Over time, Laubscher Coetzee has established himself as a manufacturer of top-quality ostrich feathers. He spoke to Glenneis Kriel about his manufacturing technique.
Picture: Laubscher Coetzee
Even if ostrich plumage by no means once more generated the riches it did right through the 1865 to 1870 and the 1900 to 1914 booms, the manufacturing of premium-quality ostrich feathers is permitting Laubscher Coetzee, who farms at Kandrift Boerdery close to Oudtshoorn within the Klein Karoo, to climate droughts and marketplace fluctuations.
“Our ostrich feathers fetch a ten% to 50% top class and are all the time in call for even right through instances of oversupply. The superb high quality of our genetics has additionally sparked a excellent call for for our day-old chicks,” says Coetzee.
He attributes the nice high quality of his genetics to “years and years” of cautious variety. “When meat and leather-based costs have been sky-high, some farmers imported genetics and targeted at the manufacturing of enormous ostriches with a variety of meat and leather-based, however hardly ever any feathers. We, alternatively, endured to concentrate on generating a balanced hen with excellent construct, meat and feather high quality.”
Breeding goals
As a substitute of deciding on birds to incorporate in his breeding flock when they’re six months previous, Coetzee waits till the birds have their first mature feathers round 365 days of age. The highest 25% of those birds are then decided on, and the remainder are bought to the slaughter marketplace.
Variety is in response to the bodily look of the birds and the standard in their feathers. Coetzee explains that birds must be wholesome, with none defects, and strongly constructed, in a different way they may well be prone to accidents and now not are living very lengthy.
A powerful construct is particularly necessary for women folk right through the mating season, making an allowance for that men can weigh about 140kg when they’re mature.
He provides that breeders achieve their manufacturing height from 5 to fifteen years of age, at which degree they produce more or less 60 to 65 eggs in keeping with season.
Breeders on his farm, nonetheless, are stored till they’re 20 to twenty-five years previous, and now and again even longer, due to the superb high quality in their feathers.
When it comes to feather high quality, Coetzee in particular evaluates the period, breadth, oiliness, density, shaft energy and curl of the feathers.
As an example, white feathers are roughly 60cm lengthy and 30cm broad, in line with the business usual, while the ones at Kandrift Boerdery moderate above 70cm lengthy and 40cm broad.
Moreover, the feathers must be as compact as conceivable and feature a excessive oil or fatty texture as this influences the lustre or shine of the feather, and the shaft must be robust to forestall breakage. Feathers are amassed when the breeder birds begin to moult, which occurs each 8 months.
“There’s a false impression that feathers are plucked and that that is painful to the hen. The truth is that the feathers are gently dislodged right through the moulting season, with out inflicting any ache to the hen. The method of accumulating the feathers may be a lot more herbal than shearing animals, because the ostriches are stored in an upright place the entire time,” says Coetzee.
Control
However excellent genetics won’t ever achieve its complete attainable until the ostriches are controlled correctly and their nutritional wishes are met.
As a part of Coetzee’s diversification technique, the farm boosts a hatchery that produces between 7 000 and eight 000 day-old chicks from early August till January each and every yr.
Coetzee’s son, Jacques, takes about 1 000 of those chicks to lift for the farm. The birds are taken in 4 batches, starting from 200 to 300 in keeping with workforce.
The primary batch is taken as early as conceivable when chicks turn out to be to be had, in most cases from August, whilst the second one batch is taken every week later to create some other uniform workforce.
The 3rd batch is taken 3 to 4 weeks later, with the remaining batch taken every week after that. The chicks are principally hand-reared, so are tame, used to other folks, and simple to regulate by the point they’re mature.
Elevating ostrich chicks is notoriously tricky, because the birds are delicate to temperature fluctuations when they’re younger and simply package deal on height of each other when they’re chilly or anxious, which may end up in mortalities.
The trick, in line with Coetzee, is to have anyone like Jacques, who’s in point of fact dedicated to the task: “That is such the most important process that it can’t be given to only somebody. You want anyone with a vested hobby within the survival of the chicks.”
Breeding pairs
During the last seven years, Coetzee downscaled his breeding flock to 600 birds on account of the drought. Because the drought used to be damaged this yr, he’s within the technique of rebuilding his flock.
Right through the breeding season, working from mid-April to mid-December, the breeding birds are divided into smaller teams, consisting of 2 men for each 3 women folk. Each and every workforce, relying at the collection of animals within the workforce, is then despatched to considered one of 23 breeding camps.
The farm to start with best had small camps, measuring 2ha to 3ha each and every, however Coetzee constructed better camps of 80ha to 100ha in dimension as manufacturing expanded.
About 10 birds may well be stored within the small camps and as much as 80 within the huge camps.
Each and every workforce is shipped to the similar camp each and every yr as a result of Coetzee feels that this is helping to scale back tension because the birds are accustomed to the surroundings and the opposite birds.
“It in most cases takes a couple of weeks for the entire birds to get into the breeding cycle. Having a well-known setting is helping to boost up the time it takes for the birds to conform.”
The camps are scouted for eggs each 2d day in iciness and on a daily basis when it will get hotter from spring.
The women and men are separated into large camps after the breeding season.
Coetzee explains that the men have a tendency to chase the women folk if they aren’t separated from the women folk, and the women folk will proceed to put eggs if they aren’t moved to some other camp.
“You want to transport the women folk to a brand new setting to forestall the laying cycle. In the event that they proceed to put eggs, they could run right into a calcium deficiency, even supposing their diets are enriched with calcium and different crucial minerals and nutrients. A calcium deficiency may have a damaging have an effect on on their bone construction, and in impact their lifespan,” Coetzee explains.
The camps additionally desire a relaxation, which is helping to damage illness and parasite cycles.
Feed
Ostrich chicks are given a business chick ration for the primary 10 weeks in their lives to make sure they’re off to the most efficient conceivable get started. From then on, they, just like the slaughter birds and breeders, obtain preformulated rations consisting of substances together with lucerne, grain akin to wheat, triticale or maize, and business concentrates.
To cut back feeding prices, the lucerne is produced on-farm on 170ha below irrigation. The drought had taken an enormous toll on lucerne manufacturing, so Coetzee needed to re-establish many camps over the last two years.
When setting up new camps, the lucerne is under-sown with a iciness quilt crop akin to wheat or triticale, which is helping to scale back the quantity of maize that needs to be purchased in.
Coetzee issues out that barley does now not paintings in addition to wheat or triticale because it has a tendency to stool and in impact smothers the small, rising lucerne vegetation.
He vegetation SA Same old lucerne as a result of this selection is hardy, chilly and warmth tolerant, and drought and graze resistant.
“SA Same old will also be grazed flat onto the soil with out harm to the plant, as it has a subterranean crown 4cm to 6cm below the bottom.”
Coetzee has additionally discovered that SA Same old, when provided with water, produces nearly as a lot hay as imported types.A planting of SA Same old can remaining from 5 to ten years, relying on whether or not it had gained enough rainfall or water.
The lucerne is in most cases harvested for the primary time in September each and every yr, after which each 4 to 5 weeks relying on climatic prerequisites.
“We will rise up to 3 lucerne harvests right through a dry yr. We permit the lucerne to visit seed against the top of the season, from December, after which promote the seed as an additional farm source of revenue. This isn’t as a result of we wish to, however as a result of our water dries up. The seed is bought for 3 to 4 instances the price of lucerne hay,” says Coetzee.
Rations
3 other rations are blended at the farm, with lucerne forming the foundation of each and every. The chicks, from 11 weeks till about 4 months of age, obtain a ration this is excessive in concentrates and maize, and slaughter rations from 5 months till they go away the farm at 365 days of age.
The breeder birds additionally obtain a slaughter ration when they aren’t breeding to forestall them from hanging on an excessive amount of weight.
Coetzee explains that the manufacturing of breeders will likely be negatively affected if they’re obese in the beginning of the manufacturing season.The slaughter ration has a decrease maize content material than the chick and breeder rations, and does now not include any concentrates.
Coetzee had the foresight to construct his personal pelleting plant at the farm round 1996. The rations are pelleted earlier than being given to the birds.
This is helping to forestall feed substances and powder concentrates from getting blown away through the wind.
Coetzee says that many farmers make the error of taking quick cuts right through droughts to scale back feed prices.
The simpler resolution, alternatively, can be to downscale the collection of animals in order that the remainder ones can nonetheless be fed in line with their dietary call for.
“Animals that aren’t fed correctly are extra vulnerable to sicknesses, particularly in iciness, when their power call for is upper. Right through the drought, feed ran out from July to August on this area, forcing us to shop for in additional lucerne. When we now have enough rain, alternatively, we’re ready to retailer up for those tricky months.”
Coetzee admits that he has a somewhat conservative option to farming.
“Many ostrich farmers were given harm over the last few years because of the drought, the have an effect on of the COVID-19 pandemic on luxurious gross sales, and the have an effect on of avian influenza on meat gross sales. I’ve discovered it higher to be diverse, and concentrate on the manufacturing of top of the range somewhat than chasing volumes. This fashion, you recognize there’ll all the time be a requirement on your product,” he says.
Electronic mail Laubscher Coetzee at [email protected].