Accidental TikTok star Emmanuel the emu is in the midst of a health crisis after avian flu swept through the Florida farm where he lives, killing off all but a few birds.
Emmanuel’s caretaker, Taylor Blake, revealed his dire condition on social media on Saturday night, blaming the outbreak on wild geese that invade the farm nightly.
“We lost every single chicken and duck on our farm. We lost all of our geese. We lost our 2 female black swans. We lost both of our turkeys,” Blake tweeted.
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“We lost 50+ birds in 3 days. I am still trying to wrap my head around it. We thought we were out of the woods, when Emmanuel unexpectedly went down this past Wednesday.”
Emmanuel has more than 2 million TikTok fans, largely due to his hilarious attacks on Blake’s cellphone while she is making videos about farm life.
Blake said she has been tending to him around the clock since Wednesday with the help of a vet who sedated and stabilized him. She posted a series of photos of herself and her girlfriend trying to nurse the ailing emu back to health.
“Currently, he is stable. His neurological symptoms have subsided but he still won’t eat or drink on his own. I am hand feeding him & giving him subcutaneous fluids every 2hrs around the clock,” she said.
“The issue we are having is he has a bit of nerve damage in his right leg and foot, he went down in the middle of the night and we didn’t know until the next morning. He spent hours lying on one side and it’s caused some damage.”
She said it was miraculous that he wasn’t killed like the other birds.
“I have so much gratitude in my heart that Emmanuel is still alive. That he is fighting. That my best friend is making a comeback. I am going to be ok, we are going to be ok!”
