on the skin conditions of ostriches

Holidaying is strange thing, that often leads to strange things. So when the opportunity to ride an ostrich presented itself and a friend gleefully offered to pay for it, animal rights and environmental concerns were overridden and I duly stepped on-board the exploitation train.
If you look carefully at the picture you will see two thing. 'As skin conditions' written on the sign and a rather poor skin condition on the poor bird's rear end. The two things are connected and presumably the ostriches are a risk when they are not feeling the best.. This is my interpretation only, the possibility of being wrong doesn't lessen the burden of guilt. The poor thing seemed incredibly unhappy, and would only run when pushed, and I am guessing something was done to it to stop it biting.
A bit like that camel I met on the Great Wall of China, ostriches are brought to tourist attractions in Vietnam for the sake of making a quick buck off the eejit that will do it for the craic. I am not alone in having done it, but with any luck a bit more thought will be paid next time to the plight of the animal. The fact that this experience was pretty lame (you couldn't even steer the thing) will no doubt help this.


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