Ojai Family Lays Big Egg With Ranchers Who Are Ruffled Over Breeding of Ostriches

From the vantage point of one angry neighbor, Adam, Eve, Betty and Charlie look like “giant snakes with tennis balls in their mouths.”

All day long, the four ostriches--which will someday be slaughtered for their lean meat and soft feathers--stretch their necks to peer over a six-foot fence in the back yard of Jack Smith’s upper Ojai home, spooking the horses at a training ranch next door. The big birds grunt and gurgle in their pen, flap their stubby wings and prance back and forth on their skinny legs.

Although the ostriches look harmless with their big eyes and long lashes, they have ruffled the feathers of neighboring ranchers. They--and their horses--have had enough of the eight-foot tall, funny-faced birds, they say.

“Our horses are naturally afraid of the birds,” said Andria Kidd, a horse trainer who works next door to Smith. “The ostriches flap and spook the horses, sending the kids on back of (the horses) up like kites.”

Kidd said her boss, Dan Lopez, complained to Ventura County officials about the birds, saying his neighbors should not be allowed to keep wild animals in their back yard. At first, officials agreed and told Smith to get rid of the birds.

But after closer review, officials decided that times have changed. Some Texas ranchers now have large ostrich operations because the bird meat is rich and tasty, low in cholesterol and high in protein.

Code enforcement officials decided to allow the Smiths to keep feathered giants, even if they are not popular with the horses.

“They’re raised just like cattle,” said Todd Collart, a county planner. “We would not want to consider them wild animals.”

Collart said officials are reworking the animal regulation ordinance to define ostriches as barnyard birds instead of as wild animals. A final version could go to the county Planning Commission for review next month.

Smith’s son, Henry, said his family saw a documentary about a year and a half ago describing the big birds as the cash cows of the ‘90s. The Smiths wanted to be first on the block to get into this growth industry.

The family is certain that ostrich ranching will fly--even if the birds cannot.

“If you can get past the psychological part, the meat is very good,” Henry Smith said. It tastes sort of like veal, only better, he added.

Jack Smith, 62, acknowledges that family members are taking a big chance. They are not giving up their day jobs: bee-keeping.

“It’s a big investment,” he said. “But agriculture is a gamble anyway.”

He said he has heard of some farmers making $100,000 a year raising and selling the ostriches, which are hatched in large incubators.

The ostrich craze took off in the United States several years ago. Lured by potential profits, ranchers all over the country--especially in Texas, Oklahoma and the Pacific Northwest--began raising the birds, which originate in east Africa.

In the early 1980s, ostriches in the United States were found in zoos. Now between 4,000 and 8,000 are being bred here, said the Ft. Worth-based American Ostrich Assn.

At least for a while, though, the birds will be more valuable as breeders than as meat. Experts estimate that the ostrich population will have to reach at least 75,000 before it makes economic sense to slaughter them for their hides, feathers and meat.

The Smiths built a giant pen on their two-acre lot off the Santa Paula-Ojai Road and purchased the four birds from breeders in Ukiah and Redding for about $40,000.

The Smiths plan to breed the birds and sell their offspring for about $3,000 each next year. With a high-protein diet of ostrich chow--hay and vitamin-enriched vegetable pellets--ostriches are known to lay 40 to 60 eggs a year.

“It’s being called the fastest-growing agricultural business in the United States,” said Jack Smith. “We’re hoping to make a lot of money. We’re just as optimistic as we can be.”

So far, their optimism has not rubbed off on the neighbors.

“As far as I’m concerned this is just like the chinchilla market of the ‘50s,” Kidd said, referring to a short-lived rage of raising the soft little critters in back yards to sell for their pricey fur.

Raising ostriches is just a passing fad, Kidd said. And besides, she added, who would want to eat ostrich meat anyway? “There are all kind of other sources of low-cholesterol meat on the Earth,” Kidd said. “It’s not like this is the only source of it.”

Ostriches are certainly meaner than chickens--or chinchillas.

Contrary to popular belief that the birds stick their heads in the sand when confronted with danger, ostriches can be downright aggressive.

Henry Smith said he is careful not to get too close to the ostriches, which can mount a vicious attack with their legs. They have been known to kill humans and animals, including horses, with a swift kick. One large, sharp toenail on each feet can slice like a knife. And they can run at a 40-m.p.h. clip, he said.

“You don’t want to make them mad,” Smith said. “You’ve got to treat them with the proper respect.”