This allows the female to take up to three mates per season. In captivity the removal of newly laid eggs results in repeat clutches. The male spends up to nine months looking after the young. When hatched they are stripped and gradually change to a brown by the time they are six months old. At about three years the glossy black adult plumage is fully developed.
Wild cassowaries feed on fallen fruits, fungus, snails, dead birds and rats.
They maybe responsible for the spread and propagation of certain rainforest species. At the Barefoot Bushman's Wildlife Park they thrive on rejected supermarket fruit and the seasonal crop of mangoes from the trees sheltering their enclosure.