of the 3 in this video, I liked the emus the best. Ostriches were a little too dangerous to walk around safely. Rhea are drab, smallish & a bit boring. But Emus have a fair amount of personality, are curious, yet safe enough to walk around. They've got interesting coloring, blue necks, orange eyes, green eggs & weird watermelon stripes on the chicks.

[dafttool]

All of these birds are bad about pecking at shiny things though. You have to be careful they don't get ahold of anything they shouldn't.

[lavakava]

looks good to eat! i tried ostrich, its delicious and healthy!

[dafttool]

OK you win the prize for being the first to mention you've eaten an ostrich on my vid. I had a guy who said he ate a giraffe on one of my other videos. :-/ Actually ostrich meat is supposed to be quite good for you, not that I've ever tried it, and of course one egg can easily feed a family.

[OstrichEmperor]

He ate a giraffe???

Anyways, I have a couple questions...did you ever ride an ostrich, and did you ever witness them eating strange objects or doing other funny things?

I went to a zoo a while ago...I think it was maybe in the summer, but I really can't remember.

Anyways, the ostriches were way back in a closed area where it was hard to get a good view or picture of them, but I did get to see them walk, and they looked extremely awesome.They step in such a funny way!

[dafttool]

The giraffe comment was from a Brazilian guy. Translated from Portuguese, it said he ate one once. :-/

I never rode an ostrich (I did ride a 2 yr old giraffe though a couple of times). As for them eating weird stuff, we kept their area clean of anything they shouldn't eat because they picked at just about everything. I'm sure they ate rocks & sticks they shouldn't have, but we never had any problems from it. Baby ostriches like to eat grapes, which you can see me feed them in this video.

[OstrichEmperor]

That place looks like such a good zoo/animal sanctaury, I don't know if there are any like that around here!

I want to see some ratites up close, but maybe I should go to America sometime and plan a trip to a good zoo, then I shall witness the greatness of the ostrich along with it's relatives.

[dafttool]

haha "...the greatness of the ostrich..." ^_^

Yeah, I'm not sure what all Canada has to offer in zoos. The best zoo in America is the San Diego Wild Animal Park, but there are a lot of other really good zoos scattered all over the place too. The National Zoo in DC is the only place I ever saw a cassowary, but I unfortunately wasn't able to photograph it.

[OstrichEmperor]

I've heard of the San Diego one...and I want to see a cassowary, they're so dangerous and different, haha.

I find the more dangerous animals more fun to be around sometimes.When there is a risk involved, it can be more fun to play/interact with them.I've wrestled dogs (playfully perhaps but still awesome), gotten slowly snapped at by a very old rotty (LOL), and have been up close to a tiger (and an alpaca and camel) in that zoo I was saying I went to before!

[OstrichEmperor]

Have you seen that hungry hippos video?It's in my favourites, and it's funny, the guy feeds hippos by tossing things right into their readily opened mouths and plays a bit with a baby hippo.That would be so fun to do!

[dafttool]

Check out my newest video to see my dogs playing. *shameless plug* :)

[dafttool]

I'll have to check out the hippo video.

[zephyr3x3]

this is an amazing song!

[dafttool]

Yeah, it's a great song. You can find it on myspace. The band is Oceanlab and the song is Satillite.

[Amis86]

I think those animals are so cute ;)

[dafttool]

The first extravagant purchase I made was a 35mm camera. I carried it with me (in the truck or boat) at all times. At any given moment, the shot of a lifetime would present itself. I still have hundreds of more pictures to post. I've been furiously trying to digitalize and organize them into categories I think people might like to see.

[dafttool]

Oh yeah, it WAS very enjoyable. It was also about 20 years ago. (These are old photos) So far, it was the best job of my life. It didn't pay much, and was hard, dangerous work, but when you're young, none of that matters so much.

[OstrichEmperor]

Yes,it looks like everybody really likes your videos,so that probably means that you could make some money with the pictures.

[OstrichEmperor]

Very good photography there Chris!Looks very professional,like pictures you would expect maybe to see in something like a magazine or something!

[dafttool]

Thanks. I would like to be able to do something constructive with them, that could maybe make some money, and making videos seemed like a good start to that. They were all done on film originally, so doing videos has meant digitalizing hundreds of photos, which is something I'd been meaning to do for years.

[giraffepoo]

cute

[itsamouse]

you know along LONG time ago ostriches used to fly but then they could run faster so they relyed on that and they got used to running not flying that's why they don't fly now

[inneedoftherapie]

beautiful slideshow and such beautiful birds. I have just rescued 2 emu's actually yesterday. They are such amazing creatures. They have a slideshow up as well if you would like to check them out. 5 stars to you. Great vid.

[ostrichcraze54]

dafttool u rock!!!

[ostrichcraze54]

ostriches rheas and emus rox ur sox send me a messge or something sry im new to this

[dafttool]

Thanks for the comment. :) You made my day.

[ostrichcraze54]

no prob

[Deswaldso]

omg, i saw a documentary on Ostriches today, and now this, hihi

[ShortbusMooner]

How interesting! What an adventure, to have such a job! Thanx, as always, for educating & entertaining us! :)

BTW- were there no cassowaries, or did you just not get a photo?

[dafttool]

I mentioned them in the liner notes, but I never worked with them. I've actually only seen cassowaries once in my life at another zoo, and I never got a chance to photograph them. They are supposed to be particularly ill-tempered, plus like to hide in the underbrush.

[ShortbusMooner]

Oh, great! A bird on sneak-attack! LOL!

[dafttool]

Yeah, I was always told that they were too dangerous to work with, which amazed me because the ostriches we had were pretty damn dangerous, plus a lot bigger than cassowaries. They're supposed to be hard to put on exhibit too because they like to hide from view and have to be alone except during breeding season. They're just a lot of trouble for zoos to have to manage. The payoff isn't worth the effort.

[ShortbusMooner]

No, I think the ostriches are mean enough. We don't want you to get ambushed! ;)

[dafttool]

Some refer to ostriches as being domesticated, which I think is crazy. Maybe when hand-raised they aren't too bad, but left to their own devices, they can be pretty scary... and dumb. Always a bad combination.

[ShortbusMooner]

Great. A mean, dumb, giant rooster to peck you in the head! hehehe!

[sragil]

Excellent work! You should turn professional.

[dafttool]

Thanks.

[seag3159]

Very nice...always great at picking songs.

[dafttool]

I got this one from myspace.

[gruvydude]

Cool ass video. I like seeing the eggs hatching. And the ostrich dancing.

[gruvydude]

Oh, and that rhea attacking the camera's great.

[dafttool]

Thanks for all of the comments. That rhea was CRAZY. You can see how beaten up it is. It used to pick (and lose) fights all of the time.

[gruvydude]

My pleasure. Do they peck at you?

[dafttool]

Oh yeah, their pecking can give you a nasty pinch and a small bruise, but it's the kicks from all of these birds you have to worry about. They all have incredibly strong legs with sharp claws on their big toes. An ostrich could kill a lion if it tried.

[gruvydude]

Did you ever get hurt by any of them?

[dafttool]

I had to get a bunch of stitches when an emu once severed an artery in my arm (I was spurting blood). It climbed right over me, its claws just digging into me as it went (briefly) airbourne over my shoulder. I was literally ran over.

[dafttool]

Another guy I worked with once had to stay in the hospital for a little while when a ostrich stomped him into the ground. The doctors were worried about what internal injuries he might've gotten, plus he had some incredibly scary looking bruises. He was very lucky, but didn't want to have anything to do with ostriches after that.

[dafttool]

Actually, you asked before I got it all typed out. You were too fast for me. :)

[dafttool]

I put all sorts of factoids about them in the liner notes in the upper right. Male ostriches were without doubt one of the most dangerous animals I worked with. They were highly unpredictable and could disembowel you with a single kick.

[68160]

As entertaining (and cute) as ever! Who needs National Geographic? ;)

[dafttool]

You always make me blush. :)