WATCH: Man fends off pet emu with pool noodle

(CNN) - A Texas man has weaponized the pool noodle to fend off his 5-year-old pet emu named Cosmo, who has gotten protective since becoming a new father.

Toby and Michelle Wilson have had two pet emus since they hatched five years ago.

“They were our babies. She would put sock diapers on them. They would run around inside,” Toby Wilson said.

But since the birds had their own baby a few months ago, father Cosmo has gotten protective and aggressive. He seems OK with Michelle Wilson but often charges her husband, especially when he’s on his riding lawnmower.

“I turn my back, and wham, he bites me right on top of the head. And it hurts pretty good,” Toby Wilson said.

He uses a pool noodle to fend off Cosmo, but it takes twice as long to mow the pasture, due to the constant jousting between man and emu.

Even on foot, Toby Wilson has to keep looking over his shoulder, and he carries the pool noodle everywhere.

“Oh, I tell him, I say, ‘Look, bird, you better get away. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. I’m going to give you the noodle,’” he said.

Things escalated when Michelle Wilson made her husband a hat with a pool noodle attached, hoping the emu would be deterred by seeing something sticking out of the man’s head.

“I took a pool noodle, cut it in half and just hot-glued it to a cowboy hat,” she said.

The hat didn’t help, but the couple’s videos have been a hit on TikTok, where Toby Wilson says lots of commenters complain about his poor mowing technique.

For now, the pool noodle seems to be the only thing that stands between Toby Wilson mowing his lawn and getting mowed down by his pet emu.

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