WOMRAD (World Ostrich Marketing, Research and Development) is a concept to develop collaboration between commercial operations serious about the development of a strong and viable ostrich industry. WOMRAD will devote equal attention to developing markets and R&D. The plan is to incorporate the best technology available today, pool resources and through communication and collaboration commence a production development program whilst simultaneously growing and developing the markets for that production.
Every member of the group can contribute to the research as well as benefiting from the research.
The Objective is to set the World Ostrich Industry on the path of commercial production in a professional manner to enable the industry to compete on equal terms with mainstream livestock production, using “production livestock farming” techniques. The farms operate as commercial farms with a need to make a profit. There will be a requirement for substantial working capital to assist the transition to commercial levels of production.
All farms will implement good record keeping providing the foundations of a database of information on which to build a “benchmark database” of the true productivity potential of ostrich. This area is currently lacking in the Ostrich industry and will address the need to prove facts through a database rather than on poorly based assumptions from few records. The greater the number of figures, the more meaningful the data so a central database collection will be set up. Worthy of note is the long history of production and millions of animals other species have enjoyed through centuries of domesticated evolution. Ostrich does not yet have this luxury; hence the reason collaboration on collection will speed up the process of achieving meaningful data.
The first priority will be to bring the existing herd to optimum nutritional health and prove to the world industry the production potential of these birds. The past nutritional programmes and management systems throughout the industry have been severely lacking in the required nutrients for Ostrich. This process will also be a period of training for staff and participating scientists and developing crop production to meet the required nutrient standards for productive ostrich rations for each participating production unit.
The program as outlined in “The Road Map to the New Ostrich Industry”[18] will form the basis of the management systems and falls into 4 sectors:
Production Nutrition
Production Feed Management
Production Farm Management
Genetic Improvement Program
Modern livestock production nutrition is high tech and extremely precise. Production ostrich rations are nutrient dense with high feed efficiency factors. To achieve the required efficiency and retain production goals requires high quality nutrient dense ingredients combined with high levels of vitamin and mineral supplementation in proper proportions to utilize efficiently the major ingredients in the feed formula. In addition, modern livestock production nutrition also includes the addition of certain amino acids to bring the ratios of amino acids as close as possible to the required amino acid structure for the specie, utilising commercially produced grains, forages and protein ingredients. WOMRAD will base the program on the Blue Mountain systems developed by Daryl Holle. All participating farms will be required to introduce the full program.
Ostrich have a distinct advantage over current mainstream livestock in that the room for improvement is very great as there has been little significant development of the species to date. Ostrich show great feed efficiency when the rations meet the nutritional requirements of the birds and the management on farm is of the highest standards. When these are in place, there will be no requirement for growth hormones, steroids or other artificial methods to increase production as has become normal practice with mainstream livestock production in many parts of the world.
In the first years, manufacture of the premixes will continue in the United States under the direct control of Blue Mountain and Daryl Holle. This will ensure quality control is maintained and consistent wherever used and consolidation of manufacture will bring benefits in economies of scale.
Focus must also be concentrated on establishing the correct crops – Maize, Lucerne and availability of quality Soya. The first step is bringing the birds to a good nutritional health status. Training of staff on quality ingredient identification, manufacture, feed management and farm management will form an important part of the program.
Once these aspects are in place and the true potential of the existing birds known, it will then be possible to start adjusting the current proven formulas experimenting with different ingredients if deemed necessary and advantageous to the Ostrich industry to do so. Blue Mountain will guide all of those changes and set up the experiments and tracking guidelines. In addition, it will then be possible to identify and challenge the inherited genetic potential as the birds will now be of the right health status.
The feed management rules recommended by Blue Mountain will form the basis for participating farms to develop their systems. Recording systems will be in place to record all feed in and all feed taken out of pens to establish feed usage, feed costs and feed conversion rates. There will be liaison between Blue Mountain, participating farms and the WOA Scientific committee to establish specific requirements for each farm. For example, there may be some trials to compare results on different feeding techniques such as feeding times and intervals.
There are many aspects of farm management that influence performance - such as
- Bird Handling
- Infrastructure
- Water Supply
- Disease Control and Biosecurity
- Bird Grouping
- Incubation
- Stress control
- Records
Participating farms will discuss all aspects on a farm-by-farm basis to determine the optimum for each farm and, in some instances perhaps operate comparative systems for experimental purposes.
Adequate records are an essential to any genetic improvement program. All participating farms will immediately put in place
- Identification systems for all birds and all pens
Systems will be required to record
- Egg Laying
- Fertility
- Hatchability
- Progeny growth rates
- Progeny feed conversion
- Health Records
- Incubator Records
At the end of Year 1:
From the database created it will be possible to identify all poor producing males and hens. Cull the poorest producing hens and low fertility males. The borderline performers may be suffering the effects of poor nutritional history and respond in the second year.
Identify the quality chicks from the Slaughter Birds and hold them back to become replacement Breeders. Work closely with other farms to exchange the better genetic birds to ensure a diversity of genetics in the breeder herd.
Only buy or exchange birds with a nutritional history classification. During the transitional phase, be wary of buying mature breeders.
At the end of Year 2:
Examine all records
Cull all birds still not performing that were Borderline at end of Year 1. Cull any of the new birds that performed badly except those purchased or joined the breeder herd during the season. Retain Borderline birds for one more season.
Continuously:
Examine Chick records by parentage. Understand how the Growth Traits come through the genetics in the offspring and retain quality chicks as future breeders. Build the database to handle the information.
Following the above steps each year will result in stock of a sufficient standard and quality to Challenge the Progeny with ever higher nutritional challenges. This is the stage when the real work can begin. The technology is already available, but it requires birds of the right health status and genetics to be able to implement it. Following the above program diligently, will ensure the birds have attained the right health status and the full genetic performance observed.
The Breeding Flock should be performing close to the targets in The New Ostrich Industry Tables and WOA Benchmark targets and achieving this as an average over the whole flock. The Progeny should be achieving the weight gains, feed conversions and meat yields at the average performance of The New Ostrich Industry targets as laid out in the New Ostrich Industry Tables and WOA Benchmark targets and not only the top 10%. The New Ostrich Industry tables are at the end of the Road Map to the New Ostrich Industry18.
Provided the above program has been followed Breeders should be well exceeding the targets as ‘average’ production as set out in the New Ostrich Industry Tables. Progeny should be well exceeding the targets of Growth Rates, Feed Conversion and Meat Yields.
Extremely Cost Effective Meat production in many instances halving the feed conversion of the 5 Year the New Ostrich Industry Targets.
There will be an ongoing program of research projects. The objective will be to publish meaningful results that will benefit directly all participating members and information of a non-proprietary nature published as a service to the world ostrich industry. It will be necessary to retain any information that may be considered of a proprietary nature that could impact on the future commerciality/competitiveness of all participating companies. All parties involved in the projects will respect information of a proprietary nature. Parameters will be drawn up that cover the practicalities of achieving accurate results without compromising the productivity of the birds or putting at risk the commercial activities of participating farms and all participating companies.
The following is a list of research projects, studies and comparisons that may be undertaken – many of which will come simply from keeping good records, analysing those records and publishing the results of the analysis.
No doubt there will be Ostrich Farms that will continue to produce ostrich in the traditional manner. These farms can provide some birds, eggs and chicks for some of the comparative analysis.
Some of the studies will support updates to the World Ostrich Association Industry Standards.
The first years will focus on establishing training and procedures to ensure correct implementation of all management systems, establishing crop production and making sure we have full confidence in the ingredient analyses supplied.
The development of WOMRAD and participating companies has the potential to break the current gridlock that has resulted in the lack of progress and profitability within the world ostrich industry. It also has the potential to advance the Ostrich industry at a rapid rate so is to be welcomed both from scientific and commercial viewpoints.