CHAPTER XI? 
THE OSTRICH-FARM AT STELLINGEN. 
Nor very long ago it would have been considered a wild 
dream if anybody had suggested that it were possible in the 
latitude of Hamburg to allow ostriches out of doors in the 
winter ; and it would have appeared still more incredible that 
an ostrich-farm should be established in that locality. Yet 
this has now become a fazt accompl. Since the early months 
of 1909, when the ostrich-farm at Stellingen was first in- 
augurated, the many doubters have been convinced of its 
practical success. While this marks an era in the progress of 
the art of managing wild animals, it holds out at the same 
time promise of a valuable trade in ostrich feathers. 
The idea of attempting to acclimatise ostriches did not 
occur to me all of a sudden. During the first three winters 
of the present century, when I used to keep ostriches in the 
ordinary manner in heated stables, I lost no fewer than twenty 
of these birds. I thought that their death might be attribut- 
able to the fact of their confinement in close stables, without 
opportunity for movement; and I determined to test the 
accuracy of this opinion by an experiment. So in the winter 
of 1903-4 I allowed my African ostriches, as also a two- 
spotted cassowary, to have access to the open air—except 
when there was slippery ice which would make it dangerous. 
All the birds survived and thrived excellently. Ever since, 
I have kept them during the winter in unheated stables, from 
which they could walk out at any time into the fresh air. So 
1This chapter was written by Carl Hagenbeck especially for the pre- 
sent translation. 
255 
