Ostriches are farmed for meat, leather, and feathers across South Africa and increasingly elsewhere, with welfare challenges arising from their large space requirements and sensitivity to stress.
Ostrich farming presents welfare challenges that stem from housing animals with extreme space requirements in commercially viable systems. Ostriches are flight animals — literally — and their stress response to capture and handling can be fatal. Feather harvesting from live birds, while less directly harmful than some other practices, involves the repeated stress of capture and restraint. Welfare improvements focus on handling facility design that reduces capture stress, appropriate chick brooding conditions that reduce early mortality, and space allowances that permit normal locomotion. Consumer awareness of ostrich product welfare standards is extremely limited.