Ostriches are mainly herbivores, which do not compete with humans for food and have strong reproductive performance. Domesticated African ostriches have a sexual maturity age of 18 months to 30 months, a life span of 70 years, a breeding period of 40 -50 years, and 80-120 eggs per year. Strong adaptability, strong disease resistance, except for young ostriches, the normal growth and reproduction of ostriches will not be affected when the environmental temperature is as high as 45℃ and lower than -30℃.
Adult ostriches only need to supply 1.5-2 kg of concentrate every day, and the rest are forage, mainly alfalfa, grass, leaves, various leafy vegetables and various fruits. Young birds under 3 months old can account for 40% of green roughage, and grass powder can account for 50% of concentrate. The content of protein, vitamins and minerals in feed should be appropriately increased during laying period, so as to promote estrus and lay eggs and ensure the quality of eggs.
Ostrich meat and eggs are high in nutritional value, rich in protein and low in fat and cholesterol. Feather is a valuable ornament, and ostrich oil and cornea also have high economic value.
Ostriches are large birds. If combined feeding is adopted, each African ostrich needs an indoor area of 5m× 5m, a sports ground of 50m×12m and a birdhouse door (3m) wide and high. It is best to use cement to assist the ground. Supplementing sand and bedding grass in winter and breeding and brooding period. And pay attention to lighting, have good insulation measures, and have an operation corridor in the house. The trough and drinking utensils should be deep and firm to prevent foreign bodies on the ground and ostriches from swallowing or stabbing.
What ostrich farming needs to remember is that to ensure the survival rate of young birds, we must do a good job before hatching. The nutrition of female birds is very important. Obviously, healthy birds lay healthy eggs, and healthy eggs hatch healthy birds. Feed should be recognized as an excellent product, and it should be reasonably arranged according to individual differences, poultry's physical condition and weight. The basic method is to feed three to five kilograms a day in the breeding season, and reduce the amount according to the bird's body shape in other seasons. Overfeeding is harmful, and fat birds generally don't give birth.
Hatching methods have a great influence on the survival rate of young birds. There are six ways:
1. Eggs should be cooled at 55 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit for one week, and the humidity in the egg storage room is about 70% to 75%. The problem during cooling is the best time to adjust weightlessness.
2. During the incubation process, turn the eggs at least six times.
3. Poor ventilation and ventilation will lead to late embryo death and early chick death. It is very important that the eggs in the incubator can get enough oxygen, and it is necessary to ensure good ventilation.
4. The incubation temperature should be controlled between 96.0 and 97.3 degrees Fahrenheit. If the temperature is too high, the chicks will break their shells prematurely, leading to death. If it is too low, the incubation time will be long, which will cause the embryo to die and the body to be weak when the chicken hatches.
5. The weight loss rate of hatching humidity is about 65438 02% to 65438 05% of the normal value. If the humidity is too high, the egg will not lose weight, so the shell breaking rate and survival rate will be reduced, but if the humidity is too low, the weight loss rate will be too large.
6. Good cleaning and hygiene measures should be taken. Wear gloves when picking up eggs. Only hatchers can enter the incubation area, and visitors and customers are forbidden to enter. Staff need to put on special boots and put them at the entrance to remind people to change clothes when entering.
You may need to do some work in the hatching and egg breaking area, including handling, storage, hatching and shell breaking. It is very important to transfer chicks to other areas after breaking their shells. After the chicken hatched, it began to be threatened by bacteria. Let them dry, it will take about 8- 12 hours. And then put into a brooding room or a feeding room.
It is best to brood and feed together. Separating the brooding room from the feeding room has several disadvantages. From the management point of view, both places need insulation and care; In addition, the change is too great for chickens to adapt. So from this point of view, the brooding room and the feeding room should be combined into one.
When designing the brooding room, batch method should be considered, which is very beneficial and can avoid many problems of intensive feeding in other poultry breeding.
This feeding method is called batch feeding method because each batch of chicks hatches in the same week and is raised in the brooding room until 12 weeks later. There should be 13 brooding rooms, so that one room can be cleaned and disinfected every week, and then a newly hatched chicken can come in.
The advantages of batch feeding are:
1, chicks are less disturbed and raised in a safe and comfortable shed, and will not be disturbed by the increase or decrease of chicks;
2. Birds come in and out as a whole. When a group of chicks are more than 4 months old, they all move out of this group of fences and are willing to rest. Let the sun shine on the empty pen at this time. Bacteria left by chickens are naturally destroyed.
3. Understand the overall epidemic situation. Newborn chicks have almost no immune ability, and their immune function is gradually improved in the process of growth, which shows that the germs carried by larger birds may not infect birds of the same age, but may pose a threat to smaller birds.
Due to batch isolation, the diseases of one batch of birds will not be transmitted to another.
Other considerations:
1, thermal insulation: infrared heater is the best thermal insulation method. If you choose to heat the floor, make sure that the main tip of the floor is not too hot (75 degrees Fahrenheit is appropriate), and leave one section of the floor unheated, so that the chickens can choose the best place for themselves. Heating the floor is not only used to prevent the chicken from losing heat.
The circulation of fresh air plays an important role in the survival of young birds, even in winter.
3. Ground At present, there are many kinds of ground for ostrich pens, from cement to sand. What is suitable for one breeder may not be suitable for another. If the site can't be kept clean, there will be problems in feeding alfalfa and paddling, and the ground may also be hardened.
4. One of the most common and serious problems in nestling management is the interference of tourists. Because people are interested in ostrich industry, ostrich breeders want to show people their achievements, and management measures cannot be effectively implemented. Tourists often come from other bird farms, so it is easy to bring in other germs. Don't let tourists pass through breeding grounds, especially hatcheries, egg-breaking rooms and brooding rooms, because these places are the most susceptible to infection. Let visitors watch in specific places and observation stations, set observation points and provide videos and slides to show brooding rooms and healthy ostriches.
Several common diseases of ostrich and their control;
1, respiratory mycosis
Mainly manifested as inflammation and nodular lesions of trachea, lung, qi and conjunctiva. The pathogens are Aspergillus and other fungi.
Symptoms and pathological conditions: when young ostriches are sick, they have poor appetite or appetite, poor spirit and weak reaction to the outside world. With the progress of the disease, obvious respiratory symptoms gradually appear, such as breathing with the mouth open, shortness of breath, progressive emaciation, disheveled feathers, frequent closing of eyes makes people sleepy, and soon they fall into general failure and die. The adult state is not obvious at the time of onset. According to the epidemiological symptoms and anatomical lesions, the disease can be initially diagnosed, and the final diagnosis requires pathogen isolation, culture and microscopic examination, and fungal hyphae can be seen to make the final diagnosis.
Prevention and control: the spread of the disease is mainly caused by contaminated feed and padding and inhalation of mold spores. Therefore, it is an important preventive measure not to use moldy feed and padding. Long-term use of antibiotics is also one of the causes of this disease. When antibiotics are needed to treat other infections, the rules of medication should be strictly implemented and the time of medication should be controlled. Eggs, incubators and hatcheries should be strictly cleaned and disinfected to prevent mold from entering the eggs through eggshells.
2, dystocia
Due to the narrow reproductive tract, primiparous women often have dystocia, especially in the case of obesity or extremely large eggs.
Female ostrich dystocia usually has three treatments:
A. Use oxytocin drugs, such as oxytocin, to promote uterine contraction of female birds and lay eggs automatically. B. Put your hand into the vagina, break the hard-to-beat eggs with an iron chisel, and slowly take out the broken eggs. C, take the eggs by surgery, cut the reproductive tract by surgery, and take out the eggs that are difficult to take.
3. Cloacal prolapse
Many reasons can lead to ostrich cloacal prolapse. Diarrhea makes chicks prone to colon cloacal prolapse; Feed rich in protein and energy may cause rectal prolapse. In the process of sex identification, rough operation of anus can also cause temporary swelling and cloacal prolapse. Fallopian tube prolapse is a form of cloacal prolapse, which can be seen in adult female birds and may be the result of uterine or fallopian tube infection. Egg failure of high-yield female birds may also cause tubal prolapse; When eggs with rough eggshells pass through fallopian tubes, it will not only cause dystocia, but also stimulate fallopian tube prolapse. In adult male ostriches, penile prolapse can sometimes be seen. The reason is unclear, which may be soft tissue injury and muscle contraction nerve injury during feeding. Or when checking the cloaca of male ostrich, forcibly everting outwards to damage the penis.