 BACK TO OUT WEST The newspaper that roams  Dreambird: The Strange History of the Ostrich in Fashion, Food, and Fortune
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Rooster Cogburn and his Arizona ostrich ranch — the largest in the USA By Chuck Woodbury From Out West #46 I am typing on the northwestern slope of Picacho Peak, which is a state park midway between Phoenix and Tucson. The heat has returned, thankfully, but now it’s downright hot and I’m back wearing sunscreen. Picacho Peak is famous as the site of the most westernmost battle of the Civil War. On April 15, 1862, long before the day became famous as tax day, Confederate forces killed U.S. Army Lieutenant James Barret and two of his men. Then, aware that other Union troops were on the way, the Confederates hit the trail. So, as Civil War battles went, this was not a biggie. But more important to me than being at the site of a battle of long ago is that a few miles west is a famous landmark of today, Rooster Cogburn’s Ostrich Ranch — the largest ostrich ranch in the USA. Nearly a thousand African black ostriches roam around 600 acres. It’s a sight to behold. And, even better is that Rooster Cogburn himself, the ostrich rancher, is usually on the spot to greet all visitors to tell them all about ostriches and to teach them how to feed one. Anyone who wants to get up close and personal with an ostrich need only pay $2 for a huge cup of food, which they can then feed to the hungry birds. What fun! Everybody laughs as they do it. A freshly laid ostrich egg goes for $15, but what a meal! Each one weighs 4 pounds and is the equivalent of 24 chicken eggs. This would be the perfect thing for a family omelette. Cogburn refers to his ostriches as “dinosaurs.” What people are really buying, he says, is a dinosaur egg. If you compare the skeleton of an ostrich foot with one from a similar sized dinosaur, you, too, will believe they’re the same, separated by time and evolution. Rooster Cogburn was raised in Oklahoma, where he was always around animals. He’s sad that so many of today’s kids know so little about livestock, so he’s happy to serve as their instructor. His ultimate plan is to build the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Tourist Show Farm, where visitors can view a movie, see an ostrich hatch and eat ostrich meat, which Cogburn and others envision as the meat of the future. It’s tasty, lean, protein-packed, and pound-for-pound much more efficient to raise than beef. Cogburn is really upset at the ostrich industry, which he says is in a major decline. Masses of inferior birds were sold to investors looking for big profits, and it has been a disaster. Cogburn’s South African blacks are prime birds, but most around the country are not. The Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Farm is easy to find, at Exit 219 off Interstate 10. ©2003 by Out West Newspaper
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Under a big tent out front, Rooster Cogburn sells tee-shirts, hats, ostrich feather dusters, hollow ostrich eggs, painted ostrich eggs, ostrich jerkey, and even fresh ostrich eggs ready to be cooked and eaten. I bought nearly $40 worth of stuff including an ostrich feather duster. “They’re the only ones that actually pick up the dust,” said Cogburn as he demonstrated. I tried mine on my computer screen after returning to the motorhome. He was right.