Curriculum · Module 15
Ratites and the Other Birds
The ostrich industry gives this course three things: a stocking-rate controversy that shows what happens when an official guideline has no demonstrated basis, three chick-mortality levers a farmer can act on with a scale and a notebook, and an export disease architecture worth copying. The module closes on the birds nobody publishes data about, and two market warnings.
- 69 Why Oudtshoorn — and the Little Karoo Stocking-Rate Controversy Settles why ostrich farming is locked to infrastructure and markets, and what happens when an official capacity guideline has no demonstrated basis. Explain why ostrich production stays where the abattoirs, tanneries and lucerne already areState both sides of the Little Karoo stocking-rate dispute without picking a side the evidence cannot supportApply the handling rules that keep you out of a laparotomy or an eye theatre 13 min
- 70 Ostrich Chicks, Breeding Density and Finishing Settles the industry's real bottleneck, the counter-intuitive direction SA reproduction research points, and what it costs to reach slaughter. Apply the three measurable chick-mortality levers using only a scale and a record bookState what SA breeding-density research actually found about birds per hectareBuild a finishing cost stack without mixing as-fed and dry-matter figures 13 min
- 71 Compartmentalisation: a Disease System Any Farmer Can Borrow Settles how SA's ostrich export compartment architecture works, and why it is the corpus's best worked disease-control example. Describe the VPN/04 compartment as a complete disease-control system rather than a certificateState the outbreak consequences and the compensation incentives that make early notification payIdentify the four elements of this architecture worth copying on a cattle, goat or poultry farm of any size 13 min
- 72 Ducks, Geese, Turkeys and Guinea Fowl Settles what can honestly be said about the minor poultry species on an SA smallholding, and what nobody has measured. Place each minor bird inside the Meat Safety Act unit system before you buy oneApply the one hard husbandry rule for turkeys on a mixed smallholdingSeparate practitioner knowledge from measured South African data when you plan 13 min
- 73 Quail and Emus: Two Market Warnings Settles the legal asymmetry that keeps SA quail out of the meat trade, and why any emu plan built on breeder-pair sales is 1996 repeating. Explain why quail abattoir economics collapse, and what SA quail ventures actually sellIdentify which quail species need a provincial permit before you keep oneApply the speculative-bubble test to any enterprise sold to you as breeder stock 13 min