Ostrich

I can't see any forum these fit into. Wish there were at least a misc. option in the critters.

Regardless, I stumbled across a random comment in a story that reminded me of the Ostrich fad. As I remember, the meat was a little on the dry side, but certainly perfectly edible. I was wondering if anyone could answer a couple of questions about what happened there? Why did they disappear from the market?

And relative to other meat animals, what kind of impact did ostriches have on their environment? Were they manageable in ways that supported their environment and improved soil or destructive like overcrowded chickens?

Sorry, just wondering now that I've been reminded about them.

I still think we need a misc animal section for these and other unusual animals. I know both iguanas and guinea pigs are valuable meat animals in South America and I don't see either of those options either. Those are just things that I pulled from the top of my head. How many other local opportunities are we ignoring across the planet?

When the high prices fell on breeder stock for Ostrich, people got out. I don't think anyone really developed a good meat market for Ostrich or Emu.

We were lucky and got an Ostrich when the market bottomed out. We bought the several month old chick for $100. I put $100 in feed in the Ostrich.
We butchered the Ostrich ourselves at home and it yielded about 100 lbs of meat. The meat was delicious red meat. You do need to use plenty of oil
as there is no fat in the meat which is why it is easy to get the meat too dry.


Fencing is one limitng problem for Ostrich. Mine could walk over 5 foot tall woven wire fence. Our Ostrich could look over the top of a nine foot stall wall
without stretching.

I have spent about $7000 on fencing in the past two years to fence in my goats. That was just for materials. I can't imagine having to put up 8 foot tall fencing
or taller fencing to kep in ostrich flocks let alone buildings and incubators. The cost would be probhibitive. I fenced in about 18 acres with cross fencing to form
8 rotational pastures. A mixture of goat fence and high tensile 6 wires.

I don't know if an Ostrich would be good for my pastures as I couldn't let ours out to graze except in a very small corral. I know my goats, chickens, rabbits, horses
and steers grazed in rotation seem to improve the pasture as long as they are not over grazed on a particular pasture. Obviously Ostrich work well in a plains type envirionment.
I don't know if I have heard of anyone trying to use Ostrich to improve the land.

goodluck,

Bonnie

I'm a suburbanite here. Small animals are the most I can aspire to, and we're not even there yet. I just stumbled across mention of a Osturdunken in a story and it made me realize that it was something I'd never seen discussed here. Considering how diverse the discussions can get, I was very surprised.

I keep a diversified roster of livestock on my homestead (donkey, sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, feral turkeys) but never considered an ostrich at all. Come to think about it now, ostriches would not be for me. Fencing and the danger of being fatally kicked definitively put them on my "no have" list. But having said that, I'd be willing to barter for ostrich meat if anyone in my area would be raising them.

Thinking of it from a permaculture angle, what sort of environment and diet do ostriches need?

As for marketing the meat, I think someone could set up a small home business marketing the meat for pet food. There are thousands of cats and dogs out there on "allergy" diets, and owners are looking for novel protein sources. In fact, right now I'm supplying a pet owner with rabbit meat for his dog. I'm getting retail prices for the meat and he picks it up right from my farm. Easy sale for me!

TO: Su Ba
FROM: Eric Koperek = erickoperek@gmail.com
SUBJECT: Rabbit versus Ostrich
DATE: PM 6:14 Tuesday 21 June 2016
TEXT:

(1) I have seen ostrich "ranched" in South Africa. My considered advice is that the birds are not worth the effort to raise. The market in South Africa is for the eggs which are served as novelties in tourist hotels. There is little commercial interest in ostrich meat. My guess is that ostrich would have an equally poor market in the United States as both Americans and South Africans eat a large amount of meat in their diets.

(2) Ostrich are perhaps the most dangerous animals (other than crocodiles) grown for meat or hides. Even "tame" ostriches are unpredictable. You could not pay me enough to work with these birds. I have personally seen the damage they do to people.

(3) Your best bet is to grow rabbits. There is a huge market for rabbit meat. Rabbit meat does not contain any fat or cholesterol so it is ideal for heart patients. (Rabbits only deposit fat around their intestines and internal organs). My family supplies thousands of rabbits yearly to hospitals, hotels, restaurants, and spas in Austria. We also raise beagles for hunting. We feed them live rabbits; every other day toss 1 rabbit per dog into its kennel run. The animal rights people would probably object but rabbit-fed beagles are good hunters = we get up to $5,000 for a dog that will hunt. The United States is the largest hunting market on this planet.

ERIC KOPEREK = erickoperek@gmail.com

end comment

Yeah, I kinda agree very hard to keep them. But very profitable and a miss opportunity there's this place called fossil farms. That works with them and keep them mostly on grass. First time I've ever seen anyone pull that off. But there's a bunch of things like elk, and ostrich and a heavy area for fence training herds/animals. That could go together in a rotational setup on like 100 acres. about 20 acres in heavy fencing maybe in a tiktock like kingbird farms use to do there poultry. It could be done but it would be so expensive. It would actually be easier to do in a place like NZ, which allows these large herds of things without fencing as extreme as USA requires to raise this stuff. But they'd be Emu's probably.

You could probably come up with a setup that would make it work as long as you had something that you could grow out low fencing on the rest of the acres.

been to some ostrich ranches in s.africa, they are in the drier regions very sparse vegetation lots of open ground, these birds range far in wilder situations but ranched sees them in large high fenced paddocks and fed a formulated type ration plus fresh cut feed, they were mostly grown for the leather/hide industry ,higher end of it ,shoes and luggage bags ,briefcases  and smaller pieces made into hats and belts ,sandals ,wallets  and trinkets being the last end use.The feathers were in demand awhile ago as trim decoration in fashion clothing industry, the meat and eggs were almost secondary to the operation .They were all special hybrid livestock ---much bigger than their wild relations --grown for size and feather colour/conformaty---for bigger hides  and the pattern left in the hide after feathers   .All thorn tree or barb wire excluded from paddocks , bred from a mix of sub species from african countries. Kept in flocks of age,size and sex rated , breeding stud males kept away and sub standard males used as a foster dad --they help rear , So not an easy animal to just smallhold in low numbers i think----and dont wear sunglasses ,watches ,rings in ears or on fingers or any thing with buttons.

tony uljee wrote:been to some ostrich ranches in s.africa, they are in the drier regions very sparse vegetation lots of open ground, these birds range far in wilder situations but ranched sees them in large high fenced paddocks and fed a formulated type ration plus fresh cut feed, they were mostly grown for the leather/hide industry ,higher end of it ,shoes and luggage bags ,briefcases  and smaller pieces made into hats and belts ,sandals ,wallets  and trinkets being the last end use.The feathers were in demand awhile ago as trim decoration in fashion clothing industry, the meat and eggs were almost secondary to the operation .They were all special hybrid livestock ---much bigger than their wild relations --grown for size and feather colour/conformaty---for bigger hides  and the pattern left in the hide after feathers   .All thorn tree or barb wire excluded from paddocks , bred from a mix of sub species from african countries. Kept in flocks of age,size and sex rated , breeding stud males kept away and sub standard males used as a foster dad --they help rear , So not an easy animal to just smallhold in low numbers i think----and dont wear sunglasses ,watches ,rings in ears or on fingers or any thing with buttons.

I think what a lot of people miss is that these novelty I guess they call it items are long term money. once a market is develope they tend to weather better than most crops. Even in an ecomical down turn things like luxury skins, pearls,  whiskey, bonsai, aged Parmesans hold over until the market recovers in a way few other crops do. It use to be super common for USA farms to have some of these bullet proof luxury aged market items as biz before Reagan. Why so many farms/ranches aren't as weather proof as they could be. Even in permaculture or conventional farming. They lost their full systems even tons of permacultures farms lack it.


That luxury market is so under looked at. luxury fruit market that allows you to employee a lot of people like in japan's farm. Then luxury food/clothing
Always thought water buffalo, bison, elk, osrish, and alligators were missed opportunities for permaculture large scale operrations. Because you could rotate and stack fuctions if you had muliple things that work together well. A slaughter house and alligators & water bufflo for example. Or alligators and cockroach farming. Since young alligators actually eat a lot of insects.  Elk and osirish have oddly enough nearly simlar fencing requirements. If you had say rabbts and goats/ cattle it would go well in a rotation. And you could use that area to fence train goats, chickens, turkeys/goose, and pigs.

It's really hard to be fuctional farm because so much poorly place subsidies that have 90% to do with electoral college and 10% functional robust food system.

I think ostriches are scary!!  Beyond that, fencing would be super expensive.  Without an already robust market, it would be almost impossible for the average homesteader to break in to.

It would have to be someone firmly determined on ostriches for reasons other than finances to get it started.

Back in the early 90s, when they were both healthy, strong, and robust, my dad moved a couple states south, to my uncle's, to help him raise his ostriches. The fencing, while necessarily extra sturdy, and about 5ft tall was no more expensive or sturdy than what would be needed for horses. They neither jump nor fly, but absolutely did run and slam into it, occasionally, plus things get a bit wild and crazy, when they're playful &/or mating. Electric fencing isn't a viable option, because they can't see it, and (IF I'm remembering correctly), they're more likely to cut themselves trying to run through it, than they are to experience the electrical jolt that makes it so effective for cattle.

My understanding is that they mate for life, so the male to female breeding ratio is 1:1 - not exactly an economical ratio, like chickens, where you only need one rooster to as many as a dozen hens. They're also not daily layers, and only raise 1 baby at a time. Their life expectancy is long, but like many birds, as pretty, they don't exactly broadcast it, when they get sick, so it's not uncommon to not know they're in distress, until it's too late, or almost too late to help them.

They're certainly not an inexpensive species to establish, though there are several markets they appeal to: the feathers are coveted in quite a few craft markets, and are still often used in feather dusters. The eggs aren't commonly used in crafts, because they're difficult to source - but, that makes for higher demand, thus price, per eggshell. Their hides are very expensive, and all well, especially if you're up for the labor of tanning them, in house.

The meat, prepared properly, is very red-meat-esque, and what I've had was juicy and tender, much like Muskovy, or sirloin, with a lovely flavor no gamier than well-prepared venison or Buffalo.

Back to that playfulness... the herd my dad and uncle began and ended with was small - four birds. By the time I was able to go visit, one of the males had already succumbed to some sickness(Sorry, I don't remember what it was). The remaining three that I met were very affectionate and playful with my dad, though cautious with me. They would steal his hat and run away with it, which was funny, but he told me that when they'd his glasses from his face, it got very scary.  They enjoyed playing tag with him, and would sidle up to him, for an affectionate face & head rubbing from him, or to lean on him, much like a horse or cow will do. As I watched one come in for a lean, it stepped on my dad's foot, leaving him limping for a couple hours. But, he warned me, "Make no mistake, when they're playing, they can be dangerous - when they're bickering, scared, or angry, they're deadly." He showed me recent scars on his head, from them getting a little too rough in stealing his hat, and showed me dents in the barn walls & fence, where they'd kicked.

In the end, they ended up with only one baby, who didn't survive to adulthood. That baby and one of the remaining adults died of a respiratory issue, from the cold. The solo female died within a year of her mate dying, the vet could only explain it as her dying from her grief and loneliness. Only one died of old age. My dad & uncle were both well versed in raising livestock, and took every precaution they could, to protect and build up these birds, but all in vain. They both said they learned a lot, and they became very attached to the birds, and that in many ways those birds truly enriched their lives, but both said they'd never do it again, and they would never recommend it.

Carla Burke wrote: My understanding is that they mate for life, so the male to female breeding ratio is 1:1 - not exactly an economical ratio, like chickens.

No you are thinking of Emu's perhaps? Ostriches do not mate for life and are polygamous. They will actually use the trate to put the eggs of the most dominate female in the center of the nest and use the other females eggs on the outside so that those ones get taken out first. The male watches the eggs.

But your right almost the whole thing except the fat, bones, blood and maybe the claws are worth a good deal in the market. Again if I was a small holder I'd not mess with them because it's just too much investment. The only way I'd do it if it was a co-op. IE a cluster area where 30 or 40 people were all going to get this setup in the same general area. And more than 50 birds for each person. So that you'd be able to sell out as a large market force. It's not homesteader/hobby farmer stuff. It's a real biz, with a biz plan, and a lot of networking. Plus, a lot of understanding but again. Tons of things on them that can be used and held on to for tough times.

Ok, I must have mixed up the mating habits, but it was definitely ostriches, they raised. Yes, there's no reason I can think of, to prohibit full beak to tail use of these critters.

Side note - I still have the one (empty) egg shell my dad kept, and I'm sure somewhere, I have pictures...

there is a market for the fat ,its rendered down into an oil and used in skin care and treatments , i remember reading about emu oil sometime ago and thought that was daft but then again we eat butter and margarine used to be made from whale oil, and grannies old cold remedy was goose fat rub on the chest. Seems ostrich oil is better than emu oil in its use , i remember having a key ring with an ostrich toe on it----and my uncle used to have an ostrich wishbone mounted on a wooden base---took its place on the xmass dinner table every year---accompanied by the usual old jokes and turkey dinner size comparisons.