STARTING AN OSTRICH FARM
Starting an ostrich farm is an adventurous step for anybody. Hopefully with a little thought we can examine some aspects that you need to consider, before embarking upon such a project.
Land
You need to consider how you are going to use the land you have. Depending on what starting option you decide, you need to make decisions as to how much land you wish to dedicate to
you may wish to consider other building space for your offices, farm shop or rest area for workers.
A trio, one male and two female, is the normal grouping for ostriches, but you may equally consider pairs (one male and one female), quads (one male and three females) or colonies (two or more males to two or more hens).
We recommend pairs or trios in that it gives you the ability to track the individual performance of each of your breeders.
The space that you need for a breeding trio is approximately 30 metres (32 yards) by 50 metres (55 yards) – a total of 1500 square metres. Over the years I have seen this size reduced to almost half, without any serious consequences. Personally, I prefer larger parks with plenty of running space – hence the tendency to make the park oblong rather than square.
For chicks, they really need little space during their first four weeks of age. Let us say 2 metres (2 yards) by 10 metres (11 yards) for a group of 20 chicks, however they grow remarkably quickly.
Chicks will need increasingly large areas as they grow.
Depending on your climate, chicks will need to be housed at night time. Given a source of heat, all the chicks in the group need to be able to access this source of heat. Equally the chicks need to be able to sit away from the heat, according to their own body needs.
In our farm we found that we placed chicks straight from the hatcher to a shaded area in daylight, and then for the first two weeks required a heat lamp during the evening. The heat lamp was raised slightly higher every evening.
Shade even in the form of trees is an important factor for ostriches at all ages.
In the event that you decide to have your own incubation facilities you need to consider the room dimensions you require and this will depend upon the incubator and hatcher you buy. You need one room for the incubator, one for the hatcher, and a cleaning area to wash your eggs with an optional storage area for storing eggs before setting them in the incubator.
Labour
Adult birds should be fed twice a day, once in the morning, once in mid to late afternoon. Chicks should be attended at least 5 times a day, the incubator checked daily with setting eggs once a week and hatching twice a day. All this takes human labour.
Another labour intensive task is the cleaning of the chick pen to prevent them eating their own dirt (dependent upon stocking density, surface and age of chicks). Similarly setting eggs in the incubator and cleaning the hatcher are time consuming activities.
Besides the farming tasks on hand, the majority of farming is supervision. Prevention is better than cure, and solving problematic areas before they occur can save time and expense. Constant supervision will help, but generally the breeders are best left to themselves except for feeding and egg collection.
It is possible to move a bird with one person, but with two or more it is so much easier and less stressful.
You need to consider – do you have the time ? or do you have the finances to pay a farm labourer or labourers ?
Water
Your birds will need access to water 24 hours a day. You need to consider that when you design your pens that possibly build a costing into your budget for the cost of supplying water. If you are in a cold climate, you may need to consider the cost of installing water heaters to maintain a constant water temperature of 20 degrees centigrade for all groups of birds and not simply free from ice.
Ostriches like to scoop and as a result of the feed in their beaks, the water trough gets dirty quickly and therefore needs cleaning regularly.
Birds need constant access to water as this will effect their consumption of dry feed. Water too cold or too hot will effect their water consumption and often result in reduced feed intake.
Permissions
You will need to consult your national ostrich organisation or your local agricultural
board for advice on what permissions are mandatory for starting an ostrich farm in your own country. Some countries such as Germany, United States and Canada require that you complete a course on ostrich husbandry. Fortunately other countries are not as strict and view ostrich faming as another farming animal. Here are some points that you may need to clarify
wheels of vehicles entering your place go through dissinfectant
Write down your questions and doubts, and speak to somebody has gone through the process of setting up an ostrich farm in your area. They will be an invaluable source of help to you.
Finance
You will obviously need capital to set up your enterprise. You will also probably have some idea as to how much you can afford to dedicate to this. My advice is half it! Don’t borrow money either! It is only when you start selling your marketable products will you have some form of clear perception as to whether it is profitable for you.
We have seen many times the following pattern. New farmers spend a lot of money in trying to get the best “nicest” facilities and NO PLAN. I have seen chick facilities like mini-hotels! And totally impractical.
And then when it comes to the important stage of actually marketing their produce, they have run out of funds as production has not been what was expected.
My recommendation is keep things simple. Use what you have at hand – adapt the fencing you already have and use buildings that are already constructed.
Where I do consider it necessary to spend is on your incubator. A good incubator will give you good results, a bad one will not.
Record, record, record. You need to be able to answer the following questions PER PEN
and from these replies calculate
Compare the costs to your revenues
By doing these calculations PER PEN, you will hopefully be able to identify those that make the most and also just as important, identify those that make the least. If a trio is not profitable, cull. Cut your losses.
Hopefully I have given some useful pointers on things to think about – you need to have the resources of land, labour, water, permissions and finance to start an ostrich farm.
There are various ostrich farming options
you may wish to consider.
Full Cycle
This tends to be the norm. You have breeders, they lay eggs, you do
the incubating and hatching, and then you grow out the chicks to
slaughter age. The best part of this is that you are in control and
responsible for each stage. You have nobody to blame but yourself if
things go wrong.
You may also find that your geographical location is such that there
are no local incubation facilities to use, so you have no option but
to do this yourself.
On the other hand if your farming enterprise is large, you may need
others to grow out all your chicks. Your resource of land may be
limited, or you prefer to do this to limit risks.
The
financial layout for this sort of enterprise is the largest as you
are doing all the stages.
Generally speaking, as the ostrich industry matures, there is more
specialisation as each farmer tends to concentrate on what he does
best.
Breeders
Some farmers only have breeders and sell their eggs. This is their
income.
Incubation Facility
You may decide to have an incubation facility only. That is farmers
pay you for the service of hatching their eggs or purchasing eggs to
sell on as day old chicks.
A good incubation system is very expensive and therefore requires
significant capital investment.
Before embarking upon setting up an incubation facility you need to
assess if there is demand from farmers in your area to incubate or a
supply of eggs.
Typically a farmer would pay something as a down payment for you to
set the eggs and an additional payment for a hatched chick that you
return to the farmer.
Recording is of the upmost importance to ensure that the correct
owners receive their own chicks.
Growing Out Facility
The least expensive option.
You buy chicks at a certain age and you
feed the birds to slaughter age. This option could be particularly
attractive to a first-timer especially if there is a contract involved
for the repurchase of the slaughter bird.
But now beware ! So many of these buy back schemes have failed in the
past through the inability of the person offering such contracts to
market the produce at a sufficient price to give him any adequate
returns. In other words these buy back promises are not fulfiled and
in some cases were used as a sales gimmick to make a chick sale. The
farmer is then left with birds and has to market them himself.
Don't be afraid to ask for references from sellers - after all you are
talking here about your future income.
Regional Groups
I am in favour of regional groups as farmers can become
self-supporting. Working in volume helps in all aspects.
I have one example from a group of pig farmers in Austria who have
gone into ostrich farming. The farmers all have breeders and all
supply the eggs to one person. Each farmer gets one lot of chicks on a
weekly rotation basis. This means that farmer one gets all the chicks
hatched in week one, farmer two all chicks hatched in week two etc.
This system is truly collaboration so that no single chick is left
stranded on its own and it is just as easy to manage 5 chicks as it is
20 chicks.
What's more the farmers all use the same feed which all helps to
produce a consistent product. Buying in bulk enables these farmers to
get better prices.
The Ostrich Industry
World-Wide
It has been our experience that the ostrich industry has been
extremely volatile in certain geograhical areas. Those areas new to
ostrich farming generally experience high live bird prices only to
then later crash when the true value of a slaughter bird is realised.
This pattern has been seen to a larger extent ALL OVER THE WORLD.
In this chapter of the mini-series, we have looked at the various
options available in starting an ostrich activity - the full cycle,
breeders only, incubation facility and a grow out facility.
Feed costs account for at least 70% of all expenses of an ostrich
enterprise, and therefore it is an important point to understand when
starting an ostrich farm. Unfortunately it is, I would say, the least
understood topic for both new and existing farmers alike.
Firstly I would like to recap on the economics side. It is not the
cost of your feed that is important - it is the difference between the
revenue of your slaughter bird in comparison to the cost of producing
that slaughter bird that is the important factor. Calculating the cost
of the egg, the chick, the slaughter bird are all important
indicators, as are the higher revenue obtained from higher output
(number of eggs, no. of chicks, kgs. of meat, larger skin). So many
people fall into the trap of looking into the feed costs without
considering the production abilities of the different options and the
implications that a better feed gives you so much more and helps to
reduce losses such as infertility, hatching problems and chick
mortality.
Having got that point out of the way, let's look at an ostrich feed.
A good ostrich feed should have
· Forage to provide quality fibre eg. alfalfa
· Grain for energy eg. maize or corn
· Protein Ingredient for protein eg. dehulled soya
· minor and major minerals
· vitamins
· other natural additives such as Amino Acids, Yeast
Extensive research has been carried out by Blue Mountain as to what
constitutes a good feed. My recommendation is to refer to their
website
http://www.blue-mountain.net and contact their local liaison
officer for more information
http://www.blue-mountain.net/feed/p0001125.htm .
For fibre for example, alfalfa comes in various protein levels. It is
recommended that you can get alfalfa as fed of at least 18%. A higher
quality alfalfa has so many better characteristics such as improved
digestibility, higher vitamin and mineral content, to that say of one
of lesser quality.
Equally for maize, a farmer should strive to obtain 8% protein, as
opposed to the lower quality of 6%.
Soya normally comes as 44% or 47% where the 44% contains soya hulls.
Again we are looking for soya as a protein source, and the 47% is
recommended.
It is the vitamin and mineral packs that contain the punch of the
feed. Here it is not only the values of such components but the form
in which they are provided in combination with one another so that the
ostrich can use "the punch" to its full effect. Calcium provided in
one form may be indigestible to an ostrich, and therefore the balance
with phosphorus will be out which could lead to severe problems.
It is through attention to nutrition combined with good feed
management, good farm management, and genetic selection, that your
slaughter birds can reach meat yields in excess of 45 kgs per bird as
opposed to 25-30 kg which is today seen as the norm in places like
Australia and South Africa.
For more informaton on nutrition, a good step is to buy the Blue
Mountain books on nutrition. It's the first place to start to the
basic understanding of a complex subject. From
http://www.blue-mountain.net/feed/p0002176.htm you can order a
hardcopy or download an e-copy.
Armed with the basics of nuttition , you will be steps
ahead of your competitors in bird performance.
Hopefully this chapter has led you through the importance of using a
good feed, why one should be used and to look beyond cost of feed. The
important factor is production - your results.
Marketing is important and you really need to assess if there is demand for your
ostrich products, before even thinking of a farming activity.
Marketing
Starting an ostrich farm is easy. Making it a profitable enterprise
requires an assessment of how you intend to market your ostrich
products.
The best advice I can give is for you to visit other ostrich farmers
in your area and find out how they sell their produce, at what prices
and assess the demand.
You may wish to include processing and marketing as part of your
overall development plan.
Live
Birds
Some farmers may wish to breed for the live bird market. That is
selling eggs, chicks, or breeders. Though this helps cash flow in the
short term, and the returns can be high depending in which country you
operate, you need to consider what happens when the live bird market
is saturated - that is there is no more demand for live birds. You
need to be prepared to investigate who is buying slaughter birds and
the conditions of sale. This is the commericalisation stage.
Slaughter Facilities
In the event that you have no buyer for your slaughter birds, you may
need to consider slaughtering the bird yourself and marketing your
produce. You will need to know where are the nearest slaughter
facilities and their costs for providing this service or if
considering setting up on sufficient scale to construct your own
facilities. In South Africa, often it is the farmers that own the
facilities and they operate on an a quota basis. You buy a quota
giving you the right to slaughter x birds.
Some slaughter facilities have adapted slaughter facilities for
existing farm livestock by adding an extra room for the removal of the
feathers. You need to know if the slaughter facility is European Union
approved. If it is, this then opens the doors for you to market meat
into the lucrative market of Europe, where demand for ostrich meat is
highest.
Working in volume with other farmers in your area, perhaps forming a
cooperative, should help you in reaching larger markets for your
ostrich produce.
Marketing Meat Products
The problem with meat is that in the fresh state it is a perishable
product. You need to sell it as soon as possible as typically ostrich
meat will have a shelf-life of 21 days if vacuum packed.
Alternatively the meat can be frozen thereby giving you one year's
shelf-life. Depending in which country you are, the demand for fresh
is normally higher than for frozen meat.
Make a list of the ostrich processors in your area. Find out if they
will buy your meat or who is buying meat. Sometimes there are traders
who export meat, especially in markets such as Australia.
You need to do investigate. Perhaps attend some local fairs or even
international meat fairs. Anuga in Cologne is the largest meat fair in
Europe, but others to consider may be SIAL in France and in China.
Your aim is to connect with those that may be interested in your meat.
In the United Kingdom and USA there are farmers markets which give the
opportunity of consumers to connect directly with the producer.
Before launching into ostrich farming, you need to have done some
basic analysis of what am I going to do with my slaughter bird. Who
will buy the meat ?
Some farmers have even set up meat stalls in food market halls.
When you are selling meat, the presentation of the meat is a most
important factor. Not only in the meat itself but how it is packaged.
There are still many uneducated consumers out there who do not know
how to cook ostrich. Break this barrier with cooking instructions and
recipes. One of the best presentations of ostrich meat packages I have
seen was a processor who had a mini ostrich recipe book hanging from
the package.
Some have contacted stores and asked permission to do tasting
presentations so that consumers can taste the meat to see if they like
it.
The quality of your meat will depend on many factors but the first
factor is what you have fed your bird. A well balanced diet should
produce a meat rich in color - a bright red. A poor diet will cause
the meat to be an off red, almost purple, which will scare potential
consumers away. A good meat will redden when exposed to air, a bad
meat will cause the meat to go blackish. Be warned - all things being
equal it will be a reflection on what you are feeding your bird.
Have a look at www.ostrichmeatsupplies.com for further information on
meat cuts and what ostrich meat should look like.
Marketing Ostrich Skins
The ostrich skin market is very volatile. At times of the year nobody
will want your skins, and at other times, there will be a queue of
buyers wanting to take them. Don't worry, here you have a marketable
product IF YOU DO THINGS CORRECTLY.
Skins need to be the correct shape and stored correctly to be of
value. Do anything wrong then you will not have a marketable product.
The days that anything related to ostrich skins has a value are long
gone.
For information relating to the removal, storage, transportation and
grading of ostrich skins, refer to
http://www.ostrichskinsupplies.com
.
Skins need to be stored for example between 4 and 10 C - and never
freeze them.
Don't forget too that ostrich leg shins also have a small value, but
must be centred so that the scaling is in the middle. Similarly the
market demands big leg skins that include the "knee" and go down to
the toe.
In fact, selling ostrich skins in the salted state is probably your
least worry. You may not get the greatest returns from selling skins,
but here you have a saleable produce if you do things correctly. This
I can assure you.
Some cooperatives have fallen into the trap of thinking they will get
better returns by tanning and trying to sell finished products. This
market I know well. Don't be tempted to do so. You will end up
spending a lot of money, and having headache after headache as you
struggle with tanners, manufacturers and then trying to make sales.
Get the easy money, stick with selling salted skins.
Marketing Ostrich Feathers
I believe there is a lot of untapped potential here for marketing
ostrich feathers. It's also a very closed community where the secrets
of cleaning and dying ostrich feathers are not divulged.
Ostrich feathers can be used for decorations of all types eg. floral
decorations, interior design, costume making, hats or converted into
ostrich featehr products such as boas and feather dusters.
Feathers have an anti-static quality, which make them ideal for the
car painting industry to remove dust, but this is a market that few
will reach.
There are also many different types of feathers. The most prized are
the large white male feathers with a natural drooping, but there is
demand for others as well such as the tail feathers. To see some
different ostrich types, check out
http://www.ostrichfeathers.com .
Perhaps it is not an income that you should count on in your initial
cash projections, but one that you should consider - where can I sell
my feathers ?
Marketing Ostrich Egg Shells
At 14 days, you candle eggs to see if they are fertile or infertile.
Infertile ones are removed. These can be emptied by drilling a small
area at the base, the contents removed and the interior disinfected.
These empty clean white egg shells also have value. It is surprising
how many people want them as purely decorative items in their houses.
Some people paint them and sell them as farm souvenirs.
There is also an "egg-crafting community". People who carve eggs to
make displays, lamps or simple containers.
Again, probably best not to count on this as income when you are
starting, but again you have a marketable product.
Other
ideas
I have seen some bizarre ideas for marketing other ostrich products.
For example a chick that has died, can be sent to a taxidermist to
produce a chick display. I have also seen an adult foot converted into
an ashtray. These examples are true and just go to show you that there
have been some innovative farmers around !
In part four of our mini-series, we have given you some points of
consideration on how to market your produce - ostrich meat, skins,
feathers and eggs. Your main concern is how to sell your meat. Solve
this and you're in business.
Well , I hope we have covered some important aspects of
marketing your ostrich produce, and hopefully generated some new ideas
for you also in how to increase your income.