1Today I'd like to introduce Ted Hunter,
2who used to rear sheep and poultry
3but who is here to tell us about a rather unusual type of livestock
4that he's been concentrating on in the last few years.
5Ted Hunter is a member of the Domesticated Ostrich Farming Association,
6and is here to tell us about the possibilities of breeding and rearing these birds in this country.
7Thank you, Paula.
8When you look at international restaurant menus and supermarkets,
9they all tend to feature the same range of meats -
10beef, lamb, chicken, pork, that sort of thing.
11But people are always interested in something different
12and we're now finding that farming can bring new types of meat to our tables.
13The kangaroo is one animal that's now being farmed for its meat
14and eaten outside Australia, where it comes from.
15It looks and tastes rather like rabbit,
16though it's slightly darker in colour,
17but it is rather tough, so that's a problem for some people.
18Crocodiles are also being farmed for their meat.
19This is rather like chicken,
20pale and tender, and it's getting quite fashionable.
21Some people also find it's rather fatty, but
22I think it makes a really tasty sandwich.
23Now a third type of meat becoming increasingly available,
24and the one that I think is by far the nicest of the three, is ostrich,
25which most people say has a similar taste and texture to beef.
26However, it's much better for you than beef, as we'll see later.
27Most people think of ostriches as wild animals,
28but in fact ostriches have been farmed in South Africa since around 1860.
29At first they were produced for their feathers.
30In Africa they were used for tribal ceremonial dress
31and they were also exported to Europe and America
32where they were made into ladies' fans and used for decorating hats.
33Later, feather fans and big, decorated hats went out of fashion
34but ostriches were still bred,
35this time for their hide.
36This can be treated to produce about half a square metre of leather -
37very delicate, fine stuff of very good quality.
38At the same time, some of the meat was used for biltong -
39the air-dried strips of meat popular in South Africa as a sort of fast food.
40However, recently there's been more and more interest in the development of ostrich farming in other parts of the world,
41and more people are recognising its value as a food source.
42Ostrich meat is slightly higher in protein than beef -
43and much lower in fats and cholesterol.
44It tastes good too.
45A series of European taste tests
46found that 82% of people prefer ostrich to beef.
47And one ostrich produces a lot of meat -
48from around 30 to 50 kg mostly from the hindquarters of the bird.
49Farmed ostriches don't need African climates,
50and in fact ostrich farming is now becoming well established in other parts of the world.
51However, setting up an ostrich farm isn't something to embark on lightly.
52Mature breeding birds are very expensive -
53even a fertilised ostrich egg isn't cheap
54so you need quite a bit of capital to begin with.
55Then the farmer needs special equipment such as incubators for the eggs.
56The young chicks are very dependent on human minders,
57and need a lot of attention from the people looking after them.
58In addition, ostriches can't be intensively farmed -
59they need space and exercise.
60But in spite of this, they make good farming sense.
61A cow produces only one calf a year
62whereas a female ostrich can lay an egg every other day.
63And because the farmers can use incubators and...
64hatched chicks are nourished well and protected from danger,
65the failure rate on farms is very low indeed
66and almost all the fertilised eggs will hatch out into chicks
67which will in turn reach maturity.
68This is very different from the situation in the wild,
69where the vast majority of chicks will die or be killed
70before they grow up into mature ostriches.
71So it's possible, once the initial outlay has been made,
72for the farmer to be looking at very good profit margins indeed.
73Ostrich farming is still in its early days outside Africa
74but we hope that ostrich meat will be freely available soon
75and before long will be as cheap as beef.