OSTRICH-FARMING. For many centuries os triches have been partially tamed or domesticated on a small scale by some of the tribes of Central and Northern Africa, hut it is only since about lS130 that any extensive efforts have been made to supply the demand for ostrich plumes from domesticated birds. First in Cape Colony. later in Algeria and Argentina, and finally in the southwestern United States, ostrich-farming was taken up as a profitable employment. and at the opening of the present century millions of dol lars' worth of fine ostrich plumes were sent to market annually from ostrich farms. A consular report in 1S99 staled that 261,000 were owned in Cape Colony alone. The farms of Ari zona and southern California long since passed the experimental stage. Their birds are either pastured in small flocks, or a cork and one or two hens are kept in areas inclosed with coarse wire netting fences six or seven feet, high; these pas tures are usually arranged in pairs. so that when the alfalfa. upon which the birds feed, is exhaust 01 in one field, the birds may be driven into the ether. They also receive grain. The birds rarely fill ill. and are quite prolific in captivity, a male and two females having been known to produce 188 eggs in a year, ahont 80 per cent. of
%%1001 yielded chicks. Artificial incubation is usually practiced, ordinary incubators with un usually large trays being used. When six or seven months old, the birds undergo their first plucking, and thereafter at intervals of about set on nientlis new crops of plumes may he gath ered. The plumes are cut off. not pulled out, but after a few days the dead stumps are re moved to make room for the new feathers. The price of the plumes varies very greatly with the quality. but each bird on a well-managed farm will yield from $30 to $60 worth at a plucking. As the ostrich lives to be as much as eighty years old, there is an opportunity for large profit from each one.
Consult: Mosenthai and Harting, Ostriches and Ostrich Panning (London, 1879) ; :Martin, /tome Life on an ostrich Pant! (London, 1891) ; Paul, "Ostrich Farming in California," in Cos inepofifan ZIT/zinc, vol. xi. (New York, 1891) ; Newton, Dictionary of Birds (New York, 1896), where many further references may be found.