Don and Penni Collins have been growing their emu business since 1992 and now market a full line of products made with emu oil. Montana couple sees a boundless future with the big birds. By Patricia Miller love hen you think about emus, fl ightless cousins of the ostrich, do you envision them foraging through the Australian Outback and racing away from predators at speeds up to 30 miles per hour on long, powerful legs? Or do you see them munching on custom-designed feed on a tidy, pine-ringed ranch outside Kalispell, Mont.? That’s exactly what nearly 700 lucky emus call w home. For Montana Emu Ranch Company owners Don and Penni Collins, emus aren’t pets or an oversized hobby; they’re part of a fast-growing industry where demand for emu meat and oil is outpacing supply. The Collinses didn’t set out to be emu ranchers. Don was working for a beverage wholesaler, and Penni was a motorcycle parts manager. But Don’s sister, who lives in Washington, had begun raising emus and that piqued his curiosity. In 1992, after months of intensive research, he bought a few market birds to supplement the family’s income. A few became a lot more and Don says, “I found I was talking about emu meat more often than about beer and wine. It was time to make a decision.” They decided to embrace raising emus full time and by 1996, both Don and Penni had quit their day jobs. Today, their operation features pens and shelters housing 650 to 700 birds on six acres of their 40-acre spread. About 35 birds are breeding stock, with each hen laying an average of 25 enormous, shiny dark-green eggs from late November to mid-May. They market about 300 birds a year, primarily for oil, but also for meat. Emus are omnivores. In the wild, they devour everything from leaves and fruit to caterpillars and lizards. For optimal meat and oil production, Don has worked with poultry specialist April Levy to develop custom blends of corn, soybean meal, canola, fi sh meal, vitamins > Your CHS Connection 21