The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-01-21
FEATHER FARMS.
Some of the Ecentricities of South
Africa's Foolish Bird.
London Mail.

London Mail.
The ostrich is one of the treasures South
Africa possesses. But perhaps he is at his
best in the north of the dark continent.
for Barbary bird is an edition de luxe
compared with the Cape variety Also, he is
less valuable than once he was, when
the incubator was an unknown resource
and Matching out chicks a more hazard
Gus undertaking than it is now. Though
In the old days G500 passed hands often
for first rate pair of birds, which now
415 will purchase. and a ''plucking'' will
go Tor tl los that in palmy times would
have fetched ELS, ostrich farming is not
played-out profession. No stock farm
can be a greater disappointment and anx-
iety to its owner than one devoted to os-
triches-the most extraordinarily 'pernick-
ety. birds imaginable, the most willful apd
the most obstinate. Anyone who fancies
that because the creatures can digest such
things as gimlets, soap and old gloves, and
in consequence argues that they are the
hardy bruteS they may appear to be, is
very wrong indeed. The birds suffer from
mysterious ills in extreme childhood that
carry them eff by fiocks, and in adult age
are so quarrelsome of temper and brittle
of leg that the amaigamation is all too
frequently the cause of an untimely end
Little Hottentots are employed to herd
the chicks and feed them when they are
ready to go out of doors, and these GUS
todianS being of the same lazy nature as
their elders are dreadful trouble to the
farmers. One of their vagaries is to neg
because they are troublesome.
When the chicks grow up, as they speed
lily do, they take their revenge upon their
whiloms guardians. They steal their food
they scare them, and would MAIN and kill
them If the children did not carefully keep
out or their way and WELD the ''tackey'
when they encounter the irate birds. This
is weapon without which the most valiant
man is as a babe before an ostrich that is
a "quei"-in other words, vicious. 1t Is
simply branch of the mimosa, with the
prickles left on the end of it. When the
ostrich runs amuck the 'tackey" is bran
dished in his face; he shuts his eyes in
stinctively to avoid the long prickles, and
the attacked victim promptly lodges him
as he proceeds on his headlong and in
furiated rush.
Tender-hearted women who are trying
to stamp out the destruction of rare and
beautiful birds, because of the sacrifice of
their lives for the sake of their feathers,
do not object to ostrich plumes, because
the life of the bird is not forfeited; neither,
they are persuaded, is the process of pluck
ing severely painful one They are right.
Though the birds when they are driven
into the box that cabins them while they
are deprived of their feathers, exhibit in
tense and foolish alarm, and would wreak
no end of vengeance on one another and
the hands" engaged in plucking them If
they had the opportunity, no sooner are
they out of the box than they dance off,
apparently much more frightened than
hurt. They behave, indeed precisely like
sheep brought into the shearing shed. Like
sheep, too. they are branded.
After the plucking the feathers have all
to be sorted and tied up, piece of work
ordinarily performed by professional sort
ers. Again the services of the farmer s
wife, who plays an active part in an os-
trich farm, may be called into requisition
to wash those plumes that are badly soiled.
In each wing there are a couple of dozen
long white handsome feathers.
The ostrich is on such a big scale all
around that he is a most formidable crea-
ture TO deal with in peace or "quei."
Twenty-four hens eggs go to the one that
incloses him as a chick, so that before he
is Matched he is a handful His height is
huge, with his two-toed feet he can stamp
and kick with tremendous force; he runs
as swiftly as horse, and his stupidity is
colossal.