Meet the Floss Boss
Nicholas PhillipsBorn royalty on the Pasadena Ostrich Farm and heir to a kingdom of 60 feathered wonders, the Floss Boss was once a noble prince named Chick-N — a bit of a scaredy-bird, but with a heart as big as his plumage. Everything changed for him the day he tasted a Chioggia beet. Seduced by its candy-striped sweetness, he wandered around the World’s Fair where he discovered Fairy Floss and ended up stumbling into the brass-laced Multiplex. Caught in a sugar rush, he was spun, pulled, and looped through the magical musical horns — vanishing for 120 years. His motto; “Don’t get lost in the floss!”
Age: 121 years old
Height: 8 feet
Weight: 200 lbs (pure fluff & muscle)
He is an ostrich with royal blood dating back to the dinosaurs.
It has been said that his bloodline is of the first of the ostriches that were hunted by the "men of men," the Khosian people, the largest group of people on the planet 22,000 years ago. Diamonds were discovered and worn, after digging pits to trap the ostriches underground in a manner they could harvest them in.
His ancestor's feather adorned the head of the Goddess Ma'at in Ancient Egypt, when she wasn't using it to judge the souls of the dead.
To the Ancient Egyptians the ostrich feather was seen as a symbol of truth, justice, and purity. They have long been associated with royalty and status, and luxury and elegance, and power and wealth. The Barbary ostriches (Struthio camelus camelus) were brought to critically endangered status by the overhunting of their kind for their feathers. They were desired extra for their "Double Floss," the floss, soft quill-less underbelly feathers that they had twice the amount of compared to other species.
King Diamond, the Floss Boss
Born in South Pasadena, California in 1899
Kingdom moved to Hot Springs, Arkansas in 1900
Traveled to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition with his siblings in 1904, where he ate his first sugar beet and heard beats for the first time...
King Black Diamond III, the Trotting Ostrich
Born in Oudtshoorn, South Africa in 1865.
His path to "The most famous ostrich on the American continent," was was set in motion when Edwin Cawston bought him from Arthur Douglass, "the man who put the riches in ostriches," in 1886. He had been born on the farm and was one of the first artificially incubated eggs in experiments by the Dutchman. Pulled from the nest where he was surrounded by the shells of his siblings that were trampled by his father as he tried to protect them.
He arrived in Galveston, Texas on January 25th, 1887 with 42 of the 52 birds he had left South Africa with. His close friend, Murphy, escaped his pen on the ship and gorged himself on potatoes he found in the store room, eating himself to death. From there he was taken by train across the nation to Los Angeles, California. He spent years moving his new growing kingdom farm to amusement park to farm again before settling in South Pasadena. His fans would visit from near and far to meet him.
Weighing in at 300 lbs and standing over 9 feet tall - Black Diamond was a respected racing ostrich across the Nation and beat a horse by a bill length once pulling a rider in a sulky. He could run the quarter mile track in 24 seconds and pull buggies down the streets.
In the year 1900, the King wanted something new for his kingdom and took 200 of his loyal subjects to Hot Springs, Arkansas, with their loyal farmer subject Thomas Cockburn and his family. After his time at on Pike Street at the World's Fair of 1904, he raced every year at the Arkansas State Fair between 1906-1914 before retiring to a life of less running around.
Tragic Death in the Coup of June 21st, 1924.
Zwarte Diamante (Black Diamond II)
Born in 1835 in the wild native lands of the Khoisan (Khoe and San) people, land that had been battled over by the AmaXhosa people and the Boers since 1779, displacing its original inhabitants.
In 1864 he was captured alongside his partner, Intokazi Imilenze (Lady Legs), by Arthur Douglass with the help of an AmaXhosa guide. He had known the ostrich male as Idayimani Emnyama (Black Diamond) since he was born and saw the couple in their courtship days. Arthur learned how to say their names in his native tongue and promptly renamed them. 
His death happened directly after the loss of the love of his life in 1879, just before Arthur returned home from fighting in the Ninth, and final, Xhosa War. It's like they just couldn't stand to live tall in a world so messed up.
لماس الأسود [Almas Aswad] (Black Diamond I)
The original Black Diamond was born a Prince of Egypt in the year 1800.
Shortly after his tenth birthday, he was kidnapped by bandits seeking a king's ransom.
He was brought south to the land of the Xhosa in 1815 by a band of traders, during the peak of the Tran-Saharan feather and slave trade, where he was freed by a brave local tribesman. The tribesman overheard one of the traders calling the ostrich by the Arabian name for Black Diamond and referred to him by it as he spent his remaining days in the wild. The Barbary ostrich of the north was out of place amongst the local smaller ostriches, but found love later in life when visiting the watering hole.
He spent many years roaming the wild with his Southern Bell and brought life to many broods of chicks, including Zwarte.
نعامة [Naʻāmah] (Ostrich)
The Black Diamonds trace back to the great bird known as Ostrich to the Egyptians of the time. Wild and uncapturable, the great ostrich was the king of the birds and answered to none. His size dwarfed all others in the kingdoms of his kind.