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WORLD OSTRICH ASSOCIATION Mission Statement |
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Newsletter No. 58 – January, 2008
1. Happy New Year 2. Avian Influenza 3. Papers from World Ostrich Congress in Latvia 4. Marketing 5. Industry Information 6. Nutrition 7. Anatomy 8. Incubation 9. Semen Collection 10. Products |
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1. Happy New Year Your directors wish you all a happy holiday season and prosperous 2008.
2. Avian Influenza Unfortunately, many of you will have read the reports from Saudi Arabia during December of the cull of 13,500 ostriches at Desert Ostrich Farm.
Desert Ostrich Farm is situated in an area surrounded by poultry farms that were infected with the H5N1 virus. The managers of the farm reported the following:
Samples were sent to Italy for testing, but the results from those tests have not yet been released. The results of those tests have not been reported to the Managers at the farm. The directors will continue to monitor the situation on your behalf and report any updates. Whatever the result it once again emphasises the need for the highest standards of biosecurity to be employed. Our condolences to Desert Ostrich Farm. 3. Papers from World Ostrich Conference in Latvia The proceedings from the conference are available for purchase at Euro30. Contact: Irena Kalnina, email [email protected] to obtain a copy.
The 21 papers include:
Some of those papers discuss more than one category. This month we will discuss some issues raised in the papers. Clearly it is not possible to write a review of every paper.
A paper on “The Effect of avian influenza on the Ostrich Industry”, jointly authored by Tamasik, Horbanczuk and Cooper discussed the low susceptibility of ostrich to bird flu – figure 1.
Figure 1 - Susceptibility of Ostrich to Bird Flu
The paper also included a discussion emphasising the increasing importance of disease in the general meat supply chain, both on consumer confidence as well as the economics of production and, of course, was published before the cull referenced above.
4. Marketing Two papers discussed marketing. Alan Stables gave bulleted tips, all basic marketing information that is excellent information, but neglected an important element in food production today from livestock – especially when marketing into Europe, procedures required to gain access to the market.
As we have mentioned many times, assurance schemes are becoming an integral part of marketing, if these are not in place, you do not have access to many markets. Schemes that cover such things as :
To put these schemes into place takes money and requires volume to achieve economies of scale. Marketing starts on the FARM – if these procedures are not in place, in today’s market place, the available market is small.
The other paper on marketing was a small study carried out in the UK. The opening statement referenced "at 14 months of age" an ostrich can yield 35kgs of meat. Any producer aiming for 35kgs of meat in 14 months – 420 days will only survive if they have substantial revenue from other sources as well as meat. The paper also highlighted the challenges of marketing into a low volume fragmented market, but failed to identify the high costs associated with supporting such a large product range of fresh produce in a low volume market.
5. Industry Information The opening paper discussed the Ostrich Industry in Middle and Eastern Europe, excluding Germany. The paper referenced Poland as the leaders in Europe with 250 farms and several thousand birds, with an average of 10 - 12 breeders per farm compared to the Ukraine with an average of 50 breeders. From the way it is written, we have to assume the author (Professor Jaroslaw Hobanczuk) is referencing individual breeders, rather than breeder hens, pairs or trios.
Prices for different cuts of meat were referenced, but it was not stated if the prices quoted are wholesale (ex. processing plant) or retail. If wholesale, then the prices quoted are similar to those in Western Europe. One valid point made was the importance of volume, quoting a big city supermarket ordering only 20 – 25kgs meat per week, making it uneconomic to supply.
Under advantages of producing ostrich in the region was the regular purchase of slaughter birds at €1.80 to €2.00/kg live weight. The author does not specify the reason for the difference. The WOA recommend payment on a boneless meat basis, plus skin on a graded basis. That encourages good practice and ensures that the good birds are not subsidising poor management practices. It is not made clear if the purchases are made on a contract basis or as required. The former enables regular throughput through a slaughter plant and the producer to know that if they produce birds as required they will be moved out of the farm on the set dates, thus incurring no further costs once the bird is market ready. This is critical for commercial livestock production.
Dr. E. Carbajo, from Spain, discussed welfare issues and raised the point that there has been a lack of communication between the industry and welfare associations. The WOA directors have now opened discussions with various welfare groups. Progress will inevitably be slow while there is limited production, and the high volume species take the bulk of their time.
The reports from Iran, China and Brazil all indicate continued challenges to make the transition from breeder markets to commercial production. We have heard similar reports so many times over the years from every country working to establish an ostrich business. All 3 countries have tremendous potential if they are able to implement the same efficiencies in production systems as achieved by the pig and poultry industries.
6. Nutrition A number of the papers referenced nutrition, several covering nutrition in detail with some conflicting comments and information. Not one of these papers discussed feed conversion, days to slaughter or meat yields – or any of the key measurements that influence the costs of production or generate revenue from the bird.
Nutrition has the greatest control over costs of production, health and product quality and is a major subject on its own. Our comments are confined to two small areas (utilisation of fibre and ration formulation) that illustrate lack of precision and nutritional expertise.
Fibre It is well documented that Ostrich are efficient at digesting fibre. However, a fact that is all too often overlooked is that fibre must be packed with nutrients as any animal must have sufficient nutrients for health, maintenance and production. The following is a quote from a paper with 7 co-authors entitled “Some regional thoughts on ostrich farming in arid zones”.
Quote: “Agriculture produces a lot of fibrous by-products. Theoretically, if we use the wheat grain for humans and wheat straw for ostriches or apple juice for people and apple juice residues for ostriches, etc. ostrich production will become considerably cost effective given feed is a major expense.” End Quote
It is clear from that statement that the co-authors do not have a background in animal nutrition. For any animal (including humans) to be healthy and productive, requires a certain level of different nutrients and in the right proportions to each other. The actual levels and sources of those nutrients can vary between species, but all of these fibre by-products mentioned have very few nutrients in them. Ostrich eat very little in proportion to their body weight, so require ingredients that are packed with many nutrients – such as alfalfa/lucerne, which carries not only an excellent source of digestible fibre, but is also an excellent source of protein along with many vitamins and minerals essential to good health.
Table 1 - Comparative Nutrient Content Different Sources of Fibre [Source: NRC Tables of Feed Composition Third Revision]
If the total amount of food an animal eats in a day does not provide all the nutrients required, the animal suffers from poor production and poor health directly in proportion to the amount of nutrients either lacking or available for digestion in the diet. Table 1 illustrates that wheat straw provides very few nutrients by comparison to Grass and Alfalfa. Therefore to achieve the right amount of nutrients, they will need to eat a lot more food provided by other ingredients or the animals will suffer malnutrition. In this situation, because animals have an upper limit on the total amount of food they can consume, they end up short of nutrients. Utilising cheap ingredients that reduce the cost of feed does not mean costs of production are reduced. If no production it is the most expensive policy.
Ration Formulas Two papers provided detailed formulas, but these were not accompanied by information on the results from their use - i.e. how many eggs laid, chicks hatched, numbers surviving to slaughter, days to slaughter, liveweight at slaughter, meat yield at slaughter.
When formulas are published, there is a responsibility by the authors to ensure that it is very clear exactly what the ingredients are and when available in different qualities, to specify the quality. Lucerne analysing at 15% protein on an as feed basis, will produce a totally different ration to Lucerne at 18%, as will soyameal at 44% protein or at 47% protein. In one paper, 2 ration examples are given and specify only “premix”. All premixes are not the same and when correctly designed are designed to balance to the rest of the ingredients used; they are not something that is added to a mixture of different ingredients.
That same paper provided the breeder premix published by the South African scientists, but failed to differentiate the B vitamins – this was probably a printing error, but not the first time these premix rations have been copied with errors. The B vitamins were not clearly specified as B1, B2, B6, B12 etc. all of which have totally different functions in a diet.
The other formulations are published by a premix company and while they specify which soyameal quality is required, they fail to specify the quality of the hay and dry lucerne in the rations. The lower grade soya they specify as 42%-46%. This indicates that the lower grade soya in the region may be inconsistent and if there is that amount of variation from batch to batch, then even if all other ingredients are exactly the same, variations in performance will result.
The pig and poultry industries have become as efficient as they have through paying attention to details like this, watching feed conversion and how many days it takes to get their stock to slaughter.
There is reference to feeding 2% to 2.5% forage as body mass. They do not specify if they mean fed as a wet feed, in their natural state or dried as hay. This is important as 2% of body weight for a bird of 100kgs is 2kgs and on a 90% dry matter basis it is 1.8kgs of dry matter. If that same ingredient is only 20% dry matter, as found in some silage and fresh material, then they receive only 0.4kgs of dry matter.
7. Anatomy There were several papers covering anatomy. Two cover leg problems and one is a study on Morphological characterization of the stomach in postnatal ontogenesis of the African Ostrich.
Leg Problems One paper covered a detailed study of chicks with bow legs and another study on curled toes. The cause of these problems is already known and when research funding is limited, it is a pity to see research funding spent in this direction.
Neither studies provided any background to the parents or case study chicks, feed and management systems used. Both studies referenced certain nutrient issues that are well documented, but it is always dangerous to discuss nutrients in isolation as there are many interactions between vitamins and minerals, along with other nutrients required at the correct levels. The study on the bow legs did reference evidence of infection and this can be seen in the gut in an illustration. When the gut becomes infected in that way, it is well documented that the affected animal cannot absorb nutrients adequately and becomes malnourished, even when fed the best rations.
Stomach This paper was a study on the difference in the stomach of chicks at 2 – 4 days and 12 – 14 months and provides a detailed description supported by photographs and measurements.
8. Incubation The paper on incubation set out to study the selection of eggs, preparation and incubation factors that influenced the mortality in chicks. The study covered a 2 year period on 3 different farms. No reference is made the management systems in use for the breeders e.g. pairs, trios, colonies, diet fed, weather, nest type and so on. Any of these factors also influence egg quality and hatchability prior to entering the hatchery.
The study clearly demonstrated a correlation in reduced hatching percentage resulting in higher chick mortality. They also noted a clear correlation in careful selection of eggs, disinfection and hatching and mortality. They also noted that changes in humidity and temperature norms resulted in chick deaths.
9. Semen Collection Semen is required for evaluation of semen quality, fertility and ultimately artificial insemination. There was a paper “Semen Collection in Ostrich”, co-authored by Irek Malecki, Australia with Jasoslaw Horbanczuk, Ewa Lukaszewicz and Henryk Naranowicz from Poland.
The paper discusses different methods for collecting semen. Figure 2 is using an Artificial Cloaca (AC) and female tease. Figure 3 and 4 uses the AC placed inside a dummy which the male is trained to mount without requiring a teaser. They also tested the manual massage method of collection.
The paper concludes that development in animal friendly methods of semen collection have advanced in recent years.
Quote: “The ratite production is inefficient because it is constrained by the biology of the species that are not matched by management strategies or practices. Inadequate rates of egg production, fertility, hatchability, too high embryo mortality, poor chick survival or growth rates are some of the problems. The solution would be a structured breeding program that would achieve rapid genetic improvement in reproductive and economic traits.” End Quote
A structured breeding program is essential, but to achieve that, first the causes of the production problems need addressing. It also requires strong markets to support the development.
10. Products Meat Two papers covered meat studies. Daina Karklina and Janina Kivite discussed the nutritional value of ostrich meat produced in Latvia. The paper concluded that the chemical composition of Ostrich meat had no significant difference from other meats. That it contained significant quantities of B Complex vitamins, Vitamin E, Iron content, polyunsaturated and essential amino acids. Ostrich meat in their study had the highest content of Vitamin E followed by Chicken and then beef.
Krzysztof Lendzion, from Poland presented a paper on terminology classification and possibilities of use of ostrich meat. The focus was on the providing the meat with classification, clearly define the off cuts and then to show how to use the Class III meat
Class 1 is the major muscles as we know them demembraned. Table 2 is the classifications of Class II and Class III Meats
Leather Candido Carrillo Gonzalez gave a listing the many factors that influence the potential return on skins, with a long list of factors that have an impact. All factors listed are basic management issues and common sense, but we continue to see lack of attention and wastage as a result of these management issues being ignored.
Oil With their large fat pan (belly fat), the ostrich has a good supply of easily harvestable fat. George Nieuwoudt, from South Africa, presented discussions on utilising the fat for Biodiesel. The early work indicates that it is possible, but there is still more work to be done.
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