On the starting point
Evgeni Vladimirovich Tchaikovsky founded the "Fauna" farm. He always dreamt of farming osriches in Almaty. He read a lot about that matter, studied ostrich farming, traveled to Australia.
In 2000 he started the farm and hired me. Since then, I've been working here as a tour guide.
Initially we had 460 small ostriches brought from Australia. It was scary as I knew neither how to look after nor how to feed them. Anyway, I finally adjusted.
Having given the farm to Beketbai Daurenkulov — the current owner, Evgenyi Vladimirovich passed away.
Today "Fauna" is the one and only ostrich farm in Almaty
On ostrich farming
We’ve been breeding ostriches in incubators for ten years. The thing is that the ostriches brought from Australia were capable of reproducing, while those bred artificially aren’t capable of natural procreation. Therefore, we have to help the birds.
Ostriches lay from March to October, eggs weigh about two kg. An egg of 1 kilo 200 grams is sent to incubators and 42 days after ostriches are born.
Adult birds are capricious, whereas little ostriches require special treatment. We keep them in rooms with heat-insulated floors. They do not eat anything for 3 days and then we gradually start to feed them with cottage cheese and meat.
Today we’ve got about 70 ostriches. We breed many other animals besides: horses, peacocks, turkeys, and Australian emu. Beketbai Daurenkulov does his best to develop the farm and tourism in the city. We’re planning to have giraffes and kangaroos soon.
On tourist attractions
We always try to attract more tourists. We install yurts for people to stay in spring and summer. Also there’s a small cafe to relax. The menu simple, yet customers like it. Surprisingly, some people are attracted by the café but not animals.
Ostriches and ostrich eggs are in great demand. One ostrich egg costs 5000 tenge, whereas one month old ostrich is about $ 500. We’re planning to supply ostrich meat throughout Kazakhstan.
Besides we have a shop with unusual handmade souvenirs. The egg shell is very thick, so we make up decorations from it.
We work every day from 8 am to 10 pm with no days off. Adult ticket price is 500 tenge, schoolchildren can purchase a ticket for 300 tenge, and children up to 5 are free of charge. The incomes are enough to farm the animals.
There’re still things to be improved, we do our best to make the farm better. The farm needs some restoration to be made. Also we need some time to enrich the farm with more species. Sometimes it is not easy, but looking back, we understand that the effort was not in vain. We hope to have our plans fulfilled so that the customers were happy to visit us.
