AFRICAN OSTRICH CENSUS.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 22, 8 January 1907, Page 2

AFRICAN OSTRICH CENSUS.

The last ostrich sensus in South Africa showed 457,970 birds in the colony. There are two sorts of ostrich farming—the one grazing them on fields under irrigation, when five birds to tho acre can be kept, and the other letting them find their own food in large camps up to 3,000 acres, and requiring from 10 to 20 acres to the bird. In the first case the great drawback is the great cost of land laid down with luccrn and under permanent irrigation, it running from £4O to £IOO per acre. In the second case the drawback is the greater loss of birds from accidents and getting lost, and the cost of feeding them in severe droughts. Oudtsliorn is the ostrich centre for the iiTigailgclalnpthod, onequarter of all the birfßTfeing found there. The other method is mainly carried cfh on the coast west of East London and up the large river valleys.

The chick feathers usually are pulled when the bird is eight months old, then six and a half months after that the primary feathers are cut, and the tails, blacks and drabs, pulled. This gives nearly three pluckings in two years. Birds should average lib. to lib. 3oz. of feathers a plucking, or about lilt), a year.