Anex
WORKING OSTRICH FARM TOUR
Don’t miss our guided tour of the Mooiplaas Ostrich Farm. This working ostrich farm tour is about 1 – 1.5 hours.
What Is A Show Farm?
A show farm is one that caters to tourism and is generally not a working farm. These farms do various tours and sell local curios. Some also allow you to sit on or ride ostriches or watch ostrich races.
The tour will show you how a modern day working commercial farm operates.
Our tour guide, Koos, starts by telling you the fascinating story of how Oudtshoorn owes its history to the ostrich. Indeed the ostrich feather started it all … and the rest (as they say)… is history!
Koos, will take you for a drive around the farm to show you the adult ostriches. You will get a chance to meet the curious and friendly, young ostriches in the farm paddocks.
He then will show you how we breed the chicks. You will see how we use advanced farming methods to care for the eggs and provide the right environment for them to hatch into healthy young birds. Once hatched, our chicks then go into the nursery for their upbringing. As they grow, so they move into bigger paddocks along with all the other chicks they bonded with in the nursery.
Some Interesting Ostrich Facts:
- Ostriches are the largest living birds in the world.
- Their chicks grow 30cm each month for its first 7-8 months.
- An adult ostrich rooster is 1.8-3m in height and can weigh 150kg.
- Ostriches have nasty tempers, but were used, nonetheless, in ancient Egypt to ride or pull chariots.
- An ostrich is a bird, but cannot fly.
- Ostriches are strong runners and can sprint up to 70km/h and maintain a speed of 50km/h over distances.
- Their wings are used as “rudders” and they can give a single stride of between 3-5m.
- All birds have three or four toes, but an ostrich has two.
- An ostrich kicks forward, because of the direction its knee bends.
- An ostrich kick is so powerful it can kill a human or a potential predator.
- These birds produce water internally and some from the vegetation they eat. Therefore they don’t need to drink water.
- The ostrich eye is about the size of a billiard ball and takes up most of the room in its skull.
- The ostrich’s brain is the size of a pea.
- Ostriches, despite their tremendous speed, easily fall prey to predators, because they tend to run in circles.
