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Ostrich
Farm in Opol, Misamis Oriental
Roderick dela Cruz
Manila Times
February 21, 2004
Imagine
an egg, which weighs one and a half kilo and hatches
into a chick as large as a full-grown hen. Imagine its
long-necked mother, taller and heavier than most men,
with powerful legs running as fast as a car. Imagine
600 of these creatures huddling as a herd in a farm
nestled on the mountain. Fascinated yet scared, visitors
of the farm are relieved to know that ostriches don't
fly.
 Raised
as livestock animals weighing over 100 kilos each, around
600 ostriches - descendants of several pairs brought
from Australia and the United States - found a home
in the 10-hectare Philippine Ostrich and Crocodile Farms,
Inc., an upland ranch owned by the Filipino-Chinese
Limketkai family in Barangay Malanang. In the nearby
Cagayan de Oro City, the Limketkai family owns one of
the oldest and most familiar shopping malls.
The playful giant birds, unafraid of shorter humans,
stretch their necks above the seven-foot barbed-wired
fence to mingle with fascinated tourists. While they
delight tourists simply by showing their huge form and
round unsuspecting eyes, they are kept in the farm,
primarily not for tourism, but to supply low-fat meat
to fine diners in Metro Manila and other urban centers.
"The ostrich meat tastes good," assured Basilio
Jampet, the farm supervisor. This, a group of farm visitors
quickly believed when informed that a kilo of the premium
cut of Ostrich meat, which tastes more like beef than
chicken, is sold at P749. The visitors on that day were
participants in the recently concluded 7th Southern
Philippines Cluster Meeting of the Department of Agriculture
held in the nearby Cagayan de Oro City.
Jampet said the choice cut of Ostrich meat sells for
P439 a kilo while its ground meat costs P250 a kilo.
Eggs, and there are hundreds of them that hatch each
day, are sold between P250 and P500 apiece. A mother
ostrich, from as young as 18 months to as old as 20
years, can lay three eggs a week. An ostrich egg has
an incubation period of 42 days.
"Ostrich has a lifespan of 70 years, but their
productive stage is only 15 to 20 years," Jampet
said. "The slaughter age is eight to 10 months.
Those that get sick, we have good use for them. We raise
crocodiles."
Pioneering is not the only adjective that describes
the Northern Mindanao ostrich farm. It is highly profitable.
A mother ostrich could lay as many as 100 eggs each
year, with a maximum selling price of P500 apiece. This
means a mother ostrich can provide the farm a yearly
revenue of P50,000.
On a daily basis, a matured ostrich consumes only two
kilos of commercial feeds, the same food given to chicken,
ducks and other domesticated fowls. Mortality rate is
low among matured ostriches, which are sometimes infected
with diseases common among chicken, like the Newcastle
Disease. Among chicks below two weeks old, the mortality
rate is 20 percent. Asked whether ostriches are also
infected with bird flu, Jampet simply responded with
a smile.
"It was difficult to raise ostrich at the start.
But as we learned from our own experiences, we were
able to adopt the proper technology to increase the
ostrich population in the farm, which is the first and
largest in the Philippines," Jampet claimed.
A proof of the farm's remarkable gains is the fact that
it was almost non-existent less than a decade ago. Engineer
Lorenzo U. Limketkai and his son Heintje first brought
three pairs of ostriches from Australia only in July
1996. A month later, one of the breeders laid the first
ostrich egg in the Philippines, although it didn't hatch
due to poor facilities and mishandling. This was corrected
after the owners upgraded their facility and purchased
a computerized hatching and incubating equipment.
It was in February 1997 when the first ostrich egg was
successfully hatched in the Philippines. The owners
later purchased more breeders from Texas. In December
1997, the farm sold its first ostrich meat to those
who have urbane taste for low-calorie meat.
Today, Jampet noted that the Philippine Ostrich and
Crocodile Farms, Inc., is able to supply around 3,000
kilos of red meat from 30 ostriches to supermarkets
and deli shops mostly in Metro Manila each month. The
farm, which has only six workers, is famous for the
blast frozen, vacuumed-packed Big Bird Ostrich Meat,
named after the famous Sesame Street cartoon character.
The farm takes pride in what it called high nutrition
value of ostrich meat. Jampet noted that while tasting
like beef, ostrich meat has only 2.8 grams of fat for
every serving of 100 grams, much lower than chicken's
7 grams, beef's 9.3 grams and pork's 9.7 grams.
The farm recommends a serving size of 100 to 140 grams
of ostrich meat, which it said is enough to satisfy
the diner's appetite for a night because of the meat's
tenderness and high protein content.
Among the famous ostrich recipes are Asian ostrich kebobs,
Asian satay with sesame seeds, baked ostrich burgers,
chicken fried ostrich, ostrich and shrimp in garlic
sauce, ostrich appetizer crescents, ostrich chili, ostrich
cutlets, and ostrich cutlets diane.
There are also the delectable ostrich fillets with shallots
and brandy, ostrich fillets with wild mushroom, ostrich
hors d'oeuvres, ostrich schnitzel, ostrich steaks, ostrich
steak marinated with fresh black pepper, ostrich tenderloin
fillets, over roasted ostrich, peppered ostrich cutlets,
stir-fry ostrich and tomato and sweet and sour meatballs.
While the visitors were not able to sample the ostrich
meat during the tour, they were served with fascinated
views of live ostriches in their most animated poses.
Knowing that ostrich is the largest bird species in
the planet, visitors could not ask for more.
The Department of Tourism (DOT) listed a visit to Philippine
Ostrich and Crocodile Farms, Inc. as a part of the recommended
itinerary for visitors in Northern Mindanao, which groups
five provinces.
Apart from the ostrich tour, tourism in the region also
offers wide possibilities of excitement - from the white
powdered sand beach resorts and volcanoes of Camiguin
to idyllic pineapple and vegetable plantations in the
hinterlands of Bukidnon to the white water rapids of
Cagayan de Oro River to the urban face of Cagayan de
Oro City.
Cagayan de Oro City, for one, offers a glimpse of Mindanao
seething forth with economic activities. The city is
a favorite site of national or even international business
conferences and draws all kinds of people, from upland
farmers with their fruits and vegetable harvests to
sophisticated foreign tourists on the look out for a
unique travel experience.
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pages are for information purposes only. While EnjoyPhilippines.com
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more comprehensive information, visitors are encouraged
to visit the official website of the Department
of Tourism.
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