It cannot fly. It is often mocked for a myth about burying its head in sand. It is associated, in most people's minds, with either a comedy sketch or a feather boa. And yet the ostrich is one of the most extraordinary animals on earth — a creature of superlatives so extreme that they read like fiction, a bird whose relationship with South Africa stretches back millions of years, and whose unlikely journey from hunted wild bird to the source of the world's most prized exotic leather is one of the great untold stories of African commerce.
At Winklmayr, we work with ostrich leather every day. We know its quill patterns, its grain, its weight, its warmth. But before it becomes leather — before it becomes anything — it is an animal worth understanding. This is the story of the ostrich.
The numbers first
The ostrich holds records that no other bird comes close to. It is worth setting them out plainly, because they form the foundation of everything that follows.
What the ostrich actually is
The ostrich belongs to a group of flightless birds called ratites — a family that includes the emu, the kiwi, the rhea, and the cassowary. What distinguishes ratites from flying birds is the shape of the sternum: where flying birds have a keel-shaped breastbone to anchor powerful wing muscles, ratites have a flat sternum. Flight was traded, across millions of years of evolution, for something else entirely.
In the ostrich's case, it was traded for speed. The legs that carry no function in taking off from the ground became, instead, the most powerful running apparatus in the animal kingdom. Each stride covers up to five metres. At full speed, only a cheetah in a sprint can outpace an adult ostrich — and unlike the cheetah, the ostrich can maintain its top speed for ten to twenty minutes. It can also, when cornered, deliver a kick powerful enough to kill a lion.
The eyes deserve their own mention. At five centimetres in diameter, the ostrich has the largest eyes of any land animal on earth — bigger, famously, than its own brain. They sit high on the skull and provide near-360-degree vision across the open savannah. An ostrich can detect movement at a distance of several kilometres. This is why ostriches are commonly found living in proximity to wildebeest, zebra, and antelope: the grazers stir up insects and small creatures for the ostrich to eat; the ostrich, with its extraordinary eyesight, alerts the herd to approaching predators. It is one of Africa's most elegant symbiotic relationships.
"The ostrich traded flight for something else entirely. What it got in return was the most powerful pair of legs in the animal kingdom — and eyes that can see for kilometres across the Karoo."
Five myths — and what is actually true
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Myth
"Ostriches bury their heads in the sand when frightened."
This is perhaps the most persistent falsehood in popular natural history. Ostriches do not bury their heads — they would suffocate. What they do, when sensing danger, is press their long necks flat along the ground and lie still, using their mottled feather colouring to blend with the sandy soil. From a distance, this can look remarkably like a head disappearing into the ground. The myth has been with us since Pliny the Elder recorded it in the first century AD, and it shows no sign of leaving.
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Myth
"Ostriches are stupid birds."
The small head and walnut-sized brain have given the ostrich an undeserved reputation for foolishness. In fact, ostriches display problem-solving behaviour, form complex social bonds within their herds, and exhibit what researchers describe as emotional awareness. The dominant male performs elaborate courtship dances of considerable sophistication. Ostrich parents are notably attentive: males incubate eggs through the night (their dark feathers providing camouflage), females through the day. They are not intellectually distinguished birds — but they are far from the dunces of folklore.
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Myth
"Ostriches are native only to dry desert regions."
Wild ostriches have historically ranged across much of Africa and into the Middle East and Central Asia. The Arabian ostrich became extinct in the 1960s largely due to hunting. The North African ostrich is now critically endangered. The common ostrich — the species farmed in the Klein Karoo — is found across southern and eastern Africa, from savannahs and open woodland to semi-desert scrubland. They thrive in the Klein Karoo not because it is their only habitat, but because the conditions there suit them particularly well.
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Myth
"Ostrich eggs are massive — and therefore extremely rare."
Ostrich eggs are indeed the largest laid by any living bird — up to 1.4 kg each, equivalent to two dozen chicken eggs. But they are paradoxically the smallest eggs relative to the size of the bird: an ostrich egg weighs less than one percent of the female's body weight. Communal nests can contain thirty to forty eggs from multiple females. One ostrich egg can feed a family of ten and takes over an hour to hard-boil. In Oudtshoorn, they are sold in local supermarkets.
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Myth
"Ostrich feathers were always just a fashion accessory."
Ostrich feathers have been prized by humans for far longer than Victorian fashion would suggest. Ancient Egyptians used them as symbols of truth and justice — the goddess Ma'at's feather was always an ostrich plume. The Romans valued them. Zulu warriors wore them. Queen Elizabeth I reportedly collected them. The fin-de-siècle European fashion boom that built Oudtshoorn's famous "feather palaces" was not the origin story — it was simply the most commercially explosive chapter in a very long history.
The Klein Karoo and the feather that built a town
The story of the ostrich in South Africa is inseparable from the story of Oudtshoorn — a small town in the Little Karoo, wedged between the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountain ranges, roughly 350 kilometres east of Cape Town. The San people had hunted and used ostriches for centuries before European settlers arrived, valuing the eggs as water vessels, the meat as food, and the feathers for decoration.
Commercial farming began in earnest in the 1860s, driven by an insatiable European appetite for ostrich plumes. By 1875, South Africa had more than 32,000 farmed ostriches. By 1900, the Klein Karoo was in the grip of the first great feather boom, and Oudtshoorn's farmers were building extraordinary sandstone mansions — still visible in the town today — on the proceeds.
The ostrich industry in South Africa — a timeline
Wild-harvested ostrich feathers first exported from the Cape of Good Hope to Europe. Hunting pressure intensifies; a law prohibiting ostrich hunting is passed in 1821.
Farmers in the Klein Karoo begin domesticating ostriches in earnest. Lucerne is introduced as feed — the birds thrive. Numbers grow from 80 tame ostriches in 1865 to over 32,000 by 1875.
Ostrich feathers briefly become worth more than gold. Oudtshoorn's wealthy farmers build sandstone mansions — known as "feather palaces" — across the Klein Karoo. The industry employs thousands across South Africa.
World War I ends the feather trade almost overnight. The rise of the automobile made large, feather-trimmed hats impractical. Prices collapsed. Thousands of ostriches were slaughtered or abandoned. Many farmers went bankrupt.
The industry slowly rebuilds by diversifying beyond feathers. The first ostrich abattoir opens in 1950. Leather begins to be processed and traded. The Klein Karoo Cooperative stabilises the market.
The end of apartheid allows South Africa to export ostrich stock internationally. Ostrich leather enters the global luxury market. South Africa now supplies an estimated 70–75% of the world's ostrich leather. The Klein Karoo remains the epicentre.
From bird to leather — what the ostrich gives
The modern ostrich farming industry produces a remarkably complete range of products from a single animal — a fact that sits at the heart of why it can be considered one of the more responsible forms of exotic material production. Nothing is wasted. Every part of the bird has a use.
The skin, in its quill and leg forms, produces exotic leather renowned for its durability, flexibility, and distinctive texture. South Africa supplies the majority of the world's ostrich leather.
Still harvested and valued — for anti-static industrial dusters, high-end millinery, and theatrical costume design. The Klein Karoo produces around 120 tonnes of feathers per year.
Red meat, lean, low in fat and cholesterol, and high in protein and iron. Comparable to beef in flavour. Increasingly sought after by health-conscious consumers globally.
The largest eggs of any living bird. Used as food — one egg feeds a family of ten — as decorative objects, and in some cultures as ceremonial vessels, a tradition stretching back to ancient Egypt.
Ostrich oil — extracted from fat deposits — is rich in fatty acids and used in cosmetics, skin creams, and leather conditioning products. The same natural oils that make ostrich leather so supple.
Ostrich show farms in Oudtshoorn attract visitors from around the world, making the bird a cornerstone of Western Cape tourism and an important source of economic activity for the region.
Why this matters to Winklmayr
Every Winklmayr bag begins here — with an animal that has roamed the African savannah for twenty million years, that can outrun a leopard, that lays eggs capable of feeding a family, and that has sustained human communities in southern Africa since long before any leather workshop existed.
We work with accredited, licensed suppliers who operate under strict South African and international regulations governing the farming and processing of exotic hides. The ostrich leather that arrives at our Strydom Park atelier has been inspected, graded, and tanned by specialists with decades of experience. By the time it reaches Hanspeter's craftsmen, it is already the product of generations of expertise — on the farm, in the tannery, and in the workshop.
Understanding the animal behind the material does not diminish the leather. It deepens it. When you carry a Winklmayr ostrich piece, you are carrying something that began in the Klein Karoo — in that extraordinary valley between the Swartberg and Outeniqua mountains, where an unlikely bird and an unlikely town built one of the world's most remarkable leather industries, and where the story of the ostrich in South Africa continues to be written.
"Discover what the Klein Karoo produces — in your hands."
The full Winklmayr ostrich leather collection is available online and at our Strydom Park atelier