Ostriches Find Home on the Range, Help Ranchers Feather Their Nests

A 9-foot-tall male ostrich is a strange sight in the West Texas oil fields, especially when it’s trying to scare interlopers and attract females, but to Cooper Campbell, there’s gold in them there quills.

“Careful,” he said, handing a visitor an off-white, pebbly surfaced, 3 1/2-pound ostrich egg the size of a human baby’s head. “That’s worth $1,500.”

If the egg is fertile and the embryo survives its 42-day incubation and the chick survives the critical first three months--the odds of everything going right are about 50% at best--the 2-foot-tall baby bird can command more than $5,000.

A pair of fertile, productive adults can bring $30,000 to $50,000.

Campbell is manager of the Yellow Rose Ostrich Ranch south of Odessa, part of a business taking its first steps in the United States.

Potential profits attract ranchers all over the country, especially in Texas, Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest, although the hardy birds can be raised in almost every state and even above the Arctic Circle in Canada.

Just a few years ago, ostriches in the United States could be found only in zoos and in the pastures of exotic-animal collectors. Now the U.S. commercial ostrich population is 4,000 to 8,000, said Tom Mantzel, executive director of the Fort Worth-based American Ostrich Assn.

“It’s growing, growing, growing at a phenomenal clip,” said Mantzel, who promotes the ostrich industry with a preacher’s zeal. About 500 ranchers belong to the organization, three-quarters of them in Texas. Most of the rest are in Oklahoma.

Mantzel estimated the country’s adult ostrich population will have to reach at least 75,000 before it makes economic sense to slaughter them for their hide, feathers and meat. Until then, which he estimates will be in the mid-1990s, the birds are more valuable as breeders.

The hide is used to make western boots, belts, other items of clothing and luggage. The feathers are used in dusters. South Africans and Europeans eat the meat, which looks, feels and tastes like beef and is low in cholesterol and fat.

Ostriches are slaughtered at 12 to 14 months, when they weigh about 300 pounds and carry about 80 pounds of meat. The hide, feathers and meat are worth $400 to $500, Mantzel said.