----- Original Message -----
From: "Phosphor" <[log in to unmask]>
>
> 1. emu. since the male emu sits on the nest for up to 6 months he
> accumulates a large store of fat

Wow, I bet he does!  Way back when I used to keep chickens, I never really
noticed whether the nesting hens got extra fat.  But this spring my
Lovebirds surely did.  I found a hen dead in the nest box, poor little
still-warm birdie atop her eggs.    We posted her and found she had fatty
liver disease, the culinary equivalent of paté.  I would think it possible
that nesting birds were especially highly prized by paleo people.  For birds
that raise several clutches in a season (as Lovebirds will if given the
chance, and as I presume emus do since you say "6 months")  the possibility
of extra-fatty livers is/was probably very real.

Speaking of emus............several years ago I looked out my kitchen window
just in time to see an emu running down my driveway and straight into my
yard.  The dogs came in, and I wouldn't go out.  It was an escapee from a
small ranch some 8-9 miles east of us.  Some locals had gotten in on the emu
craze that pretty soon crashed.  They eventually tried to give the birds
away but had no takers around here.  Let's face it, emu's not just a foreign
food to us, but leg of emu just will not fit in anybody's oven.

Theola