BEYOND BEEF : THE EXOTICS : Cover Story : Flocking to Vegas

Las Vegas seemed a particularly apt place for Ostrichfest ‘95, the American Ostrich Assn.’s annual convention, held February 1-3. Owing to its abundance of casino revue dancers, southern Nevada is probably the nation’s biggest market for ostrich feathers.

The Grand Ballroom of the MGM Grand is a relatively quiet place, away from the gonging slot machines that give the whole town the feeling of a gigantic video arcade. Nearly 200 booths were crowded into the stadium-sized room for the convention trade show. Right in the middle, a regal pair of ostriches padded around in a large pen, raising and lowering their heads impassively like remote-controlled periscopes, stopping once in a while to peck at anything that was shiny, such as a conventioneer’s plastic name tag.

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But only the greenest greenhorns were there to get a look at the ostriches. This was a trade show for people who were already in the ratite race. There were booths offering beginner’s services and ranches for sale. Booths representing firms selling eggs, birds, hides and meat; buying eggs, birds, hides and meat; both buying and selling.

Several ostrich feed suppliers advertised their wares, firmly implying that their competition had not really thought the whole issue out. A pitchman for one of them performed card tricks wearing a Mad Hatter hat. There was a booth for something called Pep, America’s No. 1 Health Drink for Ratites.

Proving that ostrich breeding has become an entire lifestyle, there were ostrich tchotchkes of all sorts. Ostrich plumes; ostrich leather goods (probably $100,000 worth of ostrich leather boots were already moseying around the ballroom); decorative ostrich eggs--painted, beaded, scrimshawed or decoupaged. Ostrich-themed posters, T-shirts, neckties, jewelry, candies, postcards, bronze sculptures, wine glasses. An ostrich-shaped rocking horse. A booth selling Bushman crafts from South Africa that are (surprise) mostly made from ostrich eggs.

And serious industrial stuff: special netting to keep the birds from being disturbed by jarring sights such as street traffic--it can put them off their feed--without being so tough that they can injure themselves on it. Various devices to hold them still so the vet can check them out. Special ostrich trailers, though most people move the birds around in horse trailers.

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For picking up nails, there was Roller Magnet II, which looks a little like a stripped-down lawn mower without blades. “I am in the bird business,” insisted the manufacturer’s literature. “I know what works, and I enjoy talking birds.”

Ostrich incubators--usually high-tech glass-front cases holding cradles for the football-sized eggs--were on display. In nature, a male ostrich will sit a clutch of several eggs, moving them around a bit from time to time. So the mechanical incubator has to reproduce that motion as well as getting the temperature and humidity absolutely right, or a dismaying proportion of eggs won’t hatch. An atmospherically controlled, burglar-alarmed model big enough for 48 eggs may run around $5,000, which is dirt cheap when you consider that an $800 egg that doesn’t hatch is worth only $100 to the jewel box and novelty trade.

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Ostrich candling lamps--so the breeder can see whether the egg is developing normally--attracted some interest. A lamp strong enough to candle hens’ eggs will not do--ostrich egg shells are up to 1/8-inch thick so they can bear the weight of sitting ostrich parents (for that matter, they’ll bear the weight of a full-grown man, if he steps carefully).

Also: microchip implanters and readers; branding doesn’t provide enough security against rustling when a single bird is worth thousands of dollars. “Nossir, that’s not a power plug,” said a saleswoman. “This reader operates on a battery. That socket connects to the RS-232 port on your computer.” There were several ostrich management software programs too, naturally.

DNA analysis service was offered to make sure mated pairs aren’t blood relatives, which could spell trouble if they share a recessive gene. And in case of burglary, to provide even more definitive identification of a bird’s identity than a microchip transponder.

And insurance. Even after hatching, young ostriches have a substantial infant mortality rate. Eight insurance companies had booths at the convention.

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But a trade show does not an Ostrichfest make. There were also video presentations, ostrich-handling demonstrations and workshop after workshop. At an Italian restaurant in the MGM Grand, there was a Lunch With the Pros, giving novices the chance to ask questions of experienced ostrich ranchers over a plate of grilled chicken (a ridiculous-looking little bird in this context).

A Bakersfield breeder named Nancy Loveless recounted her learning experiences: The time a crop duster buzzed the ranch and one of the hens panicked, fell and broke her neck--which meant that her mate was now useless for breeding too, since ostriches mate for life. The time she discovered that her soil contained so much calcium that the alfalfa growing on it was throwing the young birds’ phosphorus absorption out of balance. Other speakers, one of them interrupted for a minute by the whooping sound of a big slot machine jackpot (unless that was somebody’s car being stolen out on the casino floor), had their own horror stories.

At one table, half a dozen breeders discussed among themselves one of their biggest problems: impaction. When ostriches are stressed in any way--fright, new birds in the herd, change of location, change of feed, change of temperature, just about any kind of change--they may start eating hysterically until they choke and die.

“These guys who raise in sterile environments,” said Mike Causseaux, of 29 Palms, Calif., with an impatient gesture. “They move the birds and the birds start eating dirt. Or they put down sand, and the birds eat sand. And you can’t stop them.”

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A related problem with sterile environments has to do with “imprinting.” The first thing newborn ostrich chicks do is “imprint on their substrate,” that is, learn to distinguish what they’re standing on--which they don’t consider food--from everything else in the world, which an ostrich may at any given time decide is food. Even if a move doesn’t stress them, birds raised indoors may eat themselves to death as soon as they’re let outdoors.

But then the conversation turned to tales of the ostrich’s amazing ability to eat just about anything.

“This old guy saw a bird swallow a leather glove,” said Causseaux, “and he saw his money going down the tubes right there, so he grabbed it by the throat and tried to massage the glove up. But the bird threw him, and when he got up he saw her finish swallowing it.”

“Big deal,” said another diner. “An ostrich’s stomach can digest a leather glove easy.”

“I was really worried when I saw my hen swallow that light bulb,” said a third.

“In our video,” says Causseaux, “we show an ostrich swallowing a corn cob straight down, like a sword swallower.”

Everyone agreed that emu and rhea, which are also being bred in this country, taste much the same as ostrich. Lillian Brutsman of Emmett, Idaho, had tried them all. “I served my kids these $27-a-pound burgers,” she said. “I told them if they don’t like them, let me have them.”