chennai five common ostriches struthio camelus dropped dead in their enclosure at arignar anna zoological park on wednesday according to the forest department the flightless birds were keeping unwell and were under treatmenta team from tamil nadu veterinary and animal sciences university that was present during the treatment conducted a postmortem on the birds along with the zoo vets prelimnary investigations reveal the birds could have died of hemorrhagic enteritis and pneumonia as revealed in the postmortem they collected samples for bacteriology virology and toxicology swabs were also collected from the carcasses to check for avian influenza the samples have been sent to national institute of high security animal disease in bhopal the vets also examined blood smear and organ impression smear to rule out fowl cholerathis is the first time that these flightless birds are dying in captivity at the vandalur zoo at present the zoo houses 34 birds including the sub adult ones before the death of five birds the zoo had a very good population of ostriches the poultry and bird research unit of the animal husbandry department at kattuppakkam procured the first pair of ostriches in 2009 two years later the birds laid about a dozen eggs in the zoo the eggs were incubated for about 45 days after which six chicks were born this was the first ever indian zoo where ostrich eggs hatched successfullya former zoo official said that the near natural condition inside their enclosure helped the breeding and laying of eggs since then the zoo always had ostrich chicks every yearjust a few days ago the zoo also recorded the death of a 19yearold lioness kavitha who passed away because of old age and senility