Ostrich Apocalypse

[Dan D]

worse than Zombie Apocalypse



cyclists chased by ostrich

[Sailor Steve]

Fast dude, ain't he? It looks like he could catch them any time he wanted.

[AVGWarhawk]

These legs are made for running after you!

[Aktungbby]

Here’s Cash’s engaging account of the ostrich attack, as related in Cash: The Autobiography:

One such spell, the most serious and protracted, began when I took painkillers after eye surgery in 1981, then kept taking them after I didn’t need to. It escalated after I was almost killed by an ostrich.
Ostrich attacks are rare in Tennessee, it’s true, but this one really happened, on the grounds of the exotic animal park I’d established behind the House of Cash offices near my house on Old Hickory Lake. It occurred during a particularly bitter winter, when below-zero temperatures had reduced our ostrich population by half; the hen of our pair wouldn’t let herself be captured and taken inside the barn, so she froze to death. That, I guess, is what made her mate cranky. Before then he’d been perfectly pleasant with me, as had all the other birds and animals, when I walked through the compound.
That day, though, he was not happy to see me. I was walking through the woods in the compound when suddenly he jumped out onto the trail in front of me and crouched there with his wings spread out, hissing nastily.
Nothing came of that encounter. I just stood there until he laid his wings back, quit hissing, and moved off. Then I walked on. As I walked I plotted. He’d be waiting for me when I came back by there, ready to give me the same treatment, and I couldn’t have that. I was the boss. It was my land.
The ostrich didn’t care. When I came back I was carrying a good stout six-foot stick, and I was prepared to use it. And sure enough, there he was on the trail in front of me, doing his thing. When he started moving toward me I went on the offensive, taking a good hard swipe at him.
I missed. He wasn’t there. He was in the air, and a split second later he was on his way down again, with that big toe of his, larger than my size-thirteen shoe, extended toward my stomach. He made contact—I’m sure there was never any question he wouldn’t—and frankly, I got off lightly. All he did was break my two lower ribs and rip my stomach open down to my belt, If the belt hadn’t been good and strong, with a solid belt buckle, he’d have spilled my guts exactly the way he meant to. As it was, he knocked me over onto my back and I broke three more ribs on a rock—but I had sense enough to keep swinging the stick, so he didn’t get to finish me. I scored a good hit on one of his legs, and he ran off.
They cleaned my wounds, stitched me up, and sent me home, but I was nowhere near good as new. Those five broken ribs hurt.

MEEP MEEP!

These legs are made for running after you!

and rippin' u open when they catch you too! Additionally, the ostrich is not able to kick very effectively at an object on the ground, and eventually it will lose interest if you play dead. The bird will still likely stand on you--it's been described as dancing by some who've gone through the experience--and it may even sit on you for a while, but it will most likely not rip you open if you do this equivalent of burying your head in the sand. Then pour yourself a shot of Wild Turkey! Dare I SAY IT...4 MEDICINAL PURPOSES ONLY!

[Oberon]

They are deadly buggers, and can be quite aggressive too, and then there's this pile of rage:

[Aktungbby]

OF course some just EMUlate the ostrich and cassowary &

[Betonov]

Pffffffft, overgrown chickens.

The real evil bird and proof that birds evolved from predatory dinosaurs is the swan