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Farm has feathered squatter

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By TONY MARRERO, Hernando Today

Published: November 20, 2007

Updated: 11/19/2007 10:11 pm

BROOKSVILLE - Scott and Shelley Treverton are used to uninvited guests of the animal kind showing up on their farm off Crum Road.
Dogs and cats are typical, said the Trevertons, owners of FMT Farm.

But four-foot-tall birds?

What appears to be a rhea has set up a new home at the edge of a stand of pines on the Trevertons' 158-acre tree farm.
Rheas are flightless birds indigenous to South America and related to the ostrich and emu. Some visitors have surmised that the Trevertons' visitor may in fact be an emu.

The bird has set up home next to a small pond created by a new well the Trevertons are digging. Family members and farm employees have seen the bird eat out from a nearby deer feeder.

The bird has worn a path along the fence that marks the edge of the pine stand. That makes Scott Treverton suspect that the bird has been domesticated and is accustomed to fences.

The bird isn't doing any harm, said the Trevertons, who have two sons: Austin, 12, and Garrett, 13.

"He's not bothering anybody," Scott Treverton said. "He keeps to himself and minds his own business."

They are worried, though, that the bird may have escaped and that there is a distraught owner out there somewhere.

"If it's some poor kid's emu, we don't want to give it away," Scott said.

If not, they still would like to find him a good home, Shelley said.

"I don't know how long he can live out there on the diet he's eating," she said.

According to the National Geographic Web site, the bird should be fine for a while if it is a rhea.
Rheas are omnivorous. They prefer broad-leafed plants, but also eat seeds, roots, fruit, insects, and small vertebrates.

They can grow as tall as five feet. Because they are unable to fly, they use their powerful legs to flee from trouble.

Farm manager Herman "Skeeter" Sin has seen those legs in action.

The bird is less spooked by machinery - tractors, all-terrain vehicles and the like - than by humans walking up to it, Sin said.

When the bird gets a mind to flee, it gets away quickly, he said.

"I don't know how many miles per hour they get to, but let me tell you, it's plenty," he said.

Sin has come up with an entrepreneurial way to capitalize on the squatter.

"Maybe for every 100 trees we sell," he said with a wry smile, "we'll let somebody take a picture with him."

Reporter Tony Marrero can be reached at 544-5286 or lmarrero@hernandotoday.com.

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