Oh, Ostrich Feathers! After Riding One Of These, A New York Subway Looks Good

The envelope, please. And the winner of the Worthless Mode of Transportation Award goes to … the ostrich! (Frenzied cheering by New York City subway conductors).

Yes, you can actually ride them and survive - ostriches, not New York City subway trains. And what better place to learn than Oudtshoorn, the ostrich capital of the world? I decided to visit Highgate Farm, one of three commercial ostrich farms that offer tours in this town in southwestern South Africa, where ostriches outnumber residents 16 to 1.

Tours leave from Highgate’s parking lot, in front of the ostrich burger stand, as soon as enough people have gathered. I stood around with about 20 other people and we all tried to look as “gathered” as possible. After about 15 minutes of coordinated gathering, Sean, the 19-year-old Highgate Ostrich Farm Guide, started the tour.

The first thing we learned was that Sean’s real name was not Sean, but Chris, and he was only calling himself Sean because he had a name tag that said “Sean” because he had to borrow it to comply with the Highgate rule about wearing name tags at all times.

I took the tour with my friend Alan, who was born and raised in Oudtshoorn and knew more about ostriches than Chris and Sean put together. He had a month off from work and decided to come along just for laughs. When the government is in session, he works as the personal secretary to Winnie Mandela.

Highgate Farm is huge, home to hundreds of ostriches of all sizes. Stop No. 1 one was the ostrich feather lecture and demo.

“You see,” said Chris, “the high-quality male feathers are used for cabaret costumes (one pound sells for $150) and lower-quality female feathers are used for feather dusters (one pound for $50).” Then he gave us a lesson in feather dusting. After stroking the feathers to generate static electricity, he swept the dust right off a small knick-knack. Impressive.

Then it was off to Stop No. 2 to hand-feed some ostriches. Just imagine the excitement of feeding live ostriches from behind a fence!

“The trick to feeding an ostrich,” Chris said, “is to put the food in the palm of your hand and then hold your hand very flat so the ostrich can’t bite off one of your fingers.”

We looked at some baby ostriches, some acne-ridden teenage ostriches, and some old geezer ostriches, which can live to be 80. But most ostriches don’t live that long. The big problem with raising ostriches is that they drop dead pretty easily. If it’s too hot or too cold or too just right, they’re gone. Forty percent of ostriches die during infancy.

Fortunately, some of the little carcasses can still be salvaged. The meat tastes and looks like top-quality steak but it’s as lean as chicken. Ostrich leather is made into purses and jackets that sell for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars. Ostrich corneas are sometimes used for transplants in humans, Alan revealed. And their eyelashes go into delicate paint and make-up brushes.

Not to be outdone, Chris bounced back with a zoological nugget: “The ostrich is, technically speaking, a reptile. And as a reptile, it is, technically speaking, in the dinosaur family.” So there you have it, an ostrich is a dinosaur … or perhaps a dinosaur’s nephew.

Whatever, it looks like the result of a cruel genetic experiment involving a giraffe and a turkey. Their eyes bulge. Their necks look like bungie cords. Their ankles are where their knees should be and their feet are where their shins should be. As a result, these 7-foot, 300-pound creatures run on two toes (at speeds up to 50 mph). They can also use these toes to rip your chest open with a lighting fast kick.

The best thing to do if you ever find yourself being charged by an ostrich in the wild - something everyone should be prepared for - is to lie down on the ground.

Savoring this tidbit, Chris said our next activity was riding an ostrich. Suddenly, the idea of sitting on one of these ugly “dinosaurs” didn’t seem so inviting. But I figured the Highgate Farm people had been doing this for a while and they wouldn’t let us ride ostriches if it wasn’t safe, right?

Actually, according to Alan, there’s some controversy about ostrich riding. Animal rights activists think it’s cruel to ride the birds, which have been known to drop dead with people aboard. Chris said any danger to the ostrich depends on the weight of the rider, the length of the ride, and how hot the weather is. These factors, he assured me, were carefully monitored. It seemed to me ostriches have enough life-threatening problems without having to worry about being ridden to death by a tourist with an enormous butt.

We entered what looked like a very small bull ring with about 30 ostriches milling around. Two ostrich wranglers cornered one, grabbed it around the neck with a long hook, pulled the head down and threw a lunch bag over it. Once the ostrich was blinded, they led it to a special mounting stall where it was secured so daring tourists could safely pose for photos.

Chris offered to let women ride first. Two volunteered for 10-second, wrangler-escorted forays. I was the only male volunteer. The guys didn’t get wrangler escorts. Therefore, I was unable to watch anyone else make a fool of themselves first.

I mounted the ostrich and put my legs under its wings. I had shorts on, so I felt two things: 1) the feather quills jabbing painfully into my legs and 2) gooey brown stuff dripping down my calves. Apparently, my bird hadn’t washed its armpits since Bill Gates was just a millionaire.

I grabbed hold of the wings and nodded like I’d seen bronco riders do on TV, to signal they were ready. The wranglers unhooked the mounting stall, took the lunch bag off the ostrich’s head and let go. We were off!

There were no actual controls on the ostrich; no reins or stirrups. The idea was to just hold on and go with the flow. The ostrich flowed left, then turned around and flowed back to where it started.

The wranglers watched from the sidelines; they’d turned into rodeo clowns standing by to rescue me. Suddenly, the ostrich flowed in several directions at once. I got bucked off and crash-landed on the ground, which was covered with ostrich excrement. Thankfully the ostrich never got up to 50 mph or tried to rip my chest open. The ride wasn’t actually that life threatening. Just painfully short.

The last stop on the tour was the gift shop, where Alan and I decided to see who could find the tackiest souvenir. It was a tough choice.

Beyond the standard ostrich eggs and feather dusters, there were, courtesy of the local taxidermist - who’s also the pastor of Oudtshoorn - stuffed ostrich heads mounted for wall hanging and stuffed legs made into table lamps.