BETHEL — Scott Hynek has an emu named Foghorn he can’t bear to “do in.”

He could solve the emu inbreeding problem by getting rid of him, but he’s had the cuddly bird for 15 years and he likes him.

Foghorn and three of his mates live on an acre at Vigilante Farm in East Bethel, where Hynek and his partner, Kathleen DeVore, have pigs, chickens and Katahdin sheep. While an emu’s natural habitat is Australia, these emus don’t know any different and in the autumn happily munch leaves.

Hynek’s first emu was hatched in a science project in a Vermont classroom.

When a friend told him he thought Foghorn was blind, Hynek said, “I was all set to do him in because the hens were picking on him … turns out they have a third eyelid they can deploy when they need it.”

Foghorn isn’t blind, he just wasn’t using his third eyelid.

Like other male emus, Foghorn has sat on unhatched eggs for 50 days and 50 nights, without eating and without drinking. Because of the fasting, it’s as if he’s in a coma, Hynek said.

“She [the female], in the meantime, says, ‘well Geez, you got old in a hurry, you used to be all over me and now you don’t care. I’m going to go off and find another male, a younger one.’ but,” Hynek said, “you can’t do that here, since I’ve got this fence. So (instead) I have 150 pounds of burning resentment waiting around to kill the kids.”

For that reason, Hynek scoops late-winter eggs and pops them in an incubator to hatch away from the mother emus.

Beware the emus

Arriving at the Emu gate on a recent Wednesday, all seems peaceful but Hynek cautions: “You’re not going to outrun them. They run 40 miles an hour.”

And their poop is slippery.

Hynek’s brother was wearing all kinds of camera gear, when the emus charged, stopping short just before reaching them, he said.

Hynek warns against picking up any eggs because of their “potential to explode.”

Of the emus’ three toes, he said, the middle one is really dangerous.

When he was building the perimeter fence he called another emu farmer to see if he should build higher to keep out the coyotes. He said she told him, “‘Worry for the coyote, don’t worry about the coyote.'”

Despite the warnings, Hynek is unafraid and breezily calls out, “Hello Foghorn! Hello birds” and walks around and between the animals.

Just inside the fence, the ground is tamped down from the emus’ constant pacing. He built it with the posts on the outside in case the emus are running so fast alongside the fence that they hit a post. No corners, either.

Like turkeys, emus are head-bobbers and because of the 17  vertebrae in their necks they can turn their heads nearly all the way around. The bass drumming or burping sound they make is low and loud, a result of the pouch that inflates in their throat and allows them to communicate.

Hynek named Foghorn for his sound and Big Burp for his.

Should he or shouldn’t he?

If  Hynek does decide to slaughter Foghorn, he will put him down first, then use a wood-fired scalding kettle which he made out of an oil tank Gould Academy was throwing away. “I can dry pluck an emu and it takes about three man-hours. If I scald it (in boiling water) it takes about three man-minutes.”

Robert DeVore, Kathleen’s brother, showed him how to turn a basketball needle into a hypodermic needle “to inflate him like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon … It comes clean, real clean,” DeVore said.

“You take the skin off the fat, it’s pretty lean and not especially flavorful. No fat in the meat, but it makes the best jerky,” Hynek said.

He would need to ship the emu fat to Tennessee on dry ice because the meat needs to arrive frozen.

“The money is in the fat, you send it to someone who renders it into oil,” Hynek said.

Hynek said he’ll stop almost anything he is doing to give a farm tour. They can be rated: G, PG-13, R, or X.

On the way out, Hynek stopped in the barn to see a photograph of a baby emu taken by former Bethel Citizen Editor Alison Aloisio. The newspaper caption reads, “New chick in town, great eyes.”

Is it baby Foghorn?

Could be, Hynek said with a smile.