The St. Johns herald., 1892-10-13
RAISING OSTRICHEs.
The Young Birds Matched in Large
 Incubators.
4 Business That Yields an Enormous = Profit, But Requires the Great est Care How the Pluck
 ing Is Done.

CT in Cape Colony compares the young
 ostrich that has just cleared it's nest to
 a hedgehog mounted on stilts and pro
 vided with a long neck. The feathers
 gre nothing more than grayish bristles.
 while head and neck are covered with a
 fine, speckled down, soft as velvet. A
 difference of the sexes is not yet dis
 cernible in the plumage.
 Very few ostriches are born nowa-
 days out of captivity, for the fashion of the day has developed ostrich-breeding
 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 five million dollars 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 pro- ceeding. The value of the feathers varies with their quality. During the second year of his existence male bird furnished two hundred and fifty thou sand dollars worth of frst-quality plumes and about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of second grade.
 An ostrich farm yields from thirty to fifty per cent. on its original invest ment, and in prosperous times as high as one hundred per cent, says the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The rational breeding of the ostrich is of vast i'm portance to Cape Colony. Years age birds were exported to Australia with such favorable result that the govern ment of the cape imposed tax of five hundred dollars per bird and twenty five dollars for every unmatched egg for exportation tariff, in order to protect its own industry. This killed the ex- port entirely.
 In the year of 1875 the number of tame ostriches in the cape reached the astounding sum of thirty-two thousand, although the breeding of ostriches YVES 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 rainy period, the ostrich hen lays one egg every 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 matching. By gradually taking away one egg after another, as we do with our hens, the | big bird can be induced to lay on an average of thirty eggs, and in excep- tional cases even sixty eggs have been | accumulated. These surplus eggs are artifcially matched in large incubators, but the eggs must be turned every day. | h from eight to ten days the first signs of life are noticeable. Shortly before | the young bird is ready to break the | shell of its prison, which is between the | forty-fifth and flftieth days, squeak ing noise is heard within and a constant ! pecl1ing against the shell, which is as hard as rock. In little while he | succeeds in punching a triangular hole through the shell, which the lit | tie 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. 1t happens that just during the breeding time the ostriches have the most beautiful plumage, which suffers greatly from the hatch ing process and the squatting in the sand and dust. At the time when ostriches became prized very highly and artificial incubators were proper tionately rare the surplus ostrich eggs were matched by Hottentot women in large feather beds, an occupation which was much to the liking of these danes, so prone to a ''dolce far niente" of such a prolonged period.
 The raising of the young ostriches re- quires great care and patience and 9 large percentage of them die annually from diseases and other accidents. The ostrich is full-grown when five years of age. It is then that the male bird has the most beautiful plumage of black, satiny sheen. The female birds feathers are light-gray. The most valuable plumes hang in Q delicate fringe all around the body of the bird. When the bird is nine months old its feathers are plucked for the first time. At that time they are still stiff and narrow, with pointed tips, and do not | yet give any idea of the beauty of the later crops. During the second year they become much more likely, although still narrow and pointed But at the third plucLing 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 de- tachments, first into large fold and from this into very small pen. the so- called piclzing-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.
 Planted by Franklin.
 ? On the old Boston and New Haven t,,,,,,1sl-o ;,, 4l,a eo,,+Tso,.-, ~>o-. oe N-~