A Day at the Ranch with the ‘Big Birds’

BY EMILY ALVARENGA

Signal Staff Writer

From its flightless birds to its growing orchard to its camping spots along the Pacific Crest Trail, Quail Run Ostrich Ranch is an adventure waiting to happen in nearby Lake Hughes.

Quail Run is primarily a working ostrich ranch, as its owners Lou and Jackie Royce have raised and rescued the world’s largest birds since 1996.

“Think cattle ranching — only with big birds,” Lou Royce said. “We raise and sell ostrich and all different types of ostrich products.”

Through the years, the Royces have grown the ranch, which has begun to offer so much more, opening to the public for tours, hosting campers, weddings and other events on-site, selling farm fresh products in their mercantile, holding tomahawk and archery classes at their outdoor range and even planting an orchard.

Making the Ranch a Family Affair

Royce was born on the ranch, and left only to go off to college to study zoology, with a specialty in ornithology, or the study of birds.

After college, Royce found himself back at the ranch, building a home for himself and his wife, Jackie.

Since then, Royce has raised all kinds of different birds of all different sizes, from the smallest lovebirds and cockatiels to the second-largest emus then finally to the largest ostriches, as well as some endangered bird species, such as pheasants and hookbills.

Royce’s passion for birds has rubbed off on his family, who now are just as passionate as he is, he said and his daughter, Jessica Byers, agreed.

“There’s three generations that live here on the ranch,” Royce said. “It runs deep in the family. We’re close to the Earth, so to speak, and we’re very close to the birds.”

While Byers has moved away at various points in her life, she always found herself returning to the ranch.

“The ranch was home,” Byers said, adding that she soon realized the ranch was the family’s legacy. “Taking care of each other is the most important thing, and we do that by having our land and working it. … We want to be able to build wealth for our children to have something that they inherit from us.”

Byers’ oldest daughter is very involved in the ranch, and has already told her grandfather she plans on continuing it.

“My daughter is an entrepreneur,” Byers said. “She’s only 10, and it may change as she goes forward, but she always talks about how she wants to be able to go do animal husbandry, she wants to be a vet, or a zoologist, like Papa, and be able to work on the ranch.”

Visiting the Ranch

In 2014, after rebuilding from the Powerhouse Fire, the ranch opened to the

See OSTRICH, page 24

Jacquie Royce wags a finger to chide 8-year-old Sammy, right, as fellow ostriches Big Al, 8, left and Corah, 8, look on at Quail Run Ranch in Lake Hughes. PHOTO BY DAN WATSON / THE SIGNAL