2018 In Review - Certain Themes Start To Crystalize

As our emu farm and our emu farming skills mature, the daunting to-do lists become more manageable and certain themes start to crystallize.

• no more building or buying equipment is necessary and now it’s time to put our effort to improving productivity
• never stop learning and sharing with other emu farmers
• pay attention to marketing our farm products effectively

When we looked at our records over seven breeding seasons, egg production and chick survivability results were within industry averages. So, we directed our attention to improving our chick hatch rate. 

When incubator temperature and fresh air flow are constant and humidity is within range (see linked blog) fertile emu eggs mature at a predictable rate. The critical stage comes in the last week or so while CO2 levels are building, as the chicks ready themselves for hatch. We suspected that our existing equipment was letting us down so we purchased a used N’Kobi hatcher to match our proven N’Kobi incubators. The new hatcher provided improvements in air flow exchange, chick hatching room and safety, egg/chick viewing during hatch and ease of cleaning between batches. We also constructed waist-high floor-standing, long brooder runs for ease of monitoring the new chicks and providing them with ample running room.

Confident that our changes would bring the results we needed we worked eagerly through the 4 months of hatching. However, we did not see an increased hatch rate at all and our frustration continued. As we were confident in the equipment improvements that we had made, we then turned to our emu farmer friends and colleagues to compare strategies.

We booked a tour of a large emu farm through the annual AEA (American Emu Association) convention. The farm we visited raises many hundreds of birds. It supplies a growing emu meat market and an established emu oil natural products brand on the eastern US coast. What we learned during our visit is that as we grow our business, we do not need any more farm set-up modifications. And, what was frustrating is we share the same challenges with hatch rate as large producers do!

More educational opportunities came our way over the summer as we hosted a couple of 25-year veteran emu farmers, one couple from NZ and the other from MO. The benefit of having experienced emu raisers looking at your operation in situ is invaluable. For example, we learned that our emu breeders should be on a 12-month diet of 22% protein not just at breeding season. It opened our eyes to the possibility that our chicks might not be strong enough (ie their piping muscle) to get out of the shell and contributing to our hatch rate challenges. We will see what 2019 brings.

Missouri friends are impressed with our trees on the West Coast

In addition to working on improved productivity we have enhanced and refined our marketing plan. With permission granted from Emu Today & Tomorrow Magazine we reproduced their emu oil information into poster form. We use these posters at fairs and as training material for our retailers. We also designed a sales brochure that describes our farm and the attributes and benefits of emu oil. In a newly launched Canadian market for health promoting Medical Marijuana, emu oil’s proven transdermal and anti-inflammatory properties in topical ointments make for a natural partnership.

Download a PDF version on our website

So, what did we learn about emu farming in 2018?

•  focus your goals
• keep your eyes and ears open for helpful ideas
• get off the farm and showcase your health promoting    agriculture
• and have fun on the journey!