Cuatro has a couple of extra legs, but that doesn’t dampen the outgoing personality of the small emu, who remains eager to meet people and snuggle with his adopted duckling siblings.
Born south of Nanaimo on Saturday, June 6, to Celina Knuff, who breeds emus at Back To Nature Acres farm, Knuff said she first thought an extra limb sticking out of the freshly hatched chick was an umbilical cord.
Soon it became clear he had two extra non-functioning back legs. One hangs out to the side, pointed forward. The other, in a slightly more problematic position, wraps around under his behind, requiring Knuff to wipe him after bowel movements.
“They’re non-functional, and because of that they get caught up in different foliage and stuff like that, so you kind of have to play it by ear with that,” she said.
“The back one is the one that’s going to be giving issues, because it is fully connected by bone … and I have to wipe that three times a day.”
To make matters more challenging, when he was born one of his two functioning feet clasped together in a sort of fist.
This is where leg braces came in, and within days his foot was unclasped and he had the ability to waddle to where he wanted to go.
“It took a lot of bending and different massages to be able to get that fist out,” Knuff said.
“People told me I probably wouldn’t be able to get the fist uncurled, but because he was so young it was best to give it a shot.”
Unrelenting, Knuff used wire, and would re-tighten the wire three times a day, slowly and carefully, shaping the foot.
“It’s been a learning experience, a lot of trial and error and re-wrapping, and just kind of making it better as best as I can.”
There is still the occasional faceplant in the grass, but the chick doesn’t seem bothered, as his curious personality takes hold and, with a little help, he’s standing up again and ready to continue his adventure.
Socially, Cuatro has had less than an ideal relationship with his birth siblings. When Knuff put them together, she said the other chicks would peck at him with their sharp beaks, trying to rip his extra legs.
This created another predicament for Knuff, but being an emu breeder, and knowing emus are social animals, she knew he couldn’t stay alone for long — so she took a risk, and introduced him to two of her ducklings.
They were a perfect match.
“People don’t understand that an emu isn’t like any other bird and they require a lot of socialization just to make them safe around people,” she said.
“They get really sad when they’re alone and stressed, the ducklings even cry when I take him … He totally needs friends, they snuggle all night long, they love each other so much.”
While Knuff typically keeps the emu chicks for two weeks before selling to a buyer, she said Cuatro isn’t going to be sold. If x-rays come back showing the chick remains healthy and not in pain, he will either be sent to a sanctuary with his adopted siblings, where he can continue to grow up alongside them in a caring environment, or remain at home.
“Quality of life is everything, because I wouldn’t want to keep him living if he was suffering, but with him being able to run around, eat and drink, do all the things — I feel like he will have quality of life if things continue to get better like they have.”