OSTRICH FARMING IN VICTORIA

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2552, 26 May 1881, Page 2

OSTRICH FARMING IN VICTORIA

(From the “ Hamilton Spectator,” May 3.) The ostriches formerly belonging to the Acclimatisation Society, and located a few years ago at Longerenong, are now doing very well on the station of Messrs Officer, near Sawn-hill, to which locality they were removed four or five years ago. The birds, which numbered five or six only when removed from Longerenong, having increased to between 50 and GO, and now that their habits are better understood, it is found that ostrich-rearing may be made a very profitable speculation. When at Longerenong, the birds became so shy, from running in large paddocks of 2,000 acres or so, that they could not ho approached. To run them down would be to kill them, for, when pursued, the ostrich runs straight-ahead, and dashes itself recklessly against any tree or other obstacle that may be standing in the way. However, by sending a man to reside amongst the ostriches for two or three weeks, and to feed them by strewing maize about the paddocks, the birds are gradually drawn into a small yard or crush-pen, from whence they were transferred to drays, having 6ft ; hurdles round the sides. In this way the ostriches were removed to their new location, but even then they were so wild that they endeavored to jump over the hurdles, and one succeeded in committing suicide in this manner. At Swan-hill the birds are kept by pairs in small paddocks of an acre dr so, for breeding purposes, and the paling fences require to be so high and close that the ostriches cannot see one another, as they are sO quarrelsome at breeding times that they injure themselves by rushing against the fences in the endeavor to get at any other ostrich in sight. They are also very curious, and one or two have been lost through getting their necks entangled in small burrows made beneath the palings by dogs .or other animals. . They are fed on lucerne, maize, and other crops grown specially for them on the station, whilst sand and broken quartz have to be provided to aid their digestion. The value of a full-grown ostrich is £l2O, and the crop of feathers produced from each bird every year is worth £lO. The practice of pulling the feathers has been abandoned, as being both cruel and injurious, and the plan is adopted of cutting them off close to skin, when the old stamps gradually work out, and are replaced by a new growth Ostriches breed twice a year. The hen begins to lay when two years old, and will bring out clutches of ten or a dozen chicks at every batch. The young birds are very difficult to rear, and as the old birds take very little trouble with them, and often trample them to death, it is found that the best way to rear the chicks is to keep them in a warm room separate from the parent birds. In this way, with proper care, large broods may be reared, and the pursuit of looking after them is well adapted to women. The Messrs Officer have been for some time experimenting with a patent incubator, and it is found that_ this machine ensures far greater certainty in hatching, as the birds have to sit 42 days, and sometimes desert the nest.