Ep. 189 Raising Emus for profit

Are emus dangerous? Why farm emus? Learn why your farmstead might benefit from raising emus for profit through harvesting emu oil, meat, and eggs.

In this episode of Mother Earth News and Friends, Kymara Lonergan of the American Emu Association talks with us about the benefits of keeping emus on your property. As the second-tallest bird in the world, you may think raising emus would be a near-impossible feat. But these birds have plenty of advantages that come with raising them and can be an enjoyable addition to your farmstead.

Scroll down for our episode transcript, and scroll to the bottom for our guest bio and show-note resources!

John Moore: [00:00:00] As the second tallest bird in the world, you may think raising emus would be a near impossible feat, but these birds have plenty of advantages that come with raising them, and can be an enjoyable addition to your farmstead. In this episode, Kymara Lonergan of the American Emu Association, talks with us about the benefits of keeping emus on your property.

This is Mother Earth News.

John Moore: We’d like to thank our sponsor for this episode, Brinsea, chick incubation specialists. They’ve been focusing on egg incubator design continuously since 1976, resulting in a wide range of egg incubators, [00:01:00] chick brooders, and incubation accessories. They offer unparalleled practicality, reliability, superior hatch rates, and healthy chicks. Innovation you can trust.

Kenny Coogan: Good day everyone, and we appreciate you for joining us on another exciting Mother Earth News and Friends podcast. I am Kenny Coogan, and joining me today is Kymara Lonergan, the Vice President and Regional Director of the American Emu Association. At Mother Earth News for 50 years and counting, we have been dedicated to conserving our planet's natural resources while helping you conserve your financial resources. Today we are going to learn about raising emus and why you would want to.

Kymara Lonergan is the owner of the Thunderhorse Hollow Farm, which is located in the Hudson Valley in New York state. [00:02:00] She has a lifelong passion for emu and sustainable farming. With a belief that education is empowerment, Kymara is teaching emu farming and product development classes. She has developed emu oil based and vegan farm-to-bath products, and cultivates herbs, flowers, and extremely hot peppers. She is the vice president and regional director of the American Emu Association. Welcome to the podcast, Kymara.

Kymara Lonergan: Thank you. I’m really excited about this. This is such a great opportunity and I love emu. There is nothing more that I love to do than talk about emu. So you found the right person for the right job.

Kenny Coogan: Wonderful. We’re excited and we’ve asked our Mother Earth News social media fans if they have questions. So we’re gonna start off with a few of those.

Kenny Coogan: And the first one is from [00:03:00] @Diane.Muriel. And they say, "Not to be rude, but what is the point of raising emus? What do they accomplish on the farm that is better done by them than chickens, ducks, or geese? We have poultry on pasture and we just don't get the hype about emus."

So Kymara, what are you thinking?

Kymara Lonergan: That's a great question and I, uh, I’m glad that this question was asked. Emu are amazing animals for agriculture.

First of all, they are low impact on your land, so they’re soft footed and they, um, they do not ruin the land as much as other animals would. Other types of livestock. They are, their digestive system is very elementary, so their, um, food that they consume does not sit in their intestine for long [00:04:00] and it gets passed out rather quickly, does not accumulate ammonia, and can be used immediately for fertilizer. Whereas chicken, eggs and other, um, types of poultry, you have to age the fertilizer. The feces for fertilizer. Emu are used for meat and oil. Once emu are about two to three years old, if you want to process them, you can use the fat through the processing for emu oil, which is very valuable on the cosmetic market.

And the meat is extremely desirable by, um, folks who are afflicted with the alpha-gal allergy because it's theoretically the only red meat that these people can eat without having an allergic reaction. 98% of the emu is usable, so there's very little waste, um, in, in processing [00:05:00] emu. Even the bones are used for jewelry and art. The eggs are used for, um, art as well, the shells, but the eggs are equal to 8 to 12 chicken eggs. So you can get a, a tremendous amount of, um, egg nutrition out of one emu egg.

Kenny Coogan: All right, so I wanna ask you about the, uh, alpha-gal allergy. So can you just talk a little bit more about that?

Kymara Lonergan: Well, the alpha-gal allergy is the result of an autoimmune reaction to the Lone Star tick bite. Now, I’m not a physician and I can't really give you a lot of medical information about it. But there's many alpha-gal support groups in the world. But one of the things that happens is that when people are, uh, afflicted with this, they have a tremendously, um, bad reaction to red mammalian meat.

[00:06:00] Emu meat is considered a red meat and it is very low in fat, by the way, which is awesome. But it is the only red meat that so far they have found that people with alpha-gal allergy do not have a tremendous reaction to, and there's a great demand for emu meat from that community. That tick, uh, used to be found mostly in the South, and it's migrating north, so it won't be long before it is up in New York state, Maine, et cetera.

Kenny Coogan: Winnifred Hollingsworth writes, "We raise emus on our farm. Absolutely love them. Their meat is lean and delicious, and it takes spices and flavoring very well." And then Joanne Hageman writes, "I tried to help a group of farmers break into the commercial meat mainstream in the early nineties. The grant I wrote was not funded, and the commercial viability of emu meat was not embraced. I have not [00:07:00] seen it yet. The meat is lean and far more healthy than beef."

So, what you’re saying is that people are more into the meat now than the nineties. Is that just because of marketing? Is it from the alpha-gal allergy? Is it because people are more curious when they’re, you know, more, um, excited to try different things?

Kymara Lonergan: Well, in the nineties, um, that was, you know, there, there actually was a market for emu meat and emu products and emu oil based cosmetics and bath products. So I think honestly, since that time though, in, in, uh, addition to the alpha-gal allergy, people are becoming a little bit more global with what they are looking to consume in their diet.

I do believe that the alpha-gal allergy has had a higher impact. But I will tell you something that's really important. And what's super important about emu farming is that in our country, in the United States and probably all over [00:08:00] the world, of course, um, farmland is shrinking. It's really shrinking to development. And, um, because of that, emu are a very, very good addition to your livestock inventory because they can be raised on relatively small area and, um, and as I said, lower impact to the land. And that is another reason why emu are coming into the news more and being more recognized.

And an addendum to this with the, uh, grant reference. Now the USDA will, in fact, uh, in fact right now there's a value added grant that's available and, and farmers can write for that grant. Um, emu are considered in that grant, uh, as part of the package. And so yes, the, this is going to bring more notice to the, the emu industry. It's a different [00:09:00] time than the nineties. We’re moving on into the emu future.

And I want to say something as well, and I wanna stress this. Um, emu are livestock. They are considered livestock by the USDA. They are considered livestock by New York State Ag in markets. Um, so it's just the same as having, uh, livestock on your farm. And when you say, well, I don't know, you know, the hype about them or, you know, it's up to you to create your own hype about marketing your farm and your product.

Kenny Coogan: So when figuring out if you can add emu to your homestead, you’re saying that emu are livestock and not exotic animals?

Kymara Lonergan: Exactly, they are not exotic animals. We just went through a little bit of a scare here in New York state where a bill was being proposed to include emu and ostrich as, um, exotic animals that [00:10:00] can't be owned. And I jumped right on that and the, the senator was really quite, receptive to learning about how emu are beneficial to homesteading, and they struck it from the bill. So it's really important that people realize emu are a livestock. There's a huge pet hype about emus as pets. Unless you have the right space, which equates to a farm, right? A farm space. Emu aren't really the best pets in the world.

Kenny Coogan: So we have a question about regenerative farming and kind of about space. So for the listeners, I wanna remind them that sustainable agriculture is trying to maintain systems without degrading them, whereas regenerative farming applies management techniques to restore the system to improve productivity.

So regenerative farming usually includes things like, creating a soil armor by allowing plant litter to accumulate, adding [00:11:00] plant and animal diversity, having plants and roots grow continually, and integrating livestock to disperse seeds and fertilize the fields and minimize soil disturbances.

So with that background, Kymara, @MelHacker78 says, "How about regenerative farming with emu?" Do emu graze? Do they fertilize as they graze, and do they disperse seeds, and can you integrate them with other livestock?

Kymara Lonergan: So emu are grazers and they need to graze. They are fed, uh, you know, pelleted feed. But, and I will use my farm as an example, uh, my emu have about a half an acre, I have two here, to graze. And they are not only consuming and spreading seeds, but they are fertilizing the land. The thing with emu is that if you, silvopasture farming [00:12:00] is, um, is so necessary these days and so, they are perfect for silvopasture farming. They are grazing amongst the trees. They are just so beneficial. They’re very low impact on the land, and they are, they’re like a bird fertilizer to your land. They’re, they’re such a benefit to the farm.

As far as integrating with other animals, now there are many farmers that have emu and pigs and chickens and rabbits running around. And I will tell you, I’m a bit old school. My family, uh, had a, they raced game birds up in the Berkshires a long time ago, and I had it drummed into my head not to co-mingle species because of disease. And right now there, there is a problem in the United States with high pathogen avian influenza. So this virus is so, so [00:13:00] contagious that it can be spread. When the vet comes to see your horses, it could be on the shoes of the vet. You can't simply just spray bleach on the shoes to get rid of the virus. It, it's very tenacious. So we keep the emu up the hill, and we keep the horses down the hill, and I don't let my dog in with them because of course he's rolling all over the place and he can bring in, uh, bird droppings to my emu.

So I personally, and I’ve been successful with this and my family was too, we do not co-mingle our animals, but it is a trend amongst people to do that. And that's the choice that people have to make.

Kenny Coogan: Do emu pull up the roots of grasses as they eat? Or do they just eat the top part?

Kymara Lonergan: Sometimes they do. Um, if you plant a delicious flower, they will eat it. But they [00:14:00] will, they will spread it. So sometimes they do. And uh, one of the things I try to do with mine is I will plant things that slowly grow in the spring. So it just is sort of natural to their environment and it's not something new that they will peck. But even if they, they do, of course, they spread, generally will spread the plant if it's spreadable, they are fence walkers. So they will walk along the fence line, and that is an area of high traffic. But of course, life isn't utopia.

Kenny Coogan: This Mother Earth News podcast fan, their name is, @UnicornsAreMyPowerAnimal, and they write, they write, "Emus are terrifying. Once you’ve stood next to one, you’ll never question whether birds are descended from dinosaurs." Now, Kymara, I studied abroad in Australia, and I remember vividly [00:15:00] visiting an emu farm that had many, many rolling acres. And the farmer did a call or he shook on like a feed container. And I remember about 50 to 75 emus come running over the hills towards us, and it was very enchanting. So, uh, Kymara, how large do emus get, and should we be scared of them?

Kymara Lonergan: Okay. Emu can be up to a hundred, over a hundred pounds. There's several different ways, several different high, very highly respected farms here in the United States. Um, one of them, and I talked to each one before this podcast. So one of them is, is Amaroo Hills, and he's amazing. He's a meat and oil farmer and he's all business. He says, no, you should never be interacting with your emu. And they are raised to [00:16:00] a certain point for, you know, for financial, um, sustainability, and they’re processed and, and we don't, we don't deal with that.

There's other people who have their breeder pairs that are lifelong emu living on their farm, and they do interact with their, their breeder pairs. My farm, I have a background in anthropology and archeology, so I’m a, I’m a kind of a observer of things before they, animals, before I’m interacting with them. And those two are my study birds. So I handled and studied them constantly. And I will tell you what happens in my observation, one-on-one with emu. And I live close. There, there may be. I’m gonna tell you, they’re 20 feet off of my bedroom window. So I am that, uh, much of a student of an emu, right? Uh, there are certain times of the year when hormonally [00:17:00] they, well the males are more docile than the females because they raise the young and they sit the eggs.

But there are times, especially when they’re considered teenagers, like before they’re two, that they will test you and they’ll get a little hissy, you know, and they’ll, they’ll, you know, they’ll wanna sort of protect their environment or what they might get a toy and consider it to be an egg that they’re sitting on or whatever the case may be. It's just like a horse. You have to establish your ground and you have to use common sense. You don't stand in front of an emu cuz they kick forward. And it's the same with a horse, you know, they’re gonna rear and kick forward. So you stand to the side.

Yeah. They look terrifying to people. I, I have people that come by here cuz they can see my emu from the gate and, and they say, ah, they’re gonna put your eye out. You know, and, and of course, you know, I mean, they have a big beak and they look like dinosaurs. But, uh, the truth is they’re, they’re quite intelligent. [00:18:00] And like any animal, if they see you’re afraid or you start flailing and running, of course they’re going to, you know, come up to you and, and scare the heck outta you.

The females can be a little more aggressive, and those, I wouldn't want to study them as closely and I would keep them more like Amaroo Hills does, at arms length. And they’re definitely for the, for the, um, purpose of breeding and laying eggs. But they’re not, they’re not horrifying, honestly.

Kenny Coogan: Yeah. They’re, I mean, looking at their face, they’re beautiful.

So a precaution to take when working around them is like, don't stand in front of them because they can kick. Is that the most dangerous part? And not, and not so much the beak?

Kymara Lonergan: You know, I, I’m gonna be tell you some things that, uh, I’ve learned. And I think other farmers, cuz most of the farmers, you know, they’re over 55 in this country. That seems to be the median age. So here's one [00:19:00] thing that happened to me. I had cataract surgery, and when you have your cataract lens in, they shine. And the emu are attracted to shiny things. So if you have that type of surgery to your eyes, you, you really should wear some goggles or glasses, um, because they are….

Kenny Coogan: You’re making me nervous, Kymara.

Kymara Lonergan: No, no, no, no. I mean, you know, you don't want, or, or earrings, you don't wanna wear earrings, necklace, so that they would pull it. But of course parrots will do the same thing, you know. Um, you have to use common sense. Uh, you don't wanna put your face up against an, an emu.

Kenny Coogan: It's not a cute, uh, silky chicken. This is a, a very large bird.

Kymara Lonergan: It's a large bird to be respected.

Kenny Coogan: Yeah. And can, real quick question. How long do emus live if we’re not culling them for meat?

Kymara Lonergan: They can live, uh, much to my son's, uh, horror, they can live [00:20:00] to be 30 to 50 years old if properly cared for in captivity.

Kenny Coogan: And what size fence is adequate for an adult emu, and, uh, how much acreage should we be giving to each emu?

Kymara Lonergan: Ideally, for your, your peace of mind and your, your safety, keep your emus contained. Your fence should be at least six foot high. And if your, uh, land allows it, where we are, it's a lot of rock, try to get it six foot deep into the ground so that they can't push against it and knock it over.

And you want your fence to be of a meshy link, but small enough so they can't put their head through. Because that could be a terrible accident. And small enough so that predators cannot get through, and that is also including the, uh, digging underneath. My two are perfectly happy on a [00:21:00] half an acre.

If you are raising emu for profit, you can get about 10, uh, emu into less than a half an acre because they’re not really hanging around there forever. You’re gonna process them by two years. But they still need room to move around. So you, you can get them in quite a, uh, a small enough area where you can get a bunch of them that it would be profitable to keep them.

They do have to have a three, at least a three-sided shelter because high wind and rain are the enemy of the emu, besides certain predators. So their feathers are not oil covered like a duck would be. And if they get wet and windy, they get wet to the skin, and that's when you could have a have a problem.

Kenny Coogan: We usually say that for raising chickens and ducks, you should have like three to five individuals so they are in a little [00:22:00] flock and they feel comfortable. What about emu? What's like the minimum number that somebody should be raising?

Kymara Lonergan: You should never have an emu alone. Uh, they need to have a buddy. I have two males at this time. To really homestead and to raise emu to have anything profitable, you’ve gotta have, at least, in my opinion, four breeder pairs. That's, that's your minimum. But you’ve gotta be able to have a way to separate your birds. You can't just throw ’em all in together.

So you have to separate your birds because you don't know if they’re always gonna get along. If there's gonna be a thunderstorm and they’re gonna think each one of them is causing it, sometimes they will peck at, at ticks or something on each other, and that will cause continuous pecking. And that could lead to some real, uh, physical damage for the birds. So you, you always need to be able to separate [00:23:00] them, and you need to be able to separate the females from, from the males because you want your females to deposit the eggs and your males to be sitting on them so you can take your eggs out or hatch them.

Kenny Coogan: We’ve kind of mentioned this a few times about raising emu as a profitable business, so what does that entail? We got the birds and then, I know we can sell their meat, but are people buying their feathers? Or I’ve seen people decorate their eggs. But like, how do we make it profitable?

Kymara Lonergan: The profit for emu right now, the profit for emu is in the oil. So you have to process your emu at the the right time so that you’ve got enough fat and enough meat to make money from your bird. Your feathers, you can sell too. I mean, the feathers are used for all kinds of things from art projects to, um, buffing out, uh, scratches on, on [00:24:00] cars and, and, you know, on these roller brushes. But honestly, the profit is in the meat and, and the oil.

Now for, with what I do, I have other ways of making money from emu, and that's something that homesteaders need to look at as well. Uh, and that carries through to all your, all your animals on your farm.

Kenny Coogan: And you are a no-kill farmer, or at least in regards to emu. So how are you benefiting financially from owning them?

Kymara Lonergan: So I’m a no-kill farmer just because that's what I, I, I just never had it in me to eat stuff that, that I raise. And, you know, my family did. And, you know, my grandmother would just pick up a chicken and that would be it. But I, I just can't, I, I didn't inherit that, uh, ability.

And what I do is I, I’ve made my emu the farm ambassadors. But that being said, they’ve become local celebrities and I matched [00:25:00] them up, uh, with a musician who has been extremely supportive of, of my business. And he is a drummer. He's Prairie Prince from The Tubes and he tours with Todd Rundgren. And um, he's an artist, so he's done all of my labeling and his name, uh, on the art has helped to promote my birds, obviously, of course, too.

And all of my bath products have something to do with an animal on my farm. So I’m marketing my birds through my products, but I am using oil in some of them from other farmers. So I’m supporting other emu farmers. But I’m making money by selling my, my products through my birds, if that makes sense.

Kenny Coogan: And how do you get the emu oil? I know you were talking about like rendering the meat. Um, can you not separate the oil from the meat and just [00:26:00] have a fatty steak? Or it just naturally separates?

Kymara Lonergan: So one of our farmers, um, who, who is a, has been processing emu forever, he says, no, no fat, no meat, no money. And that that's true. So you, you can't separate the fat from the meat. In fact, when you are processing your birds, you want to do it at a time when the meat and the, uh, fat are about 45 pounds total. Okay. So that's when they’re about two to three years old.

And, uh, the way you can kind of tell if how that fat is the old school way is to lay your hands on your birds and run along the, um, the line of the, the back and you can kind of feel where the fat is. And that, that's the old school way. But basically like a, a big farm like Amaroo Hills, they’re, they’re looking at a certain period of time when, boom, they all must be processed at, [00:27:00] at a certain way and two to three years old.

Kenny Coogan: @AtHomebeauty asks, "What are the benefits of emu oil and body care products?"

Kymara Lonergan: Emu oil, it's very transdermal, so it is not going to clog your pores like other creams and, and, um, types of products. It is a great carrier oil. So your herbs and, uh, various other ingredients that are in the emu oil will pass on to the skin in, uh, a faster way. It is refined to the point of what would be considered food grade, although it is not food grade yet, there hasn't been enough research out yet. And, uh, the refineries take a lot of care into purifying the oil. As a perfume carrier [00:28:00] oil, it is, it's, it's really one of the best you can use. And as a adjunct to other oils such as, oh, I don't know, hemp oil or, or CBD oil, it also helps to, uh, move those properties onto the skin.

Kenny Coogan: All right, I wanna go back about 20 minutes when you were talking about caring for the emu, and you talked about the high pathogen avian influenza. So we gotta talk about raising them healthy and safely. I know you mentioned like, uh, foot bath sanitizer, things like that, or you know, foot baths. So is there any other things that we should be doing to keep the emu immune healthy in regards to avian influenza? Because it's kind of a pandemic right now with that around the world.

Kymara Lonergan: So this is how I have been coping and, and I know a lot of farmers out there that, that are listening to Mother Earth or fans of Mother Earth News. They’re small [00:29:00] farmers like me and they don't know what to do. It's a very mysterious and scary situation. Uh, you can look at the USDA site and suddenly it's in your county and there's so many ducks or chickens euthanized.

I did two things. Because my family had been so adamant about spreading disease, they were part of that polio generation, you know. I said to myself when I, when I set the farm up, I’ve gotta find a way to keep these birds covered, even though they’re big, even though they’re known to not wanna be in a shelter.

So I bought this ShelterLogic kind of garage thing that you would put a car in. And I hooked it up to a, what we call a cottage. The cottage is plastic and it's big. It's like a, a person could live in this cottage, but it's easy to wash down. And we have rubber [00:30:00] mats and um, I use a lot of straw, like wheat straw, in there, rye straw, wheat straw. I make sure water can't run underneath because it it, it can, and that's one way that the bird virus is spread. It loves, it lives in this cool water when, when your wild birds pass manure into the environment. And the birds have enough room to be in there and covered. I go on BirdCast, which is from Cornell University, and I look at high migration times, and if I see that they’re migrating, we’re in the Atlantic Flyway. If I see that there are high migration times, those birds are in there and they can honk all they want. They’re in there with their food. I keep their water fresh and I’m supplementing. They, they happen to love parsley, so I give them their greens. They have insects come in there that they’re pecking [00:31:00] at, and that's how I’ve been coping.

I keep their food covered and I clean the area that they are in, uh, during the day. I make sure as much as I can that there's no wild bird feces in there. There's no water, large water body. Although we are near the Hudson River, I don't have a giant pond and have them hanging out with ducks and such. They are in their own environment.

We no longer have offsite workers coming in here. Uh, I just don't allow it in, in, uh, their area. They’re in a very distinct place now. I have them in when the geese start to once again move around here, which is around sunset. So they don't come out at all until after dawn and they’re in before sunset.

They eat a balanced diet. We are very, very fortunate here in, [00:32:00] um, New York and in New England area to have Poulin Grain Ratite. I call it Emu Chow . It's a very, very balanced diet so I don't have to mess around, um, just physiologically with what they’re eating and it's kept them super healthy. And I really am very vigilant about any kind of nasal discharge, eye discharge, strange behavior on their part.

These are the things that I’ve done to cope. I change my clothing. I don't wear the same clothes with the horses as I do with the emu, cuz you know, the horses are out rolling around in the mud and, um, that dust taking off a horse sheet, whatever, it's coming on me.

In the cooler months of the year, that virus is more spreadable, although they have found that this year it has not gone away like it would have expected to be. Um, so in the cooler months of [00:33:00] the year, I do keep them under the cover of that, that tent more. In the hot months of the summer, that heat is what that virus does not like. So we pray for the sun and for the warm earth to kind of calm things down. But it is always a threat. We don't know enough about it right now.

There is no vaccine for it. There is one allegedly being developed in Europe, but the USDA does not have a vaccine that is readily available for it right now.

But here's the good news. There is a doctor in a veterinarian in Colorado who has been vigilantly researching this, and his opinion is that ratites may not be as susceptible as chickens or other animals.

And that doesn't mean that you have to be Mr. Farmer-Devil-May-Care. It [00:34:00] means that maybe we have a good chance with our emu and our ostrich, and maybe, maybe we’ll find a way that our emu will evolve to not be susceptible to this virus as much as other birds.

So you gotta keep your shoes clean. You should just wear a dedicated pair of shoes into your emu area. Go on the USDA Defend the Flock website, your local extension service and farm service agency. They’ll have plenty of information. This veterinarian and I’m gonna look. He is from Colorado and he has an excellent, excellent blog. Hi, It's uh, NelsonRoadVet.com. He has so much information about emu, it's unbelievable. Besides the American Emu Association.

Kenny Coogan: Yeah. So we’re gonna link all that, including the Defend the Flock. With that information and then the biosecurity measures, and then also of course, feeding them, uh, [00:35:00] the proper, uh, nutritious diet, they should be good to go.

All right, we’re gonna take a quick break in our conversation to hear a word from our sponsor, and when we return, we will learn all about emu eggs and raising emu chicks.

John Moore: Brinsea products are designed to be long-lasting and energy efficient. Their Advance Series incubators and brooders feature the latest state-of-the-art digital control systems, providing instant readings of temperature and humidity to ensure successful hatches and healthy chicks. Check out Brinsea incubators and more at www.Brinsea.com.

And now back to our conversation with Kymara.

Kenny Coogan: We are back with Kymara Lonergan, the Vice President and Regional Director of the American Emu Association. [00:36:00] Now, when I think of emus, I think of those gorgeous gray, teal, and emerald green eggs. How many eggs does an emu lay, and are they seasonal layers?

Kymara Lonergan: Yes, they are seasonal layers and they will lay, well, they start to, to breed in the end of October and they will lay until February, around February, and the female will lay 20 to 40 eggs. So it, it depends like how amorous she is and how hot the male is to her. But, um, they lay about every three days.

Their eggs are equivalent to one dozen chicken eggs, so that's pretty cool. And they’re higher in selenium and other vitamins.

Kenny Coogan: Are they easy to incorporate into recipes? Because I just tasted my first guinea eggs [00:37:00] like a week ago, and I got three dozen guinea eggs and I offered them to lots of people. And we were all wondering, do any eggs taste different? Because if I didn't tell these people that they were guinea eggs, they would’ve just assumed they were chicken eggs. And I also have ducks, and I just feel like all eggs taste the same. So is that true for emu eggs?

Kymara Lonergan: Well, emu eggs are a little bit oilier, however, they, they have a good, rich taste.

They’re not, it's not an offensive taste. Like there's some eggs, like, um, maybe pheasant eggs or something that have a more nutty taste, but emu eggs, they don't. And, and we all know as farmers that, that our free range chicken eggs taste a lot different than what we’re gonna get on the shelf somewhere that's been hanging around, you know. So most farmers, you know, our, our eggs are, are very fresh, and emu eggs are [00:38:00] a little bit oilier, so you have to sort of adjust your recipe.

The American Emu Association, uh, and the Emu Today and Tomorrow magazine does have an emu cookbook. So there are recipes and information for, for how to use eggs and cooking on the websites.

Kenny Coogan: When starting a emu flock, is it better to start with eggs, chicks, or adult birds?

Kymara Lonergan: Ah, most people start with eggs and they wanna hatch their eggs.

Kenny Coogan: My next question is, do you suggest new emu owners to raise the chicks themselves or get a brooder? I know you’re saying that they, they do usually get the eggs, but is it recommended?

Kymara Lonergan: You know, if I was a person starting a farm, a homestead farm, you should get yourself a breeder pair and have your, your emu laying [00:39:00] eggs. That's your choice. That, or get your eggs and, and don't, don't let your male emu hatch the eggs. You don't wanna do that. You wanna get a, a, a decent incubator and hatch your chicks in the incubator. And, and that's, that's the way to really start.

Kenny Coogan: And if the dad is raising them, how long does he care for them?

Kymara Lonergan: It's about eight months, I believe it's about eight months. But you don't wanna do that. You don't wanna do that, because if the male raises the chicks, now you’ve got a problem, because the chicks are not going to be habituated to people. It could be a problem in a small homestead. You wanna keep them separated and, you know, sell your chick, sell your your eggs and, and don't, you don't wanna do that. That's a fairly idealistic . It's not a good idea.

Kenny Coogan: And uh, you mentioned earlier that there's a formulated pellet for adult [00:40:00] ratites. What about the chicks? What are we feeding the baby emus?

Kymara Lonergan: You know, emu feed is a big subject in the world, and, um, what I decided to do was go to the source where, where people are really in, in my area. There's other information in the West, Northwest, et cetera. Right here where I am in my experience, I called the Poulin Grain people and I said, all right, I’m gonna do a Mother Earth thing, don't make a fool of me. I need to know what do I, what do you recommend? Because you people have scientists working for you. What do you recommend about feeding chicks? And this is what they told me.

They said, as soon as the chicks are hatched, offer them grain. Offer them the grain. Don't give them cracked corn. Because only cracked corn is a treat, but the grain has all the nutrients in it. [00:41:00] That formulation goes through the entire life cycle of the bird.

So once they start eating that grain, as long as they have an ability to, um, supplement with their, you know, their grass and insects and the occasional frog or snake, which will, we won't go there right now, but. They, um, they will get the proper nutrition and their pelleted grain has 23% protein. Cuz protein is a big problem with, with emu. You know, if they have too much protein they can grow too quickly and it's not good for their, for their legs or their mobility. It could lead to a lot of health problems for them.

Kenny Coogan: So, uh, we were talking about predators earlier, so I can imagine there's gonna be a lot of predators for a little baby emu chick. So we’re just gonna assume that listeners know that they need to protect the chicks.

Kymara Lonergan: You can't just be, be throwing ’em out there. You can't. They have to get to a [00:42:00] certain age. Like, um, maybe two to three weeks. You start putting ’em outside a little bit and, and let ’em get used to, they have to run because they need to strengthen their legs.

But they, the thing is when they are chicks, if they’re like, you have an open space, and it's like the plains right? Those hawks will come down and take ’em. I mean, I, I have these, I don't know what they are, circling my emu all the time. They, they like have a knife and a fork and a, and a bib on looking at my emu, but they, they’re too big now, so they can't touch them. They just fantasize.

Uh, but there's other predators and one of the, one of the big problems I face are fishers, uh, also known as fisher cats. I mean, they’ll come and eat, eat the babies. They, they’ll be gone. You, you have to keep ’em inside. I, I had ’em in my basement.

Kenny Coogan: This is like a 20 to 30 pound wild cat, right?

Kymara Lonergan: No, it, it's like a weasel thing and….

Kenny Coogan: Oh, even smaller.

Kymara Lonergan: [00:43:00] It is the only predator of the porcupine. So the fishers are, are lethal to, to your animals. Even your, your chickens. They will confound a porcupine, roll it over, gut it. And they will hunt out a whole area and just drag their prey into a tree and come back and eat it later.

So they, they hunt in, um, about three mile radius, and your smaller animals, like your emu chicks and your chickens, are not safe. And of course, raccoons will, you know, they’ll pull a head off a chicken. I mean they, they are a problem and they’re also a problem, um, they’re scat is a problem for emu, which we can talk about later.

Once emu get to a certain point though, of course they have claws. And you know, you could have a wild cat, not a big cat out west, but a bobcat here. So if that comes wandering into the emu area, it's gonna be like, [00:44:00] whoa, that thing, you know, I don't have a chance and off it's gonna go. Uh, my emu are very vocal, so if I’m sleeping and I hear them grunting, I know something's out there. They’re like my watch birds.

And also as far as predators go, there are livestock guardian dogs that you can raise with your emu and they will, um, defend your emu to the death. Now what I did was I got a cattle dog, and that was a terrible mistake cuz all he wants to do is herd the emu. So the emu harass him and he harasses them. So don't do that. But, um, there are livestock guardian dogs that will protect your emu.

Kenny Coogan: Well, if you go to Countryside, which is uh, is under Mother Earth News, I wrote an article on Livestock Guardian Dogs that you can read. I didn't mention emus though.

Okay, so for the adult emu we were, when we were talking about the fencing, you did mention you don't wanna have predators going underneath the fence. So, um, I [00:45:00] mean obviously there's bears and bobcats, but, coyotes, foxes. Are we concerned about those medium size predators?

Kymara Lonergan: Yeah. Um, so my, my area, there's a chainlink fence around where my birds are, but then there is the dog, and then there's another chainlink fence. So they have to come through two barriers.

And I thought of that because when we had our game bird farm, we always had two barriers for our pheasants and um, quail and such. So I always like to have an extra if, if you can afford it, of course, you know, an extra area. But that extra area you can use to also isolate your birds if you need to separate them, that's another thing.

Yeah. You do have to worry about, about coyote, wolves, coydog. And I’m not gonna lie to people, you know, there, there, there is a risk. Even though those [00:46:00] birds can kick and even though they, they’re strong, right? There's always a risk in farming with, uh, with predators.

Kenny Coogan: And can you, uh, follow up with that raccoon scat? Why is that a health hazard?

Kymara Lonergan: So, raccoon scat, there is a bacteria a a, um, it's a bacteria that is in the feces. And it will live for 12 years in the dirt. Now emu peck at everything. They peck, peck, peck, peck. And if they find feces, they’re going to eat it. And that scat, that that organism, goes into the spinal cord and up to the brain and will kill the bird.

However, we’ve had a member who has treated an active case of that brain worm infection with ivermectin pour-on cattle wormer. And she has placed a nickel sized spot on [00:47:00] the back of the emu neck, and that emu has survived that infection, but it still has some neurological problems.

The best way to avoid this is to worm your emu every month. I was told to use Panacur syringe in the mouth. The problem is that the um, tracheal opening is very prominent and very close there, so the emu can aspirate that and you’ll kill ’em, right? I stopped doing that and I bought a big old honkin’ container of Panacur, and I’m just putting it on their neck. And some people do put it in the water. And the emu may reject the water at first, but after a while they will drink it within the water. But that's a real, that's one of the big threats for emu.

Kenny Coogan: And we wanna remind listeners that if they’re using medicine or prescription off species or off [00:48:00] breed to consult your vet.

Kymara Lonergan: Always consult your vet.

Kenny Coogan: Yes. All right. Uh, the last question is, what kind of environments can the emu handle? So I’m assuming we wanna raise them in an environment similar to what they’re, you know, found in, but are there, uh, minimum temperatures or maximum temperatures that we need to worry about? I know you mentioned the wind and the rain and the thunderstorms kinda put them off.

Kymara Lonergan: So some farmers, some of the real old school farmers. They’re not in business anymore, but there was one up in Vermont. And they talk about how they leave the emu out 24/7 and they lay in the snow, and they become an igloo, and the snow insulates them, which makes sense, right? And their emu were fine.

But honestly, emu can't walk on ice. So here where I am in New York state, which is near the Catskills too, we get [00:49:00] so much ice in the winter. And I’m out there chipping, chipping, chipping, ice. I look like Popeye after a while, but you, they just cannot walk on that ice. I, I wouldn't invest in a commodity or into something that I wanted to make money off of and chance that they could splay a leg.

So ice is bad. Slippery surfaces are bad. When it's icy, I found I use a lot of the ashes from the wood stove. Boy, does that work. That's amazing.

But the thing is EMU are adaptable. So we live in sort of a hilly, mountainy kind of area. There's people in Colorado that have ’em on the top of a mountain. They’ve all done fine with them. Mine are adapting really well to here.

One of the things about environment that is, I’m experiencing, that is hard on my birds are the, uh, midges that come out. They’re like these little tiny gnats and they tend to [00:50:00] really eat away at their eyes. Um, I have contacted my vet and he's given me an antibiotic ointment for, for this, and it does help, and I do put emu oil around them to keep these flies away. And ticks they do cuz they lay with their neck out. So ticks will come and, and find a home there. So I, I look for them.

Uh, the other thing about the environment is if you are in a place that is mosquito ridden, and it doesn't even matter, anywhere. You have to contact your vet and you have to get information about vaccinating them for East and West Nile virus, cuz that will kill, in my opinion, it’ll kill ’em.

So it's the same like a horse. They have to be vaccinated in the spring and in the fall, uh, after six months is when they start.

Kenny Coogan: Kymara, where can listeners learn more about the American Emu Association?

Kymara Lonergan: You would go on the website, [00:51:00] AEA-Emu.org, and there is tons of information on there, an incredible amount of information. And if people become members, then they get access to even more information. And there is also a magazine that kind of works hand in hand with the AEA, it's called Emu Today and Tomorrow. And you can subscribe to that. And there's plenty of information in there.

And, and there's something important I have to say. When I talk about emu to people, there are people that have chicks that’ll put out a leg, they’ll get a splay leg. Most of the time when that happens, I, I wanna put the reality out there and get that message out there to people. That bird is not going to be saved. Don't have surgery on it. Don't make a sling for it. It's done. You can't fix it. It's sad, but that's what happens. [00:52:00] Um, so it's very important that your emu are on a non-skid surface. You have to be very conscious of what they’re walking on. That's really important, people. Please.

Kenny Coogan: All right. You’ve heard it here. So thank you so much, Kymara, for speaking with us. Our conversation on raising emus was very interesting and enlightening.

Kymara Lonergan: Thank you. I, I am so pleased and, and, uh, so happy that you guys invited us to, to get the word out and to get education out about emu.

Kenny Coogan: Thank you. And we thank you, the listener, for joining our podcast and encourage you to share it with your friends, colleagues, and family. To listen to more podcasts and to learn more, visit our website, www.MotherEarthNews.com. You can also follow our social media platforms from that link and ask future podcast questions.

And remember, no matter how brown your thumb is, you can always [00:53:00] cultivate kindness.

John Moore: You’ve just listened to our episode about raisings emus. You can reach us at [email protected] with any comments or suggestions.

Our podcast production team includes Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, and Kenny Coogan. Music for this episode is "Travel Light" by Jason Shaw.

This Mother Earth News and Friends podcast is a production of Ogden Publications. Learn more about us at www.MotherEarthNews.com.

John Moore: Thanks again to Brinsea, our sponsor for this Mother Earth News and Friends podcast.

You, too, can experience the Brinsea difference and maximize your hatch rates with Brinsea incubators that precisely monitor temperature and humidity and are made of antimicrobial materials. Brinsea ships worldwide and provides [00:54:00] stellar customer support to answer all your questions. Hatch your chicks with Brinsea, the leader in innovative incubation research. Learn more at www.Brinsea.com.

Until next time, don't forget to love your Mother.

Kymara Lonergan is the owner of Thunderhorse Hollow Farm, a multi-faceted "no-kill" farm in Ulster Park, NY, which is located in the Hudson Valley. She has a lifelong passion for emu and sustainable farming. With a belief that education is empowerment, Kymara is teaching emu farming and product development classes to young farmers and those who are interested adding emu to their existing livestock inventory. She has developed emu-oil-based and vegan farm-to-bath products and cultivates herbs, flowers, and extremely hot peppers. She is the Vice-President and Regional Director of The American Emu Association.

Thanks to Brinsea for sponsoring this episode!

Jessica Mitchell, John Moore, and Kenny CooganMusic: "Travel Light" by Jason Shaw

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