Ostrich attacks ranch foreman
Dec. 26, 1907: “The first 30 birds for the Long Beach ostrich farm arrived from Phoenix in a palace horse car,” and the man who traveled with them had scars to prove it, The Times reported under the headline “Is Pecked by Big Ostrich, Foreman of Long Beach Farm Is Twice Nipped.”
On the trip, one ostrich wound up with a scraped leg, while Frank Bliss, the farm’s assistant foreman, “has painful, but not serious, wounds on the ear and on the lip.”
Ostriches clearly were a big enough draw to be worth the trouble.
“The birds are from 6 months to 4 years old and cost between $12,000 and $15,000,” the newspaper said.
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