But Critics Warn of a Glut on the Market : Iowans Say Ostrich-Farming Won’t Lay an Egg as Their Profits Soar

WESTSIDE, Iowa —  Big Jim the ostrich hunkered down and, in what has become a daily ritual, curved his long neck into an S-shape and waved it from side to side. Sally, the focus of his attentions, batted her long eyelashes and looked away.

The courtship of these ostriches isn’t very private. When Big Jim performs his dramatic mating dance, Iowa farmer Dick Hugg watches and smiles. At $3,000 a chick, ostrich breeding is serious business.

The birds deliver offspring promptly and punctually. Every other day between 4:30 p.m. and 5 p.m., Sally lays an egg, and the Huggs--between growing corn and soybeans and feeding hogs--head out to the ostrich pen to pluck an egg and place it in an incubator.

Taller Than Cornstalks

Ostriches in Iowa? At 8 and 9 feet tall, these 300-pound African birds stretch higher than cornstalks and cause double-takes among Hugg’s neighbors in this conservative German farming community.

But Hugg, along with an estimated 100 farmers in the Midwest and 200 in Texas and Oklahoma, see ostriches as the salvation of a distressed agricultural economy unable to support the more traditional soybean, grain, beef and pork producers.

“It is the brightest picture on the agricultural scene today, and it’s going to stay that way,” said Oklahoma rancher Dale Coody, who owns 60 ostriches and wrote “Ostriches, Your Great Opportunity.”

“Let’s face it, agriculture is in trouble, and this is the surest way out of trouble that I know of,” he said.

Enough Profit for a Pizza

It was 1975 when Dick and Doris Hugg realized that they could not earn a living from cattle. After raising 180 head, marketing them and rushing the cash to the bank to pay off their note, “we had just enough left over to buy a pizza,” Hugg said.

So the Huggs, and others who survived a farm crisis that left many bankrupt, sought ways to diversify. Some got hooked on ostriches, and, according to many who invested, are making huge profits. Iowa farmer LeRoy Kaufman said he earned more than $100,000 in 1987 by raising and selling the birds.

Ostrich breeders are confident that they can carve a niche in American agriculture for the marketing of ostrich feathers, hide and meat. “We foresee it eventually being a commercial business, much like turkeys or chickens or hogs, where they’ll be routinely raised for slaughter,” Hugg said.

Low-Cholesterol Meat

Ostrich meat, popular in Europe, is a red meat one-third lower in fat and cholesterol than beef. Ostrich promoters have dubbed it the health meat of the ‘90s. “We’ll have ostrich burgers someday,” Hugg said.

But ostrich filets and ostrich-skin bucket seats are at least seven years away, according to Tom Mantzel, executive director of the Texas-based American Ostrich Assn. This country’s ostrich population, estimated at 6,000 adults, is not big enough to support a slaughterhouse, so the current market is for breeders only.

The birds are hard to come by and command a high price. An adult mating pair costs $35,000 to $60,000, and an unusually prolific pair can carry a $75,000 price tag.

Ostriches, particularly attractive to breeders because of their reproductive habits, lay 35 to 100 eggs annually for 40 of their 70 years of life.

Even at high prices and with the birds’ high reproductive rate, breeders say they cannot meet the demand.

Made Profit in 85 Days

Kaufman said that 85 days after he bought a few birds in 1987, he recouped his $15,000 investment and pocketed a $25,000 profit. “I’ve made more dollars here than I ever did in farming,” he said.

Not everyone is so optimistic. Fred Thornberry, a poultry specialist at Texas A&M; University, called the enterprise speculative and warned prospective breeders not to jump in hastily.

He said that, like so many once-promising ventures in agriculture, such as the failed rabbit-harvesting craze in Texas several years ago, this one could fall dead in its tracks. “This is not an industry as yet, and I would be very cautious (about) investing money I could not afford to lose,” he said.

Thornberry, who has received more than 600 ostrich-related queries from farmers across the country, said that profits probably peaked in 1987. The farmers who bought birds at low prices in 1986 and earlier will pocket the highest profits.

Population Explosion Seen

What makes the venture especially risky for incoming breeders is the likelihood of an ostrich population explosion this year, which could cause prices to plummet, he said.

The hundreds of chicks hatched in 1986, the year the ostrich movement picked up speed, will begin reproducing this year. “I think we’re approaching the point where it’s getting riskier and riskier,” he said.

However, the Huggs do not expect an imminent population explosion, because raising an egg to a full-grown ostrich is a difficult task that most breeders have yet to master.

Baby ostriches are frail and die easily. And, because ostriches are a new agricultural frontier, farmers do not quite know how to raise birds that can run 40 m.p.h.

Feeding them is not such a problem. Ostriches, said to eat anything, are usually raised on prepared alfalfa pellets with some grain and other ingredients mixed in. The Huggs feed them lettuce and cabbage also.

Male Turns Dangerous

Sally and Big Jim, which are kept inside a 5-foot wire fence, exhibit distinct personalities, the Huggs said. She is always docile. He is, too, unless it’s mating season, when he turns cantankerous and downright dangerous.

In mating season, males are reputed to be able to kill with a kick, and the Huggs stay out of the pen, using a cane to retrieve eggs from the nest. “He doesn’t like people messing with his eggs or his girl,” Hugg said.

Most breeders are able to hatch 60% of their eggs, and the Huggs’ hatch rate runs about 80%. They attribute their success to a labor-intensive operation and a willingness to do whatever it takes to hatch a chick and help it grow.

For example, if a chick has trouble cracking out of its egg, the Huggs help it along with pliers.

Breeders expect U.S. ostrich prices to be buoyed should the Department of Agriculture permanently ban importation of the birds from Africa. The department temporarily embargoed ostriches in June, when ticks not indigenous to the United States were found on incoming birds.

Breeders Back Import Ban

Some breeders prefer an import ban, so they can build the ostrich population from birds already here. Once the pool is high enough to support a processing plant, breeders see a virtual fail-safe enterprise, because every part of the bird is usable: feathers for computer dusters, ceremonial plumes and fashion wear; leather for boots, purses, car seats, egg shells for jewelry and meat for health-conscious consumers.

Richard Whitaker, a Kansas banker and owner of 40 ostriches, said he has received letters from a Swiss company expressing interest in ostrich meat produced here, because South Africa controls the industry and does not export enough to meet Swiss demand. “They can’t get enough of it in Europe,” he said.

Dominique’s restaurant in Washington used to offer ostrich meat but discontinued it, because “it was not appreciated.”