Raising and Marketing the Big Bird

Image Gallery Carolyn Fisher and friends.

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In 1986, Herb and Carolyn Fisher bought seven pairs of yearling ostriches. The seven-foot, 250-pound birds tower over their owners and may outlive them—their life span is more than 70 years. Two of the seven hens laid eggs in their second year. (Each lays 30 to 50 eggs per year, weighing about four pounds apiece.) Today, about 100 giant birds wander 12 acres at the Fisher ranch in Stanfield, North Carolina.

The Fishers got into the ostrich business "on the ground floor," as Mrs. Fisher says—in 1986, a highly profitable time to get into it. They bought breeders and sold chicks. "It was just really new and people just kept saying `this is a great investment.'"

In 1993—94 three-month-old chicks sold for $8,000 a pair. Birds had been scarce due to the U.S. antiapartheid embargo on goods from South Africa, where they have been raised commercially for over 100 years. Once the embargo was lifted, eggs were allowed in and hatched under quarantine. Now there are more and more birds and the price has gone down. Breeders that were going for $50,000 a pair now go for $8,000—$10,000 a pair.

Despite the drop in prices, the American ostrich market is at a significant turning point. Just in the last year, it has finally become big enough in the U.S. to transform from a breeder market to a slaughter market. As ostrich becomes a viable commercial market, the demand for the product is likely to increase.

Carolyn Fisher believes "you can still make a lot more money raising ostriches than horses or cattle. You get $600—$750 per bird, and you get more offspring per year. The price of beef has really been down and ostriches have really taken off in the cattle states like Oklahoma and Texas because these guys weren't making any money."

Raising ostriches requires less acreage than other livestock, and relatively modest amounts of food and water (they eat manufactured pellets, or graze on grass just like cattle). A beef animal's feed-tomass conversion is five to one, meaning the animal must consume five pounds of feed to put on one pound of mass. Ostriches have a feed-to-mass ratio closer to two to one. Economically, that means a considerably higher proportionate return for the feed invested in ostriches than that invested in beef animals. The American Ostrich Association (AOA) says most ostriches go to slaughter at 10—14 months of age and produce about 70 pounds of meat, 14 square feet of leather, and 2 pounds of feathers. The U.S. continues to import ostrich feathers because sorting, cleaning, and dyeing them is so labor-intensive, but there is a domestic market for leather, which is used to make western boots, shoes, and wallets. Ostriches are highly adaptable to varied climates. However, according to a 1995 survey, over half the ostriches in the U.S. reside in Texas, California, Arizona, and Oklahoma.

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