“I remember thinking how is this tiny chick going to turn into some majestic, six-foot monstrosity. I just couldn’t believe it, but here we are today.”<\/p>\n
She named the chick Jonathan before discovering she was female. <\/p>\n
Three years later, the six-foot bird now lives with her at home, roaming the fields and cosying up under a heat lamp.<\/p>\n
While Jonathan is now an integral part of her life, Ms Evans warns rearing an emu is not a decision to be taken lightly.<\/p>\n
“They require a huge amount of commitment, their life span is 35-40 years so you’ve got to be in it for the long haul,” she said. <\/p>\n
Helen Goldman, from West Country Emu Services, agreed the birds were not “pets for a casual keeper”, and urged potential owners to ensure they were equipped.<\/p>\n
“They’re large, powerful animals that need plenty of space, as they can run up to 30mph. Their food is a specialist ratite diet, which can be costly, and they also need a minimum of six-foot fencing,” she said.<\/p>\n
“These are wonderful, intelligent birds, but they deserve homes that truly meet their needs.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I remember thinking how is this tiny chick going to turn into some majestic, six-foot monstrosity. I just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-259742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}