Ostriches

A ratite species from Africa

Ostriches at Kowhai Grove farm – female on the left, chicks in the middle, and male on the right. (Sharpes Farm Feeds photograph.)

Possibly encouraged by a government bonus of £5 a head that was available at the time, John Thomas Matson obtained some ostriches from South Africa in 1883 and ran them on his property in Papanui Road, Christchurch. The principal purpose of these was the production of feathers which were harvested by cutting them off about an inch from the ostrich’s skin – the remaining bits were left to dry up and were then removed with tweezers. By 1886 Matson was able to export 2000 ostrich feathers to Great Britain. The following year another ostrich farm was started in Auckland.

The use of ostrich feathers in women’s clothing or a fashion accessory was greatest towards the end of the nineteenth century and during the early decades of the twentieth. But as fashions changed ostrich farming decreased and the few ostriches in New Zealand were mostly in zoos or parks. Then in the 1990s there was suddenly considerable interest in farming them commercially for their meat. For a few years there was a boom in farming both ostriches and emus – a government report in 1999 noted that the national flock of ostriches in New Zealand then totalled 20,000 spread over 520 farms. By 2022 however, it was reported that the total number of ostriches and emus combined had dwindled to 289 for the whole of New Zealand.

Ostriches, which are native to Africa, are the largest living birds, with New Zealand breeding adults generally averaging 2.1 to 2.5 metres in height and weighing 110 to 130 kilograms. Females and immature birds have greyish-brown feathers while adult males have black body feathers, white wing feathers, and a white tail. Ostriches cannot fly but they have large wings which they stick out while running. Hen ostriches mature at 20 t0 24 months old and cocks at 25 to 30 months. The hens lay an average of 40 eggs per season and the eggs take 42 days to hatch. The eggs are mostly whitish in colour and weigh between one and 1.8 kilograms.

Ostrich chicks at Kowhai Grove. (Rosemary and Ian Blunden photo.)