27. Day 9 (Aug 25) – In the Klein Karoo

So we had left the relatively lush and moist Garden Route along the southern coast turning north (the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of turning south) for the more arid and semi-desert area of the Klein Karoo.  And since tomorrow we would be turning south again to head for the coast and Cape Town, why had we done this detour? 

The area doesn’t have wonderful vegetation, but there is something else that is native here:

Ostriches in the Klein Karoo 

Yes, it is the souther ostrich, found natively in much of southern Africa, and farmed extensively in the Klein Karoo.

There are two ostriches in the photo, so let’s zoom in and see what’s what.

Two Ostriches

The brown-feathers are the plumage of the adult female or the young ostrich of either sex – based on size, though, this is almost certainly an adult female.  The female is eating something on the ground.   Ostriches tend to eat seeds, shrubs, grass, fruit, and flowers, as well as the occasional yummy insect.  Ostriches have no teeth so they don’t chew their food.  Instead they will form a ball of their food up to about 1 cup in volume in their gullet and this then passes through their neck into the gizzard.  The ostrich also has swallowed pebbles which reside in the gizzard as well – indeed up to nearly ½ the gizzard is pebbles and sand.  The pebbles and sand grind the food, and the total weight of the gizzard can be just under 3 pounds.  As befitting an animal native to an arid region, an ostrich can avoid drinking for several days, relying on the moisture in ingested plants.  When water is available, though, they do drink.

This brown-plumaged ostrich is also a female. 

Female Ostrich

The black is the plumage of the adult male (and it can have white markings as well).

Male Ostrich

Ostriches are striking looking creatures and their necks and heads are devoid of significant feathers.

Ostrich Head

Ostrich Heads and Necks

When ostriches mate, the female indicates she is available by dropping her wings.

Female Ostrich Indicating Availability for Mating

I must say that seeing the ostriches on the farm served as a good argument for evolution.  Who would want to argue that the design of these breath-taking (in several different meanings of the word) creatures was done as a conscious act.

On ground (the ostrich is flightless), the ostrich is the fastest bird as well as the largest.   And it lays the largest egg of any currently living bird.

Happy Guide with Ostrich Egg

The man holding the egg was our guide around the ostrich farm.  And if he looks happy, he is.  He loves what he does – being able to work around creatures that he says are “beautiful.”  He is not from an ostrich-producing area, but has a degree in business and was working in a bank when someone requested a loan  to finance an ostrich farm.  So our guide went out to look at what was involved and was smitten.  He says he makes less working on the farm but it doesn’t matter.

The egg he is holding is just one of many such eggs that are laid by the ostriches on the farm.  But they are not left for incubation and hatching by the parents.  They are, instead, collected and handled by very modern machinery.

Ostrich Egg Incubator

The doors to the incubator are normally kept closed, although they were opened so we could take a peek.  And, as they mature, they are moved from one incubator to another from those large racks to wire crates where are left to hatch.

Baby Ostrich Hatched in Incubator

Once hatched, the chicks are placed in a plastic crate in a group so they can provide warmth (and possibly social companionship) to each other.

Newly-Hatched Baby Chicks Outside of Incubator

We’re at the Mooiplaas Guesthouse near Oudtshoorn, the main town of the Klein Karoo.  We’ve toured the ostrich farm, fed some of the ostriches (carefully – they can nip and kick very hard), and seen how they are born and raised.  One question that was not answered was whether the farming of ostriches is done sustainably.  Based on the information we were given, in response to our questions, I would doubt it.  The ostriches each year seem to destroy a certain amount of the “pasture” land.  But I’m not sure that our questions were understood and whether the answers were responsive to what we wanted to know.  

It also seemed that there was a bit of a dustup near where we were staying.  When we first arrived at the farm at around 3:30 in the afternoon, we could see a fire off in the distance.

Fire in the Klein Karoo

Three hours later the fire still burned.

Fire at Sunset

We didn’t get a reliable story about what this was.  It was intimated that it was arson and that it was taken in retribution against some farm for reasons that were not shared with us, if they were known.  They were generally letting the fire burn itself out – water being at a premium in the Klein Karoo.  

So now the question is why do they raise ostriches – and a lot of them as you can see.  In the later part of the 19^th century, the attraction was the feathers.  Fortunes were made on the feathers.  But in the early part of the 20^th century demand dropped dramatically – due to several factors including the Model T Ford (which was not friendly to feathery hats) and the outbreak of World War I.  Some 80% of all ostrich farmers here went bankrupt.

There still is some market for ostrich feathers – but not a huge one and certainly not enough to support the some 800 farm members of the Klein Karoo ostrich producers.  

In 1970, the world discovered ostrich leather; the skin is very smooth and soft and can be used for most things that cow leather can be used for.  It is even sufficiently rare and desirable that there is now a market in fake ostrich leather.  (If you want to know how to see that you’re not getting taken when buying supposed real ostrich leather, go here: http://www.tombarrington.com/How-Can-You-Tell-the-Difference-between-Real-Ostrich-Leather-and-Fake-Ostrich-Leather_b_16.html.)  The skin from an average ostrich gives 14 or so square feet of leather.  

And then there is ostrich meat.  Klein Karoo farmers market ostrich meat world wide under the Blue Ostrich brand which began around 2000.  And dinner at the ranch had as one option (the others being lamb, chicken, or vegetarian) barbecued ostrich fillet served with your choice of sauce (Madagascar green peppercorn, port and cranberry, or mushroom).  The meat is extremely tender and flavorful and very low fat.  It tastes closest to beef. 

Tomorrow we return to the Garden Route to see some more fynbos.  And we draw closer to Cape Town.
Link to Full Resolution Photos