World Ostrich Association : Newsletter #34, January, 2006

WOA "Members Only" Section
Newsletter #34, January, 2006

Issue No: 34

1. New Year Greetings
2. Avian Influenza
3. Introducing Alan Benyon

4. Country Liaison Report from Iran
5. Published Papers

6. Production Starts with the Breeders

7. Benchmarking Ostrich Production

8. Guidelines on Avian Influenza for Ostrich

9. Contributions

1. New Year Greetings
May I take this opportunity to wish all members a very happy and prosperous New Year.

2. Avian Influenza
It is traditional at the start of a new year to review events of importance during the previous year, in our case events that may prove to have significant impact on the future development of our fledgling industry.

The year was dominated by Avian Influenza from two sources, H5N2 in South African Ostriches and the fears of H5N1 spreading globally.

A. South Africa
The effects of the outbreak of H5N2 outbreak in South African Ostriches again dominated the Ostrich market as it left 60% of current world ostrich meat production unavailable for export. That situation changed at the end of the year. The situation is a reminder to all that dependency on export markets alone can be a dangerous policy.

B. H5N1
To date no ostriches have been confirmed carrying the H5N1 virus, but the spread of the disease throughout the world is creating a greater awareness. Particularly because this strain has been transmitted to humans in direct contact with infected birds, with loss of life and of fears of the virus mutating to become transmissible human to human.

Your directors recognise the importance of providing leadership and a reference point for governments to seek advise and guidance when developing directives relating to Ostrich.

With that in mind we would like to introduce Alan Benyon.

3. Introducing Alan Benyon
Alan Benyon is a noted poultry vet in the UK with some experience of ostrich - including sustaining a collapsed lung some years ago from having been kicked while attempting to treat a large male!!

Alan is well respected in poultry circles and has considerable knowledge of treating and managing AI and Newcastle disease outbreaks in poultry. He is a dedicated advocate of the use of vaccination to control disease outbreaks and to do away with the mass destruction of perfectly healthy birds just on the off chance they may catch the disease. He is especially keen to see breeding flocks and other valuable birds protected by vaccination.

Alan has agreed to act in an advisory capacity on aspects relating to Ostrich for the World Ostrich Association on a voluntary basis. Your directors thank Alan for taking on this essential responsibility to help the WOA provide the direction our members require.

4. Country Liaison Report from Iran

The following report has been received from IOFA, the country liaison for Iran.

Iran Interior Cooperative Company in Ostrich Farming

The 6 major and pioneer companies in Iran established Iran Ostrich Coordination Company which its main role is organizing production and marketing strategy for ostrich farms in Iran. IOFA as chairman of board of director is supervising all the relative activities.

According to the growing newcomer farms and interested individuals in the region, all the mentioned members by a wide unique aim decided to develop all the determine policies in ostrich industry in Iran, thus preventing any probable failure and cut out any other middle hand activities. As a result, Iran interior cooperative Company for ostrich industry has been established which will include more than 200 farmers in all different province of the country and IOFA would be the main member of directors for the company. The main objectives are:

a. Establish a strategy for local ostrich market.
b. Perform all customize strategy for ostrich by-products inside of country.
c. Arrange scientific seminars and exhibition in ostrich farming.
d. Arrange practical/theoretical training courses for ostrich farmers.
e. Establish scientific committee in order to provide technical information to the farmers and consult with subsidiary ministries and organizations to utilize all the major policies and approve concerned regulations and for realizing all the executive instructions.
f. Establish a jurisdiction council to settle any dispute between the farmers as well as to prevent any probable violation and disobedience.
g. Issue ostrich scientific publications contain inside technical essays or translation of approved international articles under supervision of scientific committee in Iran cooperative Company in Ostrich Farming
h. Design and construct ostrich farms.
i. Control and check the quality of available ostriches for individual new farms
j. Provide relative companies and service group to aid and train individual farmers.

The International Poultry exhibition in Tehran ended while different companies from China, Turkey, …etc. had been attended. IOFA also attended and as WOA CL to introduce WOA to the interested people for ostrich Industry which had been noticeable.

And now we are busy with another exhibition in the Northern Providence, Mazandaran, which I will inform you by the result.

Editor comment: Thank you for the report - as always regular reports are welcomed from our Country Liaisons.

5. Published Papers
There are an increasing number of papers published on Ostrich matters. The April issue, Newsletter No. 25 carried an item "Are Your Goals High Enough?" This item concluded:

Quote:
"Currently most every paper or study one reads proves beyond any doubt that our industry has to change the approach as producers cannot be commercially viable with such low levels of production per hen. End Quote

The 3rd International Ratite Science Symposium was held alongside the XII World Ostrich Congress in Madrid, in October. A detailed study of the papers published continues to prove the approach currently being used by the researchers is resulting in production levels that simply are not commercially viable for a sustainable commercial industry. From a personal viewpoint, I was disappointed to still see methods that are outdated in other specie being discussed for Ostrich in a number of different studies.

Ostrich have the potential to be as efficient as poultry and pig production - but it requires a totally different, more scientific and modern approach to those currently being reported in the papers presented at the symposium. They are some 40 or 50 years out of date and continue to explain why our industry has not progressed.

6. Production Starts with the Breeders
The opening paper discussed egg laying statistics.

Quote: The mean of 45.6 +/- 32.5 and high CV (coefficient of variation) of 72.9% for H (percentage of chicks hatched) indicates that just over 54% of eggs laid do not hatch. End quote. They went onto confirm that these were the findings of Kim Bunter, as we reported in Newsletter 25. The next statement:

Quote: A similar hatchability of 47% was obtained from approximately 23,000 eggs in the review by Cloete et al (1998). End Quote

Table 1 below is a combination of some other published results reported in the different papers from the Madrid conferences. The trend is the same - hatchability rates that are a key indicator of an industry that must progress out of this non-productive mode if it is to be successful. The knock on effect of these poor egg production statistics is weaker chicks that are more difficult to rear; an industry still measuring success on numbers of chicks kept alive; chicks that do not convert feed to their full genetic ability and chicks that take too long to finish.

Table 1 - Comparative Egg Production Statistics

Statistics missing from these figures of course are eggs per hen as that is also a most important production measure. Hayder reported incubating only a proportion of egg production for management reasons. Woor and Erhard reported the number of eggs involved in the study, but not the number of hens producing those eggs or if they represented the whole production of those hens. Once in full production, total eggs laid are an important measure and not just fertility and hatching percentages.

Brand et al reported various studies representing genetic tracking. Their studies reported slightly improved egg conversion rates to those in the table 1, but not adequate to support a commercial industry. In the context of genetic tracking these egg to chick conversion rates prove without question that any genetic studies are flawed. These egg conversion rates prove the current malnutrition in the breeder flock. When malnutrition is present the true genetic potential is not able to be proved and misleading results may follow.

In 1995 Holle reported:

Quote: These ranchers report an average of 82.5% survival rate from EGGS LAID to 2 months of age. This includes fertility, hatchability, and chick survival. They also reported there were very few assisted hatches, no yolk sack infection problems, no leg problems, and very few problems with chicks going off feed. These farms also commented that Breeder pairs started mating earlier and are laying longer this year, despite the heat, than ever before. The eggs are more uniform in size with the best shell porosity they have seen. The evenly spaced, deeper pores of the shell allow easier incubation because of a more uniform weight loss. The chicks appear to be more resistant to bacterial and virus infections and are easier to raise than before. end quote

When reporting these findings, Holle also referenced the many nutrients that were included in the rations at significantly higher levels than are current industry norms. Breeders were not separated or moved in the off season, unless required for change of partnerships for genetic development. To date I have yet to see papers discussing production reference any of the nutrients reported in this study reported in any detail.

No Production, No industry and it all starts here with the breeders

7. Benchmarking for Ostrich

The May Newsletter, Issue No. 26, discussed Benchmarking. Benchmarking is a method of understanding the norms as achievable targets, but more importantly understanding that they are targets to be improved on. Agricultural production has survived the ongoing price/cost squeeze by continually improving production to reduce the unit costs of production.

Our fledgling industry lacks meaningful statistics and the above demonstrates the many pointers to why we have producers failing to make good profits. The place to develop the data is from the commercial industry's participants. The more information people are willing to share the more meaningful the information database we can build together to establish benchmark figures that are meaningful and productive for the industry.

Benchmarking records production statistics produced under commercial conditions to help commercial producers have something to measure their performance, analyse their performance against measurable criteria and work to improve their performance. If they are not achieving the right performance levels, start asking questions as to why.

A committee of "The Blue Mountain International Ostrich Alliance" (BMIOA) produced a set of performance criteria as a foundation for identifying and grading birds with superior genetics. As a starting point your directors over the next few weeks will review those figures and publish a set of benchmark standards based on the following measurable criteria and current known information?

Measurable criteria are:

Breeder Birds

Key measurements

- Slaughter Bird/Adult Birds per hen

- Meat production per hen [see note 1]

- Breeder Cost per Day Old Chick

- Incubation Cost per hatched Chick

Measurements to observe where weak areas or failures may be to identify areas that need special attention.

- Eggs Laid per hen - Number

- Eggs set %

- Fertile %

- Hatched % of Eggs Set

- Hatched % of Fertile

- Eggs per Chick

- Chick Mortality to week 2

- Chick Mortality to week 13

- Chick Mortality to Slaughter or transfer to Breeder Herd

Slaughter Bird Production:

Key Measurements [see note 2]

- Feed Conversion

- Total Boneless Meat

- Days to Slaughter

- Feed Costs to Slaughter

- Carcass Grade

Measurements to observe where weak areas or failures may be to identify areas that need special attention.

- Liveweight [see note 3]

- Liveweight to Carcass %

- Carcass to Boneless Meat %

- Liveweight to Boneless Meat %

- Fat Weight

- Fat % of Liveweight

- Fat Colour

- Individual Muscle Weights [see note 4]

Breeder Bird Replacement:

- Age at Puberty

ie. hen - first fertile egg laid, male - first egg fertilised

- Progeny Performance

for all production selection criteria being developed in the herd [see note 5]

Note 1

The Slaughter Bird/Adult Birds per hen is the most meaningful figure.

Number of Eggs is meaningless unless Eggs are viable and produce strong, viable chicks.

40 Chicks/hen producing 45 kilos of boneless meat is more valuable than 80 chicks/hen producing 25kilos of boneless meat.

The definitions of Carcass and Boneless meat for measurement purposes need to be adhered to

Note 2

Feed conversion is a critical measurement that is controlled by:

- quality of chick at hatch

- production potential of feed from day 1 to slaughter

- feed management

- farm management (includes environment)

- bird genetics

- desired slaughter weight

- combined with correct feather development to provide high quality skin

Days to Slaughter - earlier slaughter:

- reduces feed consumed

- chick quality at hatch influences days to slaughter

- faster return on working capital

- less infrastructure and space required

Carcass Grade

- increases revenue

- requires marketing to educate market on carcass grades

Note 3

Liveweight:

- use in association with the following statistics

- Liveweight to boneless meat

- Liveweight to carcass

- carcass to boneless meat

Boneless meat produces revenue

Note 4

Individual Muscle weights

- Certain muscles are greater value than other muscles

- Genetic selection can include development of body shape to enhance size of valuable muscles, such as the Fan

- Current published muscle weights prove the tremendous variations and potential

Note 5

The relevant progeny performance will be the traits the farm is selecting for. It maybe:

- Egg production - greatest number of eggs produced

- Meat Production - development of confirmation that results in larger primary muscles, especially the fan

- Leather - particular follicle style

- Fat - good oil market, genetics that produce good fat

- Feed Conversion - the genetics that convert feed the most efficiently

- Large size

All measurable criteria will be observed with individual traits weighted as being more important than other traits.

8. Guidelines on Avian Influenza for Ostrich

Guidelines on handling Avian Influenza as they apply to Ostrich are now available as a clickable link on the web site - http://www.world-ostrich.org. We have made them available to all and not confined them to members only as this is an important issue. We will consistently review and update information on Avian Influenza and other diseases as greater knowledge becomes available and as appropriate.

9. Contributions

As always we ask for contributions. Please contribute to the discussion to develop the benchmarking criteria for ostrich. Your directors will publish figures - but we need feed back and communication to help all members understand all the factors that control these figures. If you do not agree with any figures speak out and say why you do not agree.

Any comments or suggestions, please post either to the members list [email protected] or Craig at [email protected]
Ask not only what the WOA can do for you but also what you can do for the WOA.

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