Ostrich Odyssey: Exploring the World's Largest Bird

🔰 Outlines

✅ Introduction
✅ Taxonomy
✅ Biological Characteristics
✅ Distribution
✅ Herds and Reproduction
✅ Behavior and Diet
✅ Conservation Status
✅ Restraining Process
✅ Important Diseases
✅ Some Facts about

🔰 Introduction

Ostriches are -

• Largest flightless birds.  
• Heaviest living birds.
• Lay the largest eggs of any living land animal.
• Fastest birds on land (ability to run at 70 km/h). 
• Farmed worldwide.

🔰 Taxonomic Classification 

    Kingdom: Animalia
          Phylum: Chordata
                 Class: Aves
                       Order: Struthioniformes
                               Family: Struthionidae
                                       Subfamily: Pavoninae
                                              Genus: Struthio
                                                      Species: Struthio camelus

 

🔰 Biological Characteristics 

Male:

Height → 6.9 to 9 feet (21. to 2.7 meters)
Weight → 220 to 287 pounds (100 to 130 kilograms)

Female:

Height → 5.7 to 6.2 feet (1.7 to 1.9 meters) Weight → 98 to 242 pounds (90 to 110 kilograms)

Unlike most birds’ feathers, ostrich feathers are loose, soft, and smooth. They don’t hook together the way feathers of other birds do, giving ostriches a "shaggy" look. The feathers can also get soaked in the rain, because ostriches do not have the special gland many birds have to waterproof their feathers while preening.
Adult male ostriches have striking black-and-white plumage; immature birds and adult females have grayish brown feathers.

Male

Female

  

🔰 Distribution

Ostriches inhabit the savanna, desert, and open woodlands of central and southern Africa.

 🔰 Herds and Reproduction

• Ostriches live in small herds (typically contain less than a dozen birds).
• Alpha males maintain these herds, and mate with the group's dominant hen.
• The male sometimes mates with others in the group, and wandering males may also mate with lesser hens.
• All of the group's hens place their eggs in the dominant hen's nest—though her own are given the prominent center place.
• The dominant hen and male take turns incubating the giant eggs.

 🔰 Behavior and Diet

 • At the approach of trouble, ostriches will lie low and press their long necks to the ground in an attempt to become less visible.
• Their plumage blends well with sandy soil and, from a distance, gives the appearance that they have buried their heads in the sand.
• Ostriches typically eat plants, roots, and seeds but will also eat insects, lizards, or other creatures available in their sometimes harsh habitat.

 🔰 Conservation Status

• In the 18th century, ostriches were nearly brought to extinction by hunting because their feathers were very fashionable in women’s clothing.
• But by the mid 19th century, people started farming ostriches. This allowed farmers to simply pluck the feathers from their domesticated birds without having to kill them.
• South Africa turned to the commercial farming of ostriches for their feathers.
• By 1913, more than 1 million ostriches lived on commercial farms throughout the world.
• Ostrich farming continues today on a smaller scale, primarily to supply the feather duster industry.
• Farm-raised ostriches are also harvested for eggs, supple leather, and gourmet meat that is lower in cholesterol than beef.

🔰 Restraining Process

 • An ostrich’s head can be caught by hand or hook, and a hood can be placed over its head. Once hooded, an ostrich's head should be maintained below the level of its body to restrict it from kicking its legs forward.
• An ostrich kick can seriously injure a handler and once captured, the bird will quickly try to back up and kick anyone in front of its body. Because an ostrich will back up when its head is held, an assistant should be positioned behind the bird to push as the person holding its head leads the ostrich forward.

🔰 Important Diseases

Ostrich can get infected by many diseases and parasites, which are described below.

Parasites

➤ External Parasites:

Ticks: They do extensive damage to the skin of ostrich. Congo fever is a very harmful disease of ostrich which also affect humans is caused by ticks.
Lice: Lice is harmful for feather.

➤ Internal Parasites:

Tapeworm: It lives in the small intestine of ostrich and eat feed. It takes all nutrients form the bird. As a result, the ostrich suffers by emaciation.
Wire Worm: Wire worms become very small sized. They do a lot of damage of stomach wall. Ostriches die suddenly due to this parasite.

Infectious Diseases

➤ Hemorrhagic Enteritis

This is the most feared ostrich diseases. Baby ostrich aged between one to three months get affected by this disease very much. This disease is caused by a germ and causes rapid death to the ostrich.

➤ Avian Influenza

Avian influenza is very deadly disease of all poultry birds. Mortality rate in this disease is very high to the younger ostrich aged bellow six months. The main symptom of infected bird is green urine.

➤ Avian Pox

Avian pox is very harmful to the ostrich. Warty, brown, swollen nodes around the eyes and especially around the corners of mouth and beak are the main symptoms of pox disease. Biting insects carry and spread the germ of this disease. Pox spreads much in wet condition and during summer season.


➤ Newcastle Disease

Newcastle is one of the most feared ostrich diseases. The younger ostriches are extremely prone to this disease. The main symptoms of this disease are giddiness, loss of balance, swinging sideways, staggering backwards, taking a three-legged position with the head on the ground etc.

➤ Borna disease

It is a viral disease affecting ostriches at 2-8 weeks of ages causing high mortality. The disease transmits by mosquitoes. The infection is characterized by paresis and inability to move and finally paralysis. There were no specific lesions

 

Diseases with problems of non-specific causes

➤ Omphalitis or infected yolk sac

It is a common disease of newly hatched ostrich chicks. It is caused by eggshell bacterial contamination inducing infection of yolk sac.


➤ Foreign body ingestion

Birds of all ages eat any type of objects (nails, tools, etc..) eaten by curious bird. These objects are non-digestible. If the object is too large and block the normal activity of the proventriculus, it will result in chronic impaction.


➤ Fading chick syndrome (Mal-absorption syndrome)

It is fatal disease of young ostrich chicks. It affects ostrich chicks at age (1-3 months) but older birds (6 months) may take the infection. The bird stops eating, drinking with listlessness and finally death.

 

🔰 Some facts

👉 An ostrich can live to be up to 50 years old.

👉 They have a pouch in their throat that they use for sound and communication.

👉 The ostrich has the largest eye out of all of the land animals!

👉 It would take around 40 minutes to hard-boil an ostrich egg.

👉 An average ostrich egg weighs around 3 pounds (about the weight of two dozen chicken eggs!) and is about 6 inches long.

🔰 References

➽ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrich
➽ https://animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/ostrich/
➽ https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/ostrich
➽ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/ostrich
➽ https://www.msdvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/ratites/management-of-ratites.
➽ https://www.msdvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/ratites/infectious-diseases
➽ How fast is an Ostrich? And More Fun Facts | Smithsonian's National Zoo (si.edu)
➽ Learn About Ostrich Diseases & Keep Them Healthy (roysfarm.com)
➽ Ostrich (Struthio camelus) (uwlax.edu)

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Ostrich Odyssey: Exploring the World's Largest Bird

Authored by
Md. Nazmul Islam Lizan