Texans Strike Oil as Early Birds in Emu-Breeding: Ugly Product Brings Pretty Price : New Texas Oil Boom Riding on Big Birds

Thar’s oil in them thar birds, and two entrepreneurs are cashing in on an animal so despised in its native land that the government once paid a bounty on it.

On a 65-acre farm in the East Texas Piney Woods, Mark Solomon and Dusty Driskell are entering their second year in a new kind of oil business--raising emus.

“It’s just been unbelievable for us, beyond our wildest dreams,” said Solomon, 27, whose full-time job is designing furniture to be made in state prison workshops.

“We have to pinch ourselves to see if we’re awake. It’s still hard to believe and we have to tell ourselves it’s really happening,” added Driskell, 29, a tax consultant.

Last October, the two lifelong friends bought a pair of emus for $1,800. The ostrich-like Australian birds now fetch more than $12,000 a pair.

Solomon and Driskell now have 31 birds, including 12 breeding pairs. Their profits from selling emus to other investors enabled them to purchase their spread in Houston County.

“People don’t know what they are, but they’ve been good for us,” Solomon said.

An emu can grow to about 5 1/2 feet tall and may weigh up to 120 pounds. The only bigger bird is the ostrich. Emus have brownish-black feathers, long necks and long legs that enable them to run at about 30 m.p.h.

Emu meat, leather and feathers are marketable, but what makes emus valuable is the oil they secrete.

The oil--about 5 quarts per processed bird--is used in pharmaceuticals for people suffering from arthritis and in wrinkle-retarding cosmetics.

Driskell and Solomon said that emu meat tastes like beef but has less cholesterol and fewer calories. Emu skins are similar to ostrich leather, and the feathers are used for fishing lures and feather dusters. The bird’s large toenails--there are three on each foot--are used in jewelry.

“Right now it’s strictly a breeders’ market,” Solomon said. “That’s why prices are so high, because there are not so many around, but it’s getting more common.”

Emu prices are on the rise because of speculation about a processing plant in the United States, according to the American Emu Assn., based in Harper, Tex. One plant already is operating in Europe and there is another in Australia, where thousands of emus were killed for bounties because they trampled sheep fences and ate crops.

The association estimated that about 1,500 breeding pairs were in the United States as of last year, most of them in Texas. Driskell and Solomon have driven as far as Washington state and Minnesota to buy birds.

“Whenever the processing stage comes into play we’re going to get less (money) per bird,” Driskell said, “but I’ll be tickled to death when it happens, because you’ll be looking at a definite place to sell the bird and a definite income coming in.”

Their first breeding pair, Bonnie and Clyde, produced 36 eggs the first year. Emu eggs, which are dark green and the size of avocados, hatch in 48 to 52 days. Once the birds get into a cycle, eggs are laid every three days.

Driskell and Solomon are expanding the farm and hope eventually to have 90 pens in operation.

Some people will purchase chicks at $1,000 to $1,500 each, keep them for three or four months and then sell for as much as $3,000 each.