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Ostriches - Some Background
A new meat industry threatens on the horizon. If breeders and others have their way, the ostrich
and the emu, the world's two largest birds, will become the other bird meat of the 199Os.
These exotic fowl, known mainly to the public as exhibits at the zoo, are being promoted to consumers as looking and tasting like beef, but with less fat and cholesterol and fewer calories than either beef or poultry.
Cattle ranchers, small farmers, would-be agriculturists, retirees, banks and other investors are being urged to regard the farming of these birds as potentially very profitable, even more than cattle, with minimum land, food and facility requirements.
A Texas veterinarian predicts that the United States will soon lead the world in producing ostrich chicks. Ostriches have been called the next U.S. cash crop for a ready meat market in Europe.
In Britain, the ostrich and the emu are being added to the growing list of new animal species being raised for the table, along with the deer and the wild boar. Ostriches On Line, together with their associates in Europe, are negotiating to open an abattoir in the UK capable of handling ostrich slaughter.
Ostriches and emus are birds with a difference. They belong to the family of flightless fowl known as ratites, or running birds, including, in descending order according to size, the ostrich, emu, rhea, cassowary and kiwi. Ratites occupy the southern hemisphere: the ostrich is a native of Africa, the emu and cassowary of Australia, the rhea of South America, and the kiwi of New Zealand.
Ostriches - Origins The name ratite comes from the Latin word rates, meaning without a keel. It refers to the shape of the breast bone. Ratites have a convex breast bone, without the keel-like ridge to which bilateral flight muscles are attached in flying birds.
Though small, their wings are not useless. They help to balance the birds while running, turning, and swerving. An ostrich acting in self defense will extend first one wing and then the other in repeated, threatening motions resembling those of a boxer.
In a charge, ostriches fully extend their wings, creating an awesome spectacle.
Ostriches use their wings to cool themselves, moving them slowly backwards and forwards to direct a cooling breeze over their featherless thighs and sides while standing against the wind. Ostriches and emus are strong, fast runners.
They can run up to 4O miles an hour, emus covering 9 feet, ostriches 25 feet in a stride. Their toes - emus and other flightless fowl have three and ostriches have two, compared to the four toes of flying birds - are made for speed, as fewer toes mean less ground contact, adding more speed.
The long, powerful legs of these birds are their main weapon of defense, enabling them to flee or fight. Ratites fight with kicks, kicking from the knees (technically the ankles) forward and down, instead of backward.
Ostriches - Self Defense Peaceful when left alone, ratites become very aggressive when they or their families are threatened. Both parents are active in defending the nest and chicks.
Observing a potential enemy, an ostrich father will cause a distraction by fleeing in another direction, pretending to be sick or injured. With limp wings he sinks lower and lower to the ground, swaying to and fro in his struggle to escape, finally collapsing.
He repeats his act, just beyond reach of the intruder, until satisfied that his charges are safe, whereupon he recovers and lightly dashes away. The female ostrich will similarly playact to defend her nest, but if she is already brooding while the male stages confusion, she will stretch out her neck and head on the ground in camouflage with the surrounding scrub and stones.
If all these stratagems fail, the male will lash out furiously at the enemy with his deadly, karate-like kicks, large foot and gouging toenail.
Ostriches - Ancestry Ratites are the oldest living birds on earth. Regarded with other birds as reptilian in origin, they are believed to have been separated from the main line of avian evolution since at least the Middle Cretaceous period, 8O to 9O million years ago.
Twenty to sixty million years ago, ostriches ranged the Mediterranean Sea area in the West, China in the East, and Mongolia in the North, migrating across Africa about a million years ago. Large ostrich herds roamed the Western Cape of Africa when the Dutch landed in the 17th century.
Egyptian cave art and other records trace the hunting, and perhaps farming, of ostriches to antiquity. The Arabs and Bushmen hunted the birds for sport, the Bushmen with poison arrows.
Ostriches have traditionally been hunted in Namibia (South West Africa) for sport, and for the diamonds sometimes found in their gizzards, and because sheep and cattle farmers regard them as vermin for tearing down fences.
Greek and Roman generals decorated their helmets with Ostrich feathers. Egyptian Pharaohs and their families bedecked themselves with Ostrich headdresses and fans.
The craving of Elizabeth I of England and Marie Antoinette of France for ostrich feathers as fashion items created an international feather trade out of North Africa and Arabia, and later South Africa, that lasted until World War I.
By the mid-19th century, the fashion had so devastated wild ostrich herds that ostrich farming was established, helped by the introduction into South Africa of wire fencing, the farming of alfalfa (Lucerne) to feed the birds, and mechanical ostrich-egg incubators.
The industry boomed between 19OO and 1914. In 1913, ostrich plumes were the fourth largest South African export after gold, diamonds, and wool. Rich South African feather barons built fancy farm houses and ostrich feather palaces during this period.
Ostriches - International Farming The United States became involved. An October 19O6 article on ostrich farming in the United States in The National Geographic Magazine stated: "Ostrich farming in the United States, while still in its infancy, is becoming a profitable industry in Arizona and California, and it is believed that in a few years we shall not be obliged to import Ostrich feathers from abroad."
A souvenir catalogue of the Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena California, copyrighted 19O2, credits Edwin Cawston, an American trader, with introducing Ostrich farming to America by going direct to Africa and securing, after great difficulty, a flock of fifty birds which were brought in a chartered ship to Galveston (Texas) and from thence to California.
Ostrich plumes went out of style during World War I, partly as a result of the international campaign against the cruel trade. Ostrich farming lagged until 1945, when the government-supported Klein Karoo Agricultural Cooperative was formed in South Africa.
It added meat and skin to feathers, building the world's first ostrich slaughterhouse in 1963-64. A leather tannery followed in 1969-7O, and, in 198O-81, a new slaughterhouse was built to supply the demand for ostrich meat abroad.
Both operations were extended in 1989. In 1992, 120,000 Ostriches were slaughtered in South Africa, with 150,000 in 1993. By 1994 this number had risen to between 160,000 - 180,000 birds.
South Africa does not export fertile ostriches or eggs, a policy that, together with U.S. sanctions against South Africa in 1986, blocking import of all plant and animal products, prompted the current effort to establish ostrich farming in the United States.
Namibia exports fertile eggs, chicks, and adult birds to the U.S., Britain and other countries.
A 1989 USDA ban on the importation of ratites and fertile eggs into the United States, in order to control the import of exotic ticks feared by the cattle industry, was lifted in 1991.
The majority of ostriches in the U.S. - estimated in 1995 between 7O,000 and 95,000 - are derived from South African birds.
Ostriches - Miscellaneous Adult ostriches grow to be seven to nine feet tall and weigh 2OO to 35O pounds. They live to be 4O to 7O years old.
Roaming the grasslands and deserts of Africa in small, scattered herds or alone, they live naturally on grass, berries, succulents, seeds, and the leaves of trees and bushes.
Their upper eyelids have tiny feathers that look like long eyelashes to protect their eyes from the fierce desert sun. The ostrich's Australian relative, the emu, grows to be five or six feet tall and weighs between 11O to 14O pounds, with a life span of 25 to 3O years.
The nomadic emu ranges widely into Australia's tropical forests and arid interior, thriving on a diet of shoots, seeds, fruits, and insects. When food is abundant, the emu stores a thick layer of fat beneath the skin which acts as a reserve when sustenance is scarce.
These exotic fowl, known mainly to the public as exhibits at the zoo, are being promoted to consumers as looking and tasting like beef, but with less fat and cholesterol and fewer calories than either beef or poultry.
Cattle ranchers, small farmers, would-be agriculturists, retirees, banks and other investors are being urged to regard the farming of these birds as potentially very profitable, even more than cattle, with minimum land, food and facility requirements.
A Texas veterinarian predicts that the United States will soon lead the world in producing ostrich chicks. Ostriches have been called the next U.S. cash crop for a ready meat market in Europe.
In Britain, the ostrich and the emu are being added to the growing list of new animal species being raised for the table, along with the deer and the wild boar. Ostriches On Line, together with their associates in Europe, are negotiating to open an abattoir in the UK capable of handling ostrich slaughter.
Ostriches and emus are birds with a difference. They belong to the family of flightless fowl known as ratites, or running birds, including, in descending order according to size, the ostrich, emu, rhea, cassowary and kiwi. Ratites occupy the southern hemisphere: the ostrich is a native of Africa, the emu and cassowary of Australia, the rhea of South America, and the kiwi of New Zealand.
Ostriches - Origins The name ratite comes from the Latin word rates, meaning without a keel. It refers to the shape of the breast bone. Ratites have a convex breast bone, without the keel-like ridge to which bilateral flight muscles are attached in flying birds.
Though small, their wings are not useless. They help to balance the birds while running, turning, and swerving. An ostrich acting in self defense will extend first one wing and then the other in repeated, threatening motions resembling those of a boxer.
In a charge, ostriches fully extend their wings, creating an awesome spectacle.
Ostriches use their wings to cool themselves, moving them slowly backwards and forwards to direct a cooling breeze over their featherless thighs and sides while standing against the wind. Ostriches and emus are strong, fast runners.
They can run up to 4O miles an hour, emus covering 9 feet, ostriches 25 feet in a stride. Their toes - emus and other flightless fowl have three and ostriches have two, compared to the four toes of flying birds - are made for speed, as fewer toes mean less ground contact, adding more speed.
The long, powerful legs of these birds are their main weapon of defense, enabling them to flee or fight. Ratites fight with kicks, kicking from the knees (technically the ankles) forward and down, instead of backward.
Ostriches - Self Defense Peaceful when left alone, ratites become very aggressive when they or their families are threatened. Both parents are active in defending the nest and chicks.
Observing a potential enemy, an ostrich father will cause a distraction by fleeing in another direction, pretending to be sick or injured. With limp wings he sinks lower and lower to the ground, swaying to and fro in his struggle to escape, finally collapsing.
He repeats his act, just beyond reach of the intruder, until satisfied that his charges are safe, whereupon he recovers and lightly dashes away. The female ostrich will similarly playact to defend her nest, but if she is already brooding while the male stages confusion, she will stretch out her neck and head on the ground in camouflage with the surrounding scrub and stones.
If all these stratagems fail, the male will lash out furiously at the enemy with his deadly, karate-like kicks, large foot and gouging toenail.
Ostriches - Ancestry Ratites are the oldest living birds on earth. Regarded with other birds as reptilian in origin, they are believed to have been separated from the main line of avian evolution since at least the Middle Cretaceous period, 8O to 9O million years ago.
Twenty to sixty million years ago, ostriches ranged the Mediterranean Sea area in the West, China in the East, and Mongolia in the North, migrating across Africa about a million years ago. Large ostrich herds roamed the Western Cape of Africa when the Dutch landed in the 17th century.
Egyptian cave art and other records trace the hunting, and perhaps farming, of ostriches to antiquity. The Arabs and Bushmen hunted the birds for sport, the Bushmen with poison arrows.
Ostriches have traditionally been hunted in Namibia (South West Africa) for sport, and for the diamonds sometimes found in their gizzards, and because sheep and cattle farmers regard them as vermin for tearing down fences.
Greek and Roman generals decorated their helmets with Ostrich feathers. Egyptian Pharaohs and their families bedecked themselves with Ostrich headdresses and fans.
The craving of Elizabeth I of England and Marie Antoinette of France for ostrich feathers as fashion items created an international feather trade out of North Africa and Arabia, and later South Africa, that lasted until World War I.
By the mid-19th century, the fashion had so devastated wild ostrich herds that ostrich farming was established, helped by the introduction into South Africa of wire fencing, the farming of alfalfa (Lucerne) to feed the birds, and mechanical ostrich-egg incubators.
The industry boomed between 19OO and 1914. In 1913, ostrich plumes were the fourth largest South African export after gold, diamonds, and wool. Rich South African feather barons built fancy farm houses and ostrich feather palaces during this period.
Ostriches - International Farming The United States became involved. An October 19O6 article on ostrich farming in the United States in The National Geographic Magazine stated: "Ostrich farming in the United States, while still in its infancy, is becoming a profitable industry in Arizona and California, and it is believed that in a few years we shall not be obliged to import Ostrich feathers from abroad."
A souvenir catalogue of the Cawston Ostrich Farm in South Pasadena California, copyrighted 19O2, credits Edwin Cawston, an American trader, with introducing Ostrich farming to America by going direct to Africa and securing, after great difficulty, a flock of fifty birds which were brought in a chartered ship to Galveston (Texas) and from thence to California.
Ostrich plumes went out of style during World War I, partly as a result of the international campaign against the cruel trade. Ostrich farming lagged until 1945, when the government-supported Klein Karoo Agricultural Cooperative was formed in South Africa.
It added meat and skin to feathers, building the world's first ostrich slaughterhouse in 1963-64. A leather tannery followed in 1969-7O, and, in 198O-81, a new slaughterhouse was built to supply the demand for ostrich meat abroad.
Both operations were extended in 1989. In 1992, 120,000 Ostriches were slaughtered in South Africa, with 150,000 in 1993. By 1994 this number had risen to between 160,000 - 180,000 birds.
South Africa does not export fertile ostriches or eggs, a policy that, together with U.S. sanctions against South Africa in 1986, blocking import of all plant and animal products, prompted the current effort to establish ostrich farming in the United States.
Namibia exports fertile eggs, chicks, and adult birds to the U.S., Britain and other countries.
A 1989 USDA ban on the importation of ratites and fertile eggs into the United States, in order to control the import of exotic ticks feared by the cattle industry, was lifted in 1991.
The majority of ostriches in the U.S. - estimated in 1995 between 7O,000 and 95,000 - are derived from South African birds.
Ostriches - Miscellaneous Adult ostriches grow to be seven to nine feet tall and weigh 2OO to 35O pounds. They live to be 4O to 7O years old.
Roaming the grasslands and deserts of Africa in small, scattered herds or alone, they live naturally on grass, berries, succulents, seeds, and the leaves of trees and bushes.
Their upper eyelids have tiny feathers that look like long eyelashes to protect their eyes from the fierce desert sun. The ostrich's Australian relative, the emu, grows to be five or six feet tall and weighs between 11O to 14O pounds, with a life span of 25 to 3O years.
The nomadic emu ranges widely into Australia's tropical forests and arid interior, thriving on a diet of shoots, seeds, fruits, and insects. When food is abundant, the emu stores a thick layer of fat beneath the skin which acts as a reserve when sustenance is scarce.