“Even then the flock may sometimes be frightened and scattered beyond the ability of the herder to bring the birds together. On my farm, I have the ground fenced off into fifty-acre lots. I divide my birds into flocks of twenty-five or thirty, and put them successively in the different lots of land. I sow the ground with lucerne, and do not turn a flock into a field or paddock until the grass is in good condition for the birds to eat.
“You may put it down as a rule on ostrich farms, that plenty of space and a good fence are essential to success. In every paddock you must have a good shed, where the birds can take shelter when it rains. You must also have a kraal or yard in each paddock, where you can drive the birds whenever you want to select some of them for cutting their feathers. It is proper to say, however, that a kraal in each paddock is not necessary, as all that work can be done at the home station, where you have the buildings for artificial hatching and for gathering the feathers.”
Ned asked what kind of ground was best suited for the ostrich.
“You must have ground where the soil and plants are rich in alkalies,” replied Mr. Shaffner, “and when this is not the case, care must be taken to supply the needful element. Before this matter was understood there was some melancholy failures in the business. A friend of mine started an ostrich farm on a sandstone ridge. There was no limestone on the farm, and most of the birds died in a few months, and those that lived laid no eggs and produced very few feathers. Limestone was carted to the farm from a considerable distance, and the birds would not touch it. Bones were then tried and with admirable effect. What the birds required was phosphate of lime, and the bones gave them that. They rushed at them with great eagerness, and as soon as they were well supplied with bones they began to improve in health and to lay eggs. On farms like the one I mentioned, a quarter of a pound of sulphur and some salt is mixed with two buckets of pulverized bones, and the birds are allowed to eat as much of this mixture as they like. Where the rocks, grass, and soil contain alkaline salts in abundance, the birds require very little, if any, artificial food, and they thrive, fatten, pair, and lay eggs in the most satisfactory manner.”
“According to the story books,” said Harry, “the ostrich will eat anything. But from what you say, Mr. Shaffner, it does not seem that that is really the case.”
“The ostrich has a very good appetite, I must say,” was the reply, “and so far as green things are concerned, he will eat almost anything; lucerne, clover, wheat, corn, cabbage leaves, fruit, grain, and garden vegetables are all welcome, and he eats a certain quantity of crushed limestone and bones, and generally keeps a few pebbles in his stomach to assist him in the process of digestion. If he sees a bright sparkling stone on the ground, he is very apt to swallow it, and that reminds me of a little incident about two years ago. An English gentleman was visiting my place, and while he was looking around he came close up to the fence of a paddock containing a number of ostriches. An ostrich was on the other side of the fence and close to it. The gentleman had a large diamond in his shirt front, and while he was looking at the bird, the latter, with a quick movement of his head, wrenched the stone from its setting and swallowed it. I see that none of you wear diamonds, and so it is not necessary for me to repeat the caution which I have ever since given to my diamond-wearing visitors.”
“What became of the diamond?” Harry asked.
“Oh! my visitor bought the bird and had it killed, in order to get the diamond back again. He found it safe in the creature’s stomach, along with several small stones. It was a particularly valuable gem, and the gentleman had no idea of allowing the bird to keep it.”
Ned wanted to know if ostriches lived in flocks like barnyard fowls, or divided off into pairs like the majority of forest and field birds.
“That depends a great deal upon the farmer,” Mr. Shaffner answered. “The pairing season is in the month of July, which is equivalent to the English January. Some farmers, when the pairing time approaches, put a male and female bird together in a pen; some put two females with a male, and very often a male bird has five hens in his family. The birds run in pairs or flocks, as the case may be. In August, the hens begin to lay, and continue to deposit eggs for a period of six weeks. They do not lay every day, like domestic fowls, but every second or third day. As I have already told you, the eggs are taken as soon as laid and hatched in an incubator. Sixteen birds out of twenty eggs is considered a very fair proportion, while, if the bird is allowed to sit on the eggs, we are not likely to get more than twelve out of twenty. There is another advantage in hatching eggs by the incubator process, and that is, that when the eggs are taken away the hen proceeds a few weeks later to lay another batch of eggs, which she does not do if she has a family to care for.”