How hot is a broody emu?

Customer Requirement

Male emus are devoted parents. They do all the incubation of their partner’s eggs. Given they neither eat nor drink while on duty, the client’s research was into the physiological consequences of this dedicated eight-week fast. Also incubation often begins before the last couple of eggs are laid, these last laid eggs must develop 3-6 days faster than the others. A clutch of 9-11 eggs are laid over approximately 27-30 days. The client required accurate data from 54 recording channels and easy computer connection.

Equipment

• DT500 data logger
• CEM (Channel Expansion Module)
• Radio transmitter
• Radio Receiver
• Anemometer
• Sensors: Voltage sensors; Current sensors; Type ‘T’ thermocouples; Solar Radiation Sensor; Humidity sensor

dataTaker Solution

Captured male emus were anaesthetized and implanted with miniature transmitters tomonitor temperature and heart rate. One egg in their clutch was also fitted with a transmitter forthe continuous recording of incubation temperature.

A receiver connected to the dataTaker data logger picked up radio signals from the transmitters.Environmental conditions were logged at the same time and all data downloaded to a computerevery eight hours.

Voltage inputs were used for solar radiation and total radiation, current inputs for temperatureand heart rate, and type ‘T’ thermocouples for air and dew point temperatures.

A high-speed counter channel was coupled with the square-wave voltage output from a cupanemometer to directly sum the number of revolutions per recording period, providing aconvenient way of measuring wind speed. A voltage output channel pulsed the radio receivereach minute, switching it to receive data from the next transmitter.