The !924 the ostrich farm at Hannahs Bridge was established by William Alexander McMillan, on land previously owned by his father Alexander McMillan. William was born at Arcadia Station, Victoria in 1872, and spent his youth in the Young district of New South Wales. In 1905 he married Jean Murray Caldwell in Grenfell. Some years after their marriage they lived in South Africa where mature ostrich farming existed. Upon their return to Australia they bought several holdings in the Bribbaree/Young area. As their land there had been listed for future soldier settlement acquisition they moved to the Hannahs Bridge area, with their family, later purchasing an additional 300 acres from William Corliss. It was on these lands they established an ostrich and lucerne farm.
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Ostrich farming in country New South Wales was began by Captain Cairns of Gilgandra in about 1904, a few years after the end of the Boer War in South Africa. He started with six birds which in ten years time increased to 1,000 plus. Like the Captain, William McMillan raised his ostriches for the sale of meat, feathers, skins, hides and chicks. In 1914 the birds sold for $600 each and chickens often sold in excess of $30 each. In the same year Lassetters, a large emporium in Sydney, had for sale ostrich feathers priced from 24 cents to 30 cents each. A mature ostrich bird could produce on each wing 20 white feathers, 4 grey ones, and on its tail 36 white and 24 black feathers. The hen bird lays 15 to 20 eggs in a sandy hollow, and will sit on these during the day time for six weeks, when the hatch takes placed. The cock bird obliges by sitting on the eggs at night.
The McMillans had a family of three boys and four girls. Daughter Mavis would often relate how the meat and feathers of the ostriches were sold and freighted on the steam trains that passed through Hannahs Bridge. Research has not disclosed whether the ostriches were taken by motor lorry or driven along the road to the railway station. For when disturbed an ostrich was a "restless animal" when driven and vigilance had to be exercised to prevent a stampede. Mavis told many stories of her brothers Neil and Jack riding the ostriches and the danger involved. A kick from a mature ostrich could be fatal.
Ostrich meat is a "red meat" similar in colour and taste as beef. It is lower in fat compared to chicken and turkey and much lower in cholesterol than beef. Most of the meat from an ostrich comes from the leg, thigh and back. There is no breast meat. Ostrich leather is the result of tanning skins and is regarded as an exotic product along crocodile, alligator and the like.
My research for ostrich farming in the Mudgee district was not successful. However, I did learn that in 1938 that Eric McRae and Oscar Wilkins of Mudgee were training a huge ostrich from the Mudgee area as a trotter to race at the Sydney Sports ground. Its opponent was to be the trotter Neurea Lass. Both the ostrich and the horse were to be harnessed in trotting gear. The race distance was to be over one mile.
The ostrich was named "Flying Feathers. It took six months of extensive training, for the six year old ostrich to acquaint with the harness and the gig. Unfortunately a few days before the event the ostrich took sick and the race was postponed indefinitely.
William Alexander McMillan died in Mudgee, age 71 years, on May 1, 1942, and his wife Jean Murray McMillan passed away at Roseville, aged 75 years, on December 13, 1953. Both are buried in the Mudgee Cemetery.
