Emu Love
TREZEVANT, Tenn. - So there you are, standing in mud and droppings, face to face with a wide-eyed emu . He's moved through the crowd of other birds who've been staring since you squished your way into their pen.
The youngster, almost as tall as you, suddenly fluffs his feathers, goes "clack! clack!" with his formidable beak and rises even taller, from his curly top to his wicked three-pronged toes that look disturbingly like raptor talons.
He's telling you that he's in charge of this group and you'll be dealing with him.
It's alarming, but you listened carefully when emu farmer Myra Charleston spoke.
"Raise your hand," she said. "Whoever's tallest is the leader."
You raise both hands. And you clap twice. The kid instantly wilts and runs to the back of the herd as near to its 32 mph maximum velocity as it can muster.
You rule.
Of course, as Charleston notes wryly, you now also have a couple of females who are much too interested in you.
So you back up to the gate, arm raised, hoping that you don't slip in the muck. You whisper to the birds: "Someday, you're gonna be my dinner."
Charleston is much amused. She's been wrangling the flightless birds for 10 years at her family farm here about 115 miles northeast of Memphis. That makes her and husband, Allen, veterans at American emu breeding, although it's comparatively new for the West Tennessee farm that her family has worked since acquiring the land in 1835.
She is a board member of the American Emu Association, and the Charlestons' operation is the dominant emu farm in the region.
Emus are Australian birds related to the ostrich and were imported as exotic animals between the 1930s and 1950s. Some people got into emu farming thinking it could get them rich quick. The reality of the hard work involved thinned those ranks and now the emu industry has settled into steady growth.
The attraction for farmers is that raising emus requires little space and that virtually the whole bird can be marketed.
Consumers have increasingly been buying the meat that is among the most nutritionally virtuous around. It's high in protein and low in fat and calories.
In fact, as you sit down with your Thanksgiving dinner today, keep in mind that emu , even though classified as red meat, tops your turkey in most nutrient categories, from cholesterol to Vitamins B6 and B12.
Emu oil, extracted from the pad of fat on the back of the bird, is prized as a moisturizer with healing and anti-inflammatory properties.
But wait, there's more: "We sell feathers by the pound and artists buy the blown eggs," Charleston said, showing a number of shells that craftsmen have carved, etched and painted.
Emu tibia are used for knife handles, ribs used in fetish dolls and claws become jewelry.
There's one question that makes Charleston roll her eyes.
"Does emu taste like chicken?"
"No," she says patiently. "It's more like beef. Very lean. Has its own flavor."
The Commercial Appeal, Thursday, November 25, 2004
The youngster, almost as tall as you, suddenly fluffs his feathers, goes "clack! clack!" with his formidable beak and rises even taller, from his curly top to his wicked three-pronged toes that look disturbingly like raptor talons.
He's telling you that he's in charge of this group and you'll be dealing with him.
It's alarming, but you listened carefully when emu farmer Myra Charleston spoke.
"Raise your hand," she said. "Whoever's tallest is the leader."
You raise both hands. And you clap twice. The kid instantly wilts and runs to the back of the herd as near to its 32 mph maximum velocity as it can muster.
You rule.
Of course, as Charleston notes wryly, you now also have a couple of females who are much too interested in you.
So you back up to the gate, arm raised, hoping that you don't slip in the muck. You whisper to the birds: "Someday, you're gonna be my dinner."
Charleston is much amused. She's been wrangling the flightless birds for 10 years at her family farm here about 115 miles northeast of Memphis. That makes her and husband, Allen, veterans at American emu breeding, although it's comparatively new for the West Tennessee farm that her family has worked since acquiring the land in 1835.
She is a board member of the American Emu Association, and the Charlestons' operation is the dominant emu farm in the region.
Emus are Australian birds related to the ostrich and were imported as exotic animals between the 1930s and 1950s. Some people got into emu farming thinking it could get them rich quick. The reality of the hard work involved thinned those ranks and now the emu industry has settled into steady growth.
The attraction for farmers is that raising emus requires little space and that virtually the whole bird can be marketed.
Consumers have increasingly been buying the meat that is among the most nutritionally virtuous around. It's high in protein and low in fat and calories.
In fact, as you sit down with your Thanksgiving dinner today, keep in mind that emu , even though classified as red meat, tops your turkey in most nutrient categories, from cholesterol to Vitamins B6 and B12.
Emu oil, extracted from the pad of fat on the back of the bird, is prized as a moisturizer with healing and anti-inflammatory properties.
But wait, there's more: "We sell feathers by the pound and artists buy the blown eggs," Charleston said, showing a number of shells that craftsmen have carved, etched and painted.
Emu tibia are used for knife handles, ribs used in fetish dolls and claws become jewelry.
There's one question that makes Charleston roll her eyes.
"Does emu taste like chicken?"
"No," she says patiently. "It's more like beef. Very lean. Has its own flavor."
The Commercial Appeal, Thursday, November 25, 2004