How much is that ostrich in the TikTok video?

More than six months after his ostriches went viral on social media for running loose through the streets of Taber, Alta., Parker Wood is putting some of them up for sale. 

It's not because he's fed up with the rascally ratites.

Instead, Wood says business is booming. These days, he sells most of his birds to U.S. buyers, and that his own farm can hardly keep up with the demand. 

"If we could raise 1,000, we could sell them down there," said Wood, the owner of Badlands Ostrich. 

He's hoping to expand his business in southern Alberta by selling breeding-age birds to other farmers, with a standing offer to buy back some of their eventual offspring, which he would then re-sell to his U.S. clients. 

"We are downsizing what we're going to handle here at the farm and we're going to increase what we buy," he said. 

"If we can help other people just get into the ostrich market, where they start raising them, then we'll be able to keep facilitating the demand in Canada."

Today, Wood says he's one of few farmers in the ostrich business, but back in the 1990s there was something of a boom in Alberta. 

According to a report by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, it started with ranchers who were looking for an alternative to raising beef cattle, before spreading to B.C. and then to other provinces across the country. 

In 1996 there were 15,502 ostriches in Canada, roughly half of them in Alberta, according to the agricultural census for that year. 

But by 1999, the industry was facing challenges, the report said. The number of new people entering the market had peaked, it said, as would-be sellers of breeding stock were having a hard time finding buyers for their birds. 

"In addition, markets for the meat and other products have not developed as quickly as anticipated," said the report, which noted that farmers were starting to get out of the industry. 

Wood said he's avoiding that problem by finding buyers ahead of expansion, in particular a U.S. slaughterhouse that specializes in ostrich meat. 

The U.S. is an appealing market, he said, because it has federally regulated slaughterhouses for ostrich that can sell to chains across the country.