Emus & Ostrich
Westy came from West Valley Animal Control and had been picked up stray - we are impressed that one lonely animal control officer was able to catch him! Animal Control got the call because Westy was roaming free and "terrorizing horses", it isn't well known but horses can be very scared of emus. Our own Margarita used to never turn her back on ours, until she got used to having them around. After Animal Control picked Westy up, they put the word out and called around to find his people, but they were unable to locate them and after some time turned him over to Ching.
We went to pick him up on Saturday, 28 January 2012 and when we came to the otherwise vacent Animal Control corral, we were surprised to see Westy had gotten out and was running free around the compound! We had to gather a group of eight volunteers and one animal control officer to recapture him and load him in a trailer. This was very stressful for poor Westy and we had to be very careful as emus are prone to heart attacks if they get too worked up. Now Westy is safe and sound at Ching and has intetgrated well with the other emus after some time getting to know them thru a fence. We figure Westy to be a young adult, probably about 1 year old when he arrived.