Ostrich farming occurs globally for leather, feathers, and meat. As large, intelligent birds with complex needs, welfare in captive ostrich farming presents significant challenges.
Farmed ostrich welfare faces fundamental challenges rooted in the species' wild nature. Ostriches are not domesticated - they retain the full stress reactivity of wild birds and experience intense fear responses to handling and confinement. Capture myopathy - where extreme stress during handling causes fatal muscle damage - represents a severe welfare risk during routine farm operations. Live feather plucking causes clear distress and pain. The confinement of animals that naturally range vast distances in barren paddocks prevents natural social and foraging behaviours. Consumer awareness of ostrich farming conditions is extremely low.