The female ostrich will lay between 11 and 16 eggs per breeding season- which is once a year from about May to September. Ostriches do not lay eggs the whole year round like chickens do.  The female ostrich will be fertile from around 3 years of age until 30 to 35 years old in nature. She lays one egg every two days which I think is very understandable considering the size of her eggs.

One Ostrich egg weigh between one and 1,5 kg and is equivalent to 24 chicken/hens eggs.  To lay these big beautiful eggs the female must have enough calcium in her body otherwise the eggs say lays will be deformed. We supplement the female breeding birds’ diet with extra calcium to prevent her from laying deformed eggs. When you see an egg is deformed ( in other words not nice and smooth like they should be) it means the little chick inside will also be deformed. We obviously do not want this to happen and hence the importance of feeding our breeding female ostriches extra calcium.

The deformed chicks are mostly born blind which means they will not survive very long because they can’t see to find food. If we see a deformed egg, we will remove it from the nest and destroy it.