Would you like some ham with that ...... green egg?

Yes we are livestock farmers here on Mt. Sicker Road and raising emu for their meat and fat. But as it is Spring and the Easter weekend we should probably talk about eggs.


By Zureks at Wikimedia Commons


An emu egg is about 10 times the size of a large chicken egg so one emu egg omelette will probably feed the whole family.  It has a very thick (3 thick layers and 4 paper thin layers) shell as the 125 lb. Emu Dad will be sitting on it and rolling it around for 52 days before the chick is hatched. Some people carve designs in the shell which exposes the lighter shades of green underneath. The inside looks very much like a chicken egg except that the paler looking and milder tasting yolk is almost half of the contents. It stands to reason as the yolk is used to nourish a developing emu chick and that takes 3 times as long as a chicken.

For cooking purposes the white has a little less water content and so will beat to a fluffier texture and the larger yolk is great for baking cakes.  Some mail order companies such as Clarence Court outside of Plymouth UK send out their edible emu eggs nestled tight in fancy boxes. Their website has fantastic egg recipes from quick and easy to complex. 

And from a health perspective, Japanese researchers report in 2010 that emu egg white has an unusually low allergenicity and suggest that emu egg white could replace its chicken equivalent in “industrial products”.

So no matter what kind of egg experience you have this Easter weekend we at Mt. Sicker Family Farm wish you a happy one.

In Australia when "fall is in the air" (Mar-May) it signals Emu Breeding Time

An illustration based on aboriginal style of dot painting
depicting emu (http://www.123rf.com/profile_deboracilli)

As this emu farm is well into breeding season I thought it was time to reflect on Australian emu roots.

Using an aboriginal symbol glossary as reference here is one Canadian emu farmer's interpretation of this dot painting by Debora Cilli.

Bottom right:  The concentric circles portray the social camaraderie of the emu community. Their nomadic travels through the temperate and grassland areas of Australia are depicted by the emu footprints entering and leaving the circle. Similarly when emu bed down for the night they gather in circle formation with their heads at the centre.

Centre Line:  The meandering centre line represents a river and depicts the constant searching by emu for this life force. It also separates the 6 months of social behaviour from the mating activities of breeding pairs.

Top Left:  Shows emu mating responsibilities: after she has laid 8-12 eggs he will know it is time to go broody and he will drive her away to find another mate.