Silly stuff.
I’ve been cracking up over the Liberty Mutual Insurance commercials Featuring a fake 1970’s detective-type monitoring insurance with his partner – who is an Emu.
As we know, the Emu is a large flightless bird related to the Ostrich. I have a long history of dealing with both types of birds.
In the 1990’s I had a long run farming a 300-acre farm On the Columbia river in Oregon. After eight years of care taking and planting crops, The farm was bought by the owner of Warn 4wd locking hubs and truck winches.
He brought in a South African Ostrich expert, a man who bragged about shooting people out of helicopters and was a game hunter guide for rich Americans.
Our farm, remote yet only 20 minutes from downtown Portland, was turned into an Ostrich ranch.
they kept me on staff because I knew all of the irrigation issues and the lay of the land.
The new company built “kennels” and breeding areas for the birds. We had to retrieve the eggs and run like hell.
One day, I was feeding birds (we had 150) and I found a bird with his leg caught in a fence. He had been down all night and was frozen up in his muscles. I went and got the crew to help get him up again.
We got him on his feet and taped his wings back to allow them to relax and return to normal.
Four days later, they sent me and a big young guy into the pen to unwrap the ostrich wings.
I had a long shepherds hook that fit a ostrich neck.
The kid went in with me and we cornered the bird. It saw me with the hook and bolted directly through the young guy. These birds are fucking dangerous.
This kid was bigger than me, perhaps 220 pounds. He had no choice but to squat, brace and shove his hands against the attacking ostrich. The bird kicked at his gut, which could have ripped him open.
In a split second I hooked the ostrich’s neck and pulled a hood over it’s head, rendering it calm.
This is how dangerous these birds are.
So I see the Liberty Mutual commercials on teevee featuring an Emu and his Partner ” Doug”, it cracks me up.
We had Emu’s also. They were even more unpredictable than ostriches.
I saw a guy who was a sheriff in California deliver several Emu’s to our operation and when he climbed into the horse trailer they were transported in the Emu’s freaked out and bounced off the walls.
We’re talking about 90-pound birds.
The guy got his face cut deeply and was lucky it was not his neck arteries.
In the end, the entire Ostrich – Emu fad was a huge pyramid scheme that involved members selling birds or products to each other with no long-term return.
In Oregon, the Ostriches were miserable. It was not the desert, it was muddy and we had to clip feathers off after they collected pounds of mud.
The whole thing was a sham for rich guys and tax dodges.
If anything, I feel sorry for the birds, and I don’t know what happened to the ostrich ranch after I left.
But the Emu insurance commercial still cracks me up.
