'And on that farm he hand an emu....' (overbreeding of alternative livestock)

The smell is pungent, a mix of manure and sawdust. Past the domed silos and chicken wire fences, a hilly patchwork of fields and tilled earth stretches into the distance. Humps appear and disappear behind the row of mooing cows, as a large fluffy animal darts in front of the silos. Something that looks more like a muppet than a mare is lazily lying in the grass.

Farming sure isn't what it used to be. Paul and Brenda Zimmerman, the owners of this Pennsylvania farm, have taken up an enterprise on the side -- "alternative livestock." Ostriches prance in front of the silos, camels stretch out their necks to peer at their bovine neighbors, zebras chomp on grass in wide pens, and Alaskan reindeer stroll about while molting from the heat.

"Alternative livestock is becoming more accepted [among farmers]," says Paul Zimmerman. It hasn't always been this way here in Amish country. Twenty years ago, Texas ranchers were the only ones involved in the industry. At the time, zoos across America were selling their surplus animals brought into the auction market. For a decade, ranchers bought and bred more and more animals in captivity. The animals were still called "exotics" and looked upon as such by most farmers. Then in the 1980s, when the farming business was suffering, what once was bizarre suddenly became attractive.

The major advantage to raising exotics is that it requires little land and appears to offer a large payback. Farmers started buying up exotic animals and breeding them, later calling them "alternative livestock" to make the practice seem more agrarian. In recent years, the alternative livestock business has spread along the East Coast.

What exactly does a farmer do with these oddball animals? Some animals are sold into the pet/exhibition market. Others are bred with the intention of eventually selling them into the product market, as meat, oil in hide. The problem is that everyone involved with the industry is a salesman: It is hard to distinguish enthusiasm from mere desperation.

"Ostrich meat is 98 percent lean and very tender," explains Bob Schumann, the president of Regal Pack specialty meat company in Colorado. Since gaining U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval in 1991, Schumann has been marketing all types of ostrich products to restaurants and supermarkets. Other entrepreneurs are selling oil and hide products. "Emu oil is a great skin conditioner," says Jan Smith, director of the Ratite Sexing Service in Massachusetts. "It is unbelievable on sunburns."

On the pet and exhibition end of the industry, there is a new fad born every minute. Sicilian Donkeys are the hottest animals and reindeer are leveling out. Paul Zimmerman has been selling his reindeer to wildlife parks. He uses the camels "for nativity scenes." He sells the donkeys, llamas, "fainting goats" (which faint when you clap your hands, due to a congenital deformity) and miniature horses to people who have small plots of land, or "farmettes." Out West, the variety of animals is wider and more bizarre, because farmers there have been in the industry longer. Ranchers can't have Ilamas; they must also have "zedonks" (a cross between a zebra and a donkey.)

There is something curious about this industry: It seems as if the same people are just passing around the animals, back and forth, for no reason. It is an incestuous industry; farmers and ranchers just keep selling to each other. For years, farmers have been overbreeding without even considering whether or not there was a demand. Five years ago, ratites (emus, ostrich, rheas) were all selling at high prices. Everyone bought the animals and everyone bred them. Now, the prices are dropping and there's a gradual transition into a slaughter market. There is only one problem -- there is no demand. Americans are not clamoring for their emu burgers, yet there is an absurd number of these birds all over the country. Among pet exotics, an animal can lose its value even more dramatically. "The prices have gone down by half or more," says Ilama breeder Joyce Siegel.

Who pays for the farmers folly. The animals are the ultimate victims. According to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the surplus animals are often euthanized or used for target practice at canned hunts. Even product animals like emus may eventually be slaughtered for no reason, if the supply increases while the demand stays limited.

The sad story of the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig -- in hot demand one minute, unloved the next -- illustrates the folly of expecting animal oddballs to turn into cash cows. Animal shelters are already crowded with abandoned cats and dogs; will they soon have to move over to make room for surplus exotics?

Contact: HSUS, 2100 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20037/[phone].