Hi Rhonda,

The majority of emu farms raise the birds for the meat which is sold commercially to restaurants. The fat is rendered to crude oil and then refined.

The emu fat is an all natural substance and it goes through a series of steps to refine, sterilize and deodorize to produce a highly purified emu oil.

In a lot of cases the hide of the bird is used to make leather products for clothing and textile industries. Some emu farms also sell the feathers to fly fishing organizations to make fishing lures.

The point here is that the birds are not raised only to produce emu oil. The emu oil may play only a small part of the farming of the bird. Most organic emu farms produce minimal waste product from the farming of emu because almost the entire bird is utilized. This is hardly seen in traditional large scale poultry farms.

Emus are large birds and can't be raised effectively in those tight cramped living conditions typically found in traditional chicken and turkey farming.

The emus are usually raised in large open fields which allows the birds to roam freely, improving their quality of life compared to caged livestock.

An example of this type of farm is Thunder Ridge Farms. They produce Thunder Ridge emu oil from their organically-raised emus in the eastern U.S.