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