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Ranchers Find Hope in Flightless Bird’s Fat

Emus in their pen at the Wild Rose Emu Ranch in Hamilton, Mont. The popularity of emu oil has kept some ranches from closing.Credit...Tony Demin for The New York Times

HAMILTON, Mont. — The Wild Rose Emu Ranch is a survivor in an unusual business.

In 1998, there were some 5,500 farms and ranches across the country raising emus, the gawky, five- to six-foot-tall flightless birds; now, the best guess is that there are 1,000 to 2,000. Once, emus were viewed as a potential growth industry, a godsend to struggling farmers.

But the industry’s downward trajectory may have been stayed.

It is not because the bird’s meat, which is very lean, is becoming more popular, although it is. Instead, it is in the large block of fat that covers most of the emu’s body, between the hide and the flesh, that ranchers are finding a glimmer of hope.

“The oil is beneficial for almost any kind of skin condition,” said Clover Quinn, the owner of the Wild Rose, as she rubbed some of the oil on her hands. While there are a few studies that demonstrate the oil’s effectiveness for some things, proponents say it has a wide range of uses.

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Emus, like the ostrich, evolved to store a lot of fat to survive in the outback of their native Australia.Credit...Tony Demin for The New York Times

“It’s a very nice oil,” said Mohammed Alam, head of the fats and oils program at Texas A&M University. “It’s not magical. It’s similar to other oils. But the mechanism for how it works needs to be figured out.”

The oil’s popularity has kept places like the Wild Rose from closing. “We got into the business in 1996, and the Montana Emu Association had 35 members,” Ms. Quinn said. Her husband, Joe, was serving an emu omelet for four, made from half the contents of a single black egg that weighs about a pound and a half.

The Quinns watched as fellow emu ranchers began selling off their birds. The Montana Emu Association has just three members now, and two of those are Mr. and Ms. Quinn.

For a while, raising emus seemed like a quick path to wealth. A breeding pair sold for $45,000 in 1993, but as their numbers exploded by 1996, they were $1,000 a pair. “The following year, they were giving them away,” Ms. Quinn said.

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Emu eggs in an incubator.Credit...Tony Demin for The New York Times

One problem was that emu meat was thought too exotic by consumers and never managed to gain much traction in the American market.

Still, sales of the meat have improved. The Quinns sell it in health food stores in Missoula and Hamilton because it is very low in fat and high in omega-3 fatty acids and other beneficial substances.

Because emus are flightless birds, they never developed large pectoral muscles. It takes a year and a half to raise one, and they provide just 30 pounds of meat. A single cow has more than 500 pounds of meat.

Emu ranchers also sell the bird’s supple leather, and it is made into boots, handbags and clothes. The lustrous blue-black eggs are sold for food, and people collect the empty shells to engrave and paint.

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Clover Quinn, at the ranch with her son, sells emu oil for $10 an ounce.Credit...Tony Demin for The New York Times

But several years ago, word started getting around about the oil. The birds, like the ostrich, evolved to store a lot of fat to survive in the outback of their native Australia. Processed and rubbed into a person’s skin, the oil is hailed as a treatment for wrinkles, burns, acne, arthritis, psoriasis and eczema, among other things. It is used in shampoo and cosmetics. Taken orally, it is used to treat cholesterol, symptoms of premenstrual syndrome and allergies.

A single bird produces 250 ounces of oil, and the Quinns sell it for $10 an ounce, subtracting the refining costs. “It’s been an enormous factor” in profitability, Ms. Quinn said.

The leading emu oil processor, LB Processors, has seen production grow in the last few years to 7,000 gallons a year from 3,000 gallons. “The last five years, things have really picked up,” said Paul Binford, the owner and operator of the company. “The recession didn’t hurt us.”

As the price for oil has risen, some producers have been caught cutting the pure oil with soybean or canola oil, says Mike Eppley, an official of the American Emu Association.

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Even after refining costs, “it’s been an enormous factor” in profitability, Ms. Quinn said.Credit...Tony Demin for The New York Times

Ms. Quinn gave a tour of her 100 birds, which paced behind woven wire fences. As she approached, the female emus started making loud drumming noises that sounded something like banging on the bottom of a plastic bucket.

She approached one group — gatherings of emus are known as mobs — and they swarmed over to her. There is something unnerving about bird-watching when the bird is six feet tall and making eye contact.

Inside her hatching house, Ms. Quinn showed off 40 eggs in a warm incubator. This month, the eggs will start hatching, and as many as 100 more will be added to her mob in the next few months.

Ms. Quinn is also an accomplished egg carver and makes art from the emu eggs, engraving mountain scenes into them. In 2008, her carved egg was chosen for the White House Easter egg display, which included one from each of the 50 states. But there was a downside.

“It had to be a chicken egg,” Mr. Quinn said. “It couldn’t be an emu egg.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 15 of the New York edition with the headline: Ranchers Find Hope In Flightless Bird’s Fat. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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