Morning journal and courier., 1882-01-27
Friday Morning, Jan. P, 1882.
CONSUL BAKER ON OsTRICHEs.

| ports from United States Consuls to the State
 department is that of Mir. E. L. Baker, Con-
 sul at Buenos Ayres, concerning ostrich
 farming. Ostrich farming has been very l successfully carried on in South Africa and
 good progress in it has been made in the Ar
 genuine Republic. Mr. Baker can see no
 good reason why it should not be success
 in the United States, where pasturage is
 plenty and grain abundant and usually cheap. 1 No trouble is to be feared from the climate
 The ostrich will thrive in the greatest ex- 1 tremes of heat and cold. The coast districts of Cape Colony, where snow is seldom seen, l and the winters are mild and short of dura- ton, suit them equally well as the lofty table
 lands of Fraserburg, coco feet above the l level of the sea, where the winter is bitterly | cold and snow often covers the ground to l the depth of several inches. So also they | are as much at home in the fearfully cold
 and desolate regions of Southern Patagonia as on the grassy ''pampas" of the Argentine Republic, where snow never falls and the 1 mercury seldom sinks to freezing point.
 The fact that the ostrich has been intro | duced into every part of Cape Colony and appears to thrive well everywhere, and the further fact that it has been shipped by the vessel load to the plains of Buenos Ayres with equally good results, are certainly good
 evidences that it can be domesticated in al-
 most every climate.
 MT. Baker gives a summary of facts gath cred by experienced ostrich farmers from
 which it appears that an ostrich farm of
 (, 1000 acres will accommodate and nourish
 5000 ostriches that with suitable enclo- sures the cost of maintaining the birds is comparatively small, as they thrive on the most ordinary grass pasturage; that the birds will do well on most any kinds of soil | though that which contains gray ell or small stones is prefer able;@ that they are seldom sick, | drink but little water, graze only during the | day, and lie down to sleep wherever the night | overtakes them; that when the farm is prop l erly fenced, the expense of management is ! tri1ing, no regular herdsmen being required; 1 that the female becomes a breeding bird at | four and the male at five years of age; that ] until they are two years of age they can be
 herded in the open country, like sheep; that | they drive very readily, and can be removed ] from one part of the country to another, on | foot, with great rapidity; that after they are | two years of age they prefer to scatter or | wander singly, and require more attention | unless they are kept in enclosed pastures; 1 that one pair of birds will hatch out ten or | fifteen chickens four times a year, thus pro- ducing from forty to sixty chicks in twelve l he, hot Eho every other day, and that when fifteen to l twenty eggs are deposited in the nest she will | sit upon them during the day and the male | bird at night; that the period of incubation l is forty-two days, and that if the chicks are | removed, to be brought up by the farmer, | the male will at once begin to lay again that l during the breeding season the birds should | be carefully enclosed and protected and re- ceive generous allowance not only of green | stuff, but also of small grain, such as barley 1 and corn that the young chicks for the first 1 few weeks should be carefully housed from l the cold and the rain; and especially to be | sheltered at night that the gross income de- ! rived from the chicks produced by one pair | of birds is from E., 900 to $3, GOO per annum; | that-is to say, the value of the chicks one | month old at Cape Colony, is about $50 | apiece, and on account of the feathers pro- l duced the value goes on increasing until the | bird reaches the breeding age, when the os- trich attains it's greatest value; that the birds are plucked for their feathers at the age of | six to eight months, and again every six 10 | nine months, and every succeeding six to | nine months that the value of the feathers l of the chicks is only about $5 per bird, but ! the next pluckings yield from $40 to $50 | per bird, so that, assuming the pluckings to l average only $75 per bird, there will be a | gross income of $150 in sixteen months, or 1 about SIP per annum from each ostrich | that when the bird becomes mature, each 1 wing produces twenty-five long white feath- | CTS, or fifty feathers in all (besides blacks, | etc., each feather at Cape Town being worth l at least S5 that with young and growing | birds there will, even under the least hopeful l view, be a profit of 75 per cent from the feathers alone per annum, while the value of the birds will have more than doubled in the same time.
 All this is very attractive, and if it be true, as Mr. Baker seems to think it is, that ostriches can be successfully grown in this country, and at an annual profit of at least 75 per cent, it is to be hoped that the fact will be soon made apparent. There is room enough here for some good-sized ostrich farms.