 |
RHEAS
Page 1 of 2 |
|
| |
Rhea's are part of the "Ratite Family", which are
flightless birds.
They are beautiful birds. rhea's come in gray or
white.
The white rheas have blue eyes. The males are
larger than the females.
Rheas can grow to almost 5 foot tall, however, the
females are smaller, under 5 foot.
Commercially Rheas are used for their oil, meat,
feathers. Some people will use the eggs for
crafts.
The males sit on the nest and will care for the
babies.
Baby Rheas under 3 months are very fragile birds and
are hard to raise.
Based on my experience with rheas, I DO NOT
recommend them as pets. They are not very
friendly.
The male rheas are generally very aggressive and can
dangerous.
If you are looking at a rhea for pet, don't expect
it to be friendly. I highly recommend the emus
over the rheas. The emus have much more
personality than the rheas do.
|
When these Rheas fluff out their feathers they really look
beautiful. Again the male rheas are aggressive birds and I do not recommend
them as pets.
However, the Rheas do not generally fight amongst each other. If they are
confined in too small area, they can kill another bird or any other small animal
that would get in their pen.
A friend
of mine had a few rheas and a couple emus in a small pen together.
The male rhea killed one of the emus and injured the other very badly.
I never had that problem, our birds were in a very large pen together,
they all seemed to get along fine. I had 12 mixed birds at one time with
no problem.. They were all penned in about 1/4 acre. |
This picture is
of Ozzie
the white Rhea |
The picture to the left shows the ozzie (the male rhea) fluffing his feathers at
two of my small dogs.
There was a fence between the dogs and the rhea.
I would not have trusted the rhea with these small dogs.
In fact, one of my large coonhounds was in the pen, and the rheas knocked my dog
down. |
They had beautiful blue eyes.
Ozzie is the one on the left. The males get bigger than the females do.
Sorry to say, Ozzie had to be butchered because of his nasty temperament.
I tried everything to get him friendly, but I could not find a way.
It is hard to believe that one bite from his beak could cause a lot
injury.
When these rheas are babies, they are fine. but as they mature, they
completely turn mean..
If anyone is considering getting any birds as pets, I would recommend the
Emus.
|
The picture to the right is
Ozzie and Harriet the white Rhea's.
|
| Please Note: The information
provided above is based only my experience with Rheas. |
|
|
