Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1892 — ABOUT THE OSTRICH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ABOUT THE OSTRICH.

Jyoung birds hatched in LARGE INCUBATORS. 'Their Raising: Demands Much Care-How They Are Picked— A Business That Yields Almost 100 Per Cent, on the Money In vested. Ostrich Farming. F The wife of an English ostrichbreeder in Cape Colony compares the young ostrich that has just cleared its nest to a hedgehog mounted on stilts and provided with a long neck. The feathers are nothing more than grayish bristles, while head and neck are covered with a line, speckled . down, soft as velvet. A difference of the sexes is not yet discernible in the plumage. Very few ostriches are born nowadays out of captivity, for the fashion jof the day has developed ostrichjbreeding into one of the best-paying [industries, which yields a handsome revenue to several countries, especially the deserts and waste lands of Southern Africa. The valuation of the South African

export of ostrich feathers amounts to 15,000,000 per annum. Hunting the birds has ceased entirely, for they threatened to become extinct in some localities, and a rational breeding is by far the most remunerative proceeding. The value of the feathers varies with their quality. During the second year of his existence a •male bird furnished 8250,000 worth of first-quality plumes and about *150,000 worth of second grade. An ostrich farm yields from 30 to 50 per cent on its original investment, and in prosperous times as high as 100 per cent., says the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The rational breeding of the ostrich is of vast importance to Cape Colony. Ygprs ago Birds were exported to Australia with such a favorable result that the government of the Cape imposed a tax of SSOO per bird and $25 for every uhhatched egg for exportation tariff. In order ui protect its own industry. This killed the export entirely. In the year 1875 the number of tame ostriches in the Cape reached the astounding sum of 32,000, although the breeding of ostriches was not commenced until 1863. To-day that number has more than doubled itself, for in the meantime the incubators have been largely improved. During the laying season, which ■comes with the end of the rairiy period, the ostrich Ben lays <Hle egg every other day until she has deposited from fifteen to twenty eggs in the sand-pile nest, a quantity just large enough to cover the same with her body when hatching. By gradually taking away one egg after another, as ;we do with our hens, the blg-bird can be Induced to lay on an average thirty eggs, and in exceptional cases even sixty eggs have been accumulated. These surplus eggs are artificially hatched in large incubators, but the eggs most be turned every day. In from eight to ten days the first signs of life are noticeable. Shortly before the young bird is ready to break the shell of his prison, which is between the forty-fifth and fiftieth days, a squeaking noise is heard within and a constant pecking against the shell, which is as hard as a rock. In a little while he succeeds in punching a triangular hole through the shell, which the little inmate tries hard to enlarge, in order to become entirely liberated. If he is not very strong he must be helped in his attempt to escape. The artificial hatchings are always preferred to the natural ones.

It happens that just during the breeding time the ostriches have the most beautiful plumage, which suffers greatly from the hatching process and squatting in the sand and dust. At the time when ostriches became prised very highly and artificial incubators were proportionately rare the surplus ostrich eggs were hatched by Hottentot women in large feather beds, an occupation which Was much to the liking of these dames, so prone to a “dolee far uiente” of such a proThe raising of the young ostriches requires great care and patience and a large percentage of them die annually from diseases and ottfer accidents. The ostrich is full grown when 5 years of age. It is then that the male bird has the most beautiful plqtnjge of a black, Satiuf Sheen. The female bird’s feathers are light-

any idea of the beauty of the latei crops. During the second year they become much more likely, although still narrow and pointed. But at the third plucking they are soft and broad, as they should be. On the large breeding farms men mounted on horses drive the birds

together for the picking, for the ostriches are apt to stray far away from home. They are driven in detachments, first into a large fold and from this into a very small pen, the so-called picking-pen. In this latter the birds are so densely packed together that the dangerous individuals have no room for kicking, for the ostrich has power enough in his long legs to deal mortal blows with them.

WOULD-BE DESERTERS.

YOUNG OSTRICH AFTER LEAVING NEST.

RELATIVE SIZE OF AN OSTRICH AND CHICKEN EGG.