One of the big get-rich-quick schemes that used to be around was Ostrich breeding. They were the typical tax-loss making glossy-brochure advertised entrepreneurial stupidity that promise 200% returns every couple of years based on figures supplied by the promoters.

Angora goats at one stage sold for up to $80,000 a head, if you bred them supposedly huge amounts of money could be made for the kids. Of course what then happened was that people actually did start breeding them and the market was flooded with thousands of angora goats. The price fell somewhat, settling down to less than $10 each.

Alpacas are llama like creatures with beautiful coats of hair. A very volatile market has had them rise in price from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars, and back again. It is true that you can make money in them, but the risks are very high. At least if you play the futures market you don't have to mop up exotic pee stains afterward. At least not if you use the more common futures analysis techniques.

Deer used to fetch a couple of thousand dollars for a good breeding female, but who needs a deer anyway? They are now worth approximately the kg sum of their meat, one or two hundred dollars at most.

The risks are not just the boom-bust cycle that comes along when someone first imports a rare animal and starts sending out glossy brochures and gets all the suckers in. The problem lies with the nature of those promoting the schemes. The people starting up such investments are usually shonky players that like to get in, make a killing and get onto something else. They are the types of people who keep going bankrupt but always have money in a secret overseas account somewhere. When they have flogged this scheme they will jump into something else.

Back to the ostriches, they have sold at prices near $100,000 each and investors have been invited to purchase shares in ostrich farms. The commercial value of an ostrich is just a few hundred dollars though, I am sure the eggs are very useful and feathers widely applied, yet the total money you get out of a bird for their meat is just a few hundred dollars. In a few years such overpriced birds are virtually guaranteed to come down in value, fast.

Many Ostrich farms have failed because of breeding and disease difficulties. In one famous case dozens of birds had to be put down as they slowly starved to death when the operators walked away. Markets for exotic animals are not well established precisely because of difficulties like this. The reason why beef and chicken is so popular is because these animals grow rapidly, have well understood veterinary needs, are relatively cheap to feed and have a ready market. True there is a potential for great gain if you do get with someone who can overcome these difficulties, but if you want to get that kind of action you should be investing venture capital in pharmaceuticals and technology startups. If you want tax deductions then you can achieve that minus the animal cruelty by investing in alternative energy businesses. There are a variety of incentives and subsidies for solar power development, carbon credits for forestry industries etc.

The only way to analyse these ventures is to think of the commercial value of a single animal once there are enough to go around. If an animal is bred for its fur, feathers, meat, eggs, think of the maximum amount of money one could make selling those products, then halve that amount because by the time your animal is producing so will the other 10,000 just like it that signed up off the same glossy brochure you did. Ostrich meat is supposedly very good for you and tasty, their feathers have a finite value, their eggs are worth something too. Buying an ostrich for $100,000 is like buying a stock at a price/earnings ratio of many thousands: dumb.