Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 200, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1913 — HUMBLE “BIDDY” BEST [ARTICLE]

HUMBLE “BIDDY” BEST

IN THE END, MORE PROFITABLE . * THAN THE OSTRICH. Figures Would Seem to Show That Bird of Prized Plumage Is Prime Investment, but There Are Drawbacks. No, she is not one of the SIO,OOO biddies we sometimes read about, especially when it comes to laying eggs. She is any one of the several thousand ostrich hens that may now be found in some of our western states. You can figure it out for yourself. An ortrich hen, a “good” one, will lay about 100 eggs a year, and each egg contains as much food-material as 30 ordinary hen’s eggs. That gives the ostrich credit for furnishing egg-food amounting to 3,000 hen’s eggs per year. , , But let’s not all go into the ostrich business. There are several drawbacks. One of them is that it costs twenty dollars a year to keep an ostrich, or thereabouts, and they do not begin to lay until they are four years old. Then there is the first cost —no little item, as six-months-old chicks are worth SIOO each, while birds old enough to begin laying cost SBOO a pair. Rather, they are held to be worth that, as the ostricti breeders will seldom sell a bird at any price. There is also the inconvenience of handling. The kick of an ostrich will discount any exercise of a mule’s hind legs about 100 per cent, and they are said to be far from sweet-tempered, especially during the plucking season. Being eight feet tall, an ostrich that got really out of patience at a person would be rather more difficult to handle than a “mad” sitting hen, and most of us find the latter lady all we want to tackle. On the whole, perhaps we would be wiser to stick to the barnyard biddy for ordinary purposes, though the beauty of the aristocratic Mr. Ostrich should prove a great temptation to desert our first love. Then, too, the Lady of the Plumes is, if the truth were told, rather lazy. She does not even lay her eggs in the nest her mate has carefully prepared for her half the time. She leaves them scattered about just as it happens, and her patient consort has to roll them into the nest himself. Then, too, he gets most of the sitting to do, as his proud wife refuses to do nest duty except for a little while in the daytime. Often incubators are used for hatching the ostrich chicks, and then there need be no family quarrels on the subject. The incubators used must be peculiar in construction, as one of the eggs is five Inches long. Machines holding about fifty eggs are generally employed.