(Published Saturday, April 14, 2007 12:59:11 AM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Frank Schultz/Gazette Staff
JANESVILLE
This is the story of Flash the emu.
It started with students in Diane Runde's agriculture class at Craig High School. They were researching cattle prices online when they got off topic.
"You know how kids are; they started talking about emus," Runde said.
Emus are large, flightless birds native to Australia, but in recent decades they've also become a source of meat. Farmers raise 'em. People eat 'em.
Emu meat is low in fat, and it's on the American Heart Association's list of preferred meats, along with buffalo, ostrich and wild game.
So it was appropriate that the students investigated emus and their potential in animal husbandry. Soon, they found a farmer in Ohio who ships emu eggs. They ordered two and started incubating them in January.
"I didn't know anything about incubating emus, so we had to go on this massive Internet search," Runde said.
Sure enough, one of the emus decided it was time to hatch at an inconvenient time, the first Saturday of spring break. Runde came in to check and found the chick pecking its way out.
Runde called in students, who rigged a warm place for the chick to live. Emu chicks apparently like temperatures around 80 degrees.
"They named him Flash," Runde said. "The other one was supposed to be Lightning, but he didn't hatch."
Flash is being fed and kept warm at Craig for the time being, but emus can grow to 5 or 6 feet tall and weigh upwards of 140 pounds.
"We definitely are not keeping him here at the ag department for much longer than this week and next week," Runde said.
The major instigators of the emu project were Abe Arndt and Andy Van Rens, Runde said. Abe has volunteered to take Flash to his family's farm once the weather warms.
Meanwhile, Flash has become a minor celebrity at Craig. Students often pop in, asking to see him.
They think Flash is a "him," anyway. Online information says male emus have a bull's-eye marking on the forehead, while stripes mean it's a female. But Flash may not be showing his true stripes yet.
"We think we have a bull's-eye, but we're not positive," Runde said.
