Four Ostriches Hatch in Belize; Sixteen Didn’t Survive

Several months ago, businesswoman and ostrich wrangler, Nancy Marin introduced the first egg that was laid at her ranch after she was allowed to keep the birds that she had purchased. Her ostriches laid a number of eggs since then and two months ago, the new hatchlings arrived. Today, Marin told the media that in a couple of weeks, she’ll allow us to see them. But while there are four baby ostriches at her ranch, Marin expressed dismay that only four of twenty eggs hatched. The heat played a major part in that setback, but Marin explained that they have corrected a few kinks and the new hatchlings are eating right and being kept hydrated in a quarantined section that is set up for them.

Nancy Marin

Nancy Marin, Ostrich Wrangler

“We were very, very excited. We had four hatch. I wasn’t exactly happy with the numbers because sorry, we got 20 eggs and out of the 20 eggs, we only had four hatch, but it’s still a big, big news for us because we managed to hatch them in the humidity. During the time that they hatched there was a lot of humidity two months ago and a lot of heat, and so we had to take them into a fully air-conditioned room. I had to move the incubators to my home so that we can have this success. We made a lot of mistakes and the first one was, well, they did start laying really early. Like I had told you guys back then, we didn’t expect to get the first egg in late January. It was supposed to be closer to like March, April, and so the eggs were not fertile. The first, maybe like the first 10 we got were not fertile. We had to eat those – big sacrifice, and then I started realizing, you know, the humidity was affecting them because of then we had one or two, I think that the embroidery died in the egg, and so that’s why I decided intuitively to just move the whole set up to my house where I could have a enclosed room where we could seal off and fully air-conditioned 24 hours to be able to fight the humidity. We do have the building up already where we’re going to AC that building that we have at the farm. It’s gonna be expensive, but I think that I’m very, very happy that it can be done and we’ve ironed out the kinks. I mean it’s something new for all of us. Though I had volunteered abroad in ostrich farms, this is the first time I’m owning my own ostrich and hatching my own eggs. So it’s exciting. I think we know now.”