The Ostrich: America’s Once and Future Bird

In December of 1882, a gaggle of 22 seasick and presumably very confused ostriches stepped out of an ocean liner and onto the docks of New York City. For the last several months, these hapless birds had been making the arduous sea voyage from Cape Town to Buenos Aires, and then to New York. As discontent as these ostriches must have been, they were the lucky ones — of the 200 birds that left with them to Cape Town, nine out of ten did not survive the journey. And while the worst of their voyage was over, these ostriches had not yet reached their final destination. As soon as they disembarked in New York, they were to be loaded on a train to be shipped, via Chicago and then Omaha, to Anaheim, California, where they would become the founding members of America’s first Ostrich farm.[1]

In 1882, there was big money to be made in ostrich feathers, and Charles Sketchley wanted a bigger piece of the business. At that time, Sketchley was one of South Africa’s largest ostrich farmers in an industry that was still finding its legs. Ostriches had only been brought into domestication 20 years before, after being nearly wiped out by feather hunters — a saga that would soon play out with America’s herons and egrets. Fortunately for the surviving birds, entrepreneurs had figured out that raising ostriches on farms, where feathers could be sustainably harvested several times a year without killing the birds, could be more profitable and reliable than hunting them down on horseback.[2]

And selling ostrich feathers was an incredibly profitable business. Each feather, destined for a lady’s hat or stole or boa, could sell for as much as five dollars, and American consumers could not get enough of these luxury accessories. The United States was importing $3.5 million worth of feathers annually (equivalent to $104 million today), of which almost all came from South Africa, where it was the country’s fourth-biggest export after diamonds, gold, and wool.[3] However, the United States charged a 20 percent duty on foreign feathers, on top of the considerable cost of shipping feathers across the Atlantic, and Sketchley figured that he might be able to significantly boost his profits by moving operations to America. And so, as soon as his shipment of 22 ostriches arrived in California, Charles Sketchley founded the California Ostrich-Farming Company, America’s first ostrich farm.[4]

Ostrich Dreams

Sketchley’s business proposition seemed sound. An adult ostrich sports 25 plumes on each wing, which can be plucked every seven or eight months, and together might yield an annual revenue of $250. Female ostriches might lay as many as 90 eggs a year, which tantalized meteoric rates of growth.[5] Very quickly, Sketchley’s experiments with importing and raising ostriches became a national curiosity, drawing attention from periodicals like the New York Times, Harper’s Weekly, and Scientific American, and a spate of imitators rushed to establish their own ostrich farms throughout America’s southwest.

Boosters and ostrich investors breathlessly predicted a glorious economic future borne on ostrich wings. In 1898, a report to the US Commissioner of Agriculture suggested that “the turkey is a Thanksgiving bird, but the ostrich might properly be a New Year or an Easter one.”[6] In 1900, Edwin Cawston, an ostrich ranch owner himself, predicted that “the output of ostrich feathers will join that of raisins and oranges and become inter alia one of the leading industries of the Golden State.”[7] One enthusiast expected to “see ostrich feathers quoted in a few years along with cotton, wool, beef and petroleum, as a profitable Texas product,”[8] while another gushed, “when domesticated in Texas, as they doubtless soon will be, we expect to hear that the cow-boys utilize ostriches in herding cattle. Their fleetness should make them excellent mounts for scouts and couriers.”[9]

Meat from ostriches was reviewed as being “wholesome and palatable,” and that of domesticated birds was especially “juicy and tender.” Public Domain. From California Historical Society. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

While much of this excitement was highly inflated, there were legitimate reasons to expect a domestic ostrich industry to thrive. By the dawn of the 20th century, vendors slaughtering wild birds to supply America’s vast and lucrative plume trade were facing mounting public condemnation, and state and federal legislatures were passing increasingly strict laws to protect birds in response. From an economic and moral perspective, feathers from captive-bred ostriches were an attractive alternative. “The tender-hearted maiden may wear [them] in happy consciousness that her pretty hat has cost the life of no hapless fowl,” wrote the Millinery Trade Review in 1904, “and the dealer may handle [them] without fear of coming into collision with the Audubon society or the bird laws.”[10]

The California Ostrich

California’s ostrich farms were not just a phenomenon on the national stage. Locals were immediately drawn to the farms in droves to gawk at the enormous, gangly birds, and within nine months of starting up his venture, Sketchley had to contend with more than 100 tourists dropping by his farm every day. He quickly realized that he had a secondary business opportunity on his hands and began charging a 50-cent admission, which visitors were more than happy to pay.[11]

Sketchley’s venture would ultimately prove short-lived, closing its doors due to financial difficulties after a six-year run. But by that time, other entrepreneurs had already opened their own farms to tap into the ostrich frenzy, and these tourist-centered ostrich farms proved to be an early template for Disneyland. Arriving by train, visitors could spend an entire day at the farms engaging in ostrich-centered activities or wandering the gardens. Tourists took rides on ostrich-back or in ostrich-drawn wagons. They amused themselves by tossing oranges to the ostriches, which the birds would gulp down whole. Kids got their picture taken holding baby ostriches. Farms held regularly-scheduled ostrich-pluckings, which they billed as “Exciting! Perilous! Wonderful!.”[12]

By the time of the first world war, however, much of the energy around the ostrich industry had petered out. During the war, the price of ostrich feathers plummeted, when “the world had something more important to think of than the trimming of hats.”[13] Buoyed by tourism, some of the farms survived the collapse of the feather market, but as more novel and exciting pastimes arrived in California, the appeal of ostrich parks waned. Los Angeles’s last ostrich park closed in 1953.[14]

Revival, Boom, and Bust

After decades of dormancy, the domestic ostrich industry experienced another revival beginning in 1986. In that year, Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which banned many imports from South Africa, including all of the ostrich-related products — ostrich feathers, ostrich leather, ostrich meat — whose markets the country still dominated. Suddenly, prices for ostriches and ostrich products boomed, and entrepreneurs, many of whom were urban professionals with high hopes and incomes but no experience raising poultry, flocked to open up their own ostrich ranches. Eggs that cost $15 in 1985 were selling for $3,000 just four years later,[15] and a pair of ostriches could go for $30,000 to $60,000. By 1993, the number of American ostriches surged to 50,000 or 60,000, from just 6,000 in 1989.[16] 

This mania for ostriches created a classic speculative bubble. In 1993, just before the bubble popped, the Los Angeles Times remarked that ostrich tanneries and slaughterhouses did not yet exist, “so for now, the only real ostrich products being sold here are ostrich eggs, chicks and birds.”[17] Later that year, Congress repealed the ban on South African imports, and prices for ostriches and ostrich products plummeted. By 1995, “the industry was a smoking ruin,” as dreams of high demand for ostrich meat and leather foundered against supply chains ill-equipped to process ostriches, and consumers that were indifferent to their products.[18]

By the time the US Department of Agriculture started collecting statistics on ostriches in 2002, the number of the birds in the country had fallen to 20,560. By 2017, it withered to 4,738.[19] But that doesn’t mean that dreams of a resurgent ostrich future have also disappeared. Every few years, news articles pop up about the promise of ostriches as a red meat that is sustainable, iron-rich, low-calorie, and low-fat. Someday, the ostrich’s time will come. But until then it will remain, as it has always been, the bird of the future.  

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[1] T. C. Duncan. “Ostrich Farming in America.” Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture. United States: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1889, p. 699.
[2] South Africa’s exports of ostrich feathers grew from 8 tons of wild ostrich feathers in 1860 to 80 tons of farm-raised feathers in 1880. Feather exports peaked in 1913, at 500 tons. Doughty, Robin. “Ostrich farming American style.” Agricultural History 47, no. 2 (1973): 133-145.
[3] Charles Sketchley, “Ostrich Farming in California.” Harper’s Weekly, November 21, 1885, vol. 29, pg. 763-764.
[4] T. C. Duncan. “Ostrich Farming in America.”
[5] Charles Sketchley, “Ostrich Farming in California.”
[6] T. C. Duncan. “Ostrich Farming in America.”
[7] Edwin Cawston, “Ostrich Farming in California”, Harper’s Weekly, 44, (September 24, 1900), p. 903.
[8] Millinery Trade Review. United States: Marriotte & Company, 1905, p. 102.
[9] T. C. Duncan. “Ostrich Farming in America.”
[10] “Appertainin’ to the Ostrich.” Millinery Trade Review, vol. 29. United States: Marriotte & Company, 1904, p. 41. The following year, the Audubon Society, which was leading the crusade against the feather trade, voiced its official approval, stating “Ostrich feathers are legitimate as well as beautiful decorations and are approved by the Audubon Societies,” as “their use does not entail the sacrifice of life, nor does it cause the slightest suffering to the Ostrich.” “Educational Leaflet No. 13: The Ostrich.” Bird-Lore, Vol 7, no. 2, p. 154.
[11] “Anaheim Ostrich Farm.” New York Times, October 28, 1883
[12] Thrasher, Jill. “Ostrich Farms: An Early Southern California Tourist Destination.” Sherman Library & Gardens, July 1, 2020.
[13] American Fox and Fur Farmer. United States: American fox and fur farmer Incorporated, 1921.
[14] Nathan Masters. “Southern California’s First Amusement Parks? Ostrich Farms.” KCET. September 20, 2012.
[15] Asher Elbein, “The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again?) of the Texas Ostrich Industry,” Texas Monthly, April 23, 2021.
[16] Yost, Paula. “Related Flightless Birds Join Ostrich Import Ban.” Washington Post, August 19, 1989.
[17] Denise Lavoie, “From Hide to Eyelashes, Ostrich Is a Useful Bird–Low Cholesterol Too,” Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1993.
[18] Asher Elbein, “The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again?) of the Texas Ostrich Industry.”
[19] USDA Census of Agriculture Historical Archive, 2002-2017

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