Al Gore received the Nobel Prize for his work on Global Warming awareness. The Kyoto agreement, which got a follow-up at the Climate Conference in Bali, initiated a lot of actions including research projects to better understand the cause and contributing factors to global warming. Carbon reduction became the magic word and everybody was told that they should take measures to reduce the production and release of CO2. The poultry industry is not exempted from this obligation.

Biosecurity is a word frequently used in the poultry industry worldwide but it seems that it is one of those technical terms which has not been well-received. Is biosecurity simply implementing visitor control and farm cleaning? In reality, a solid biosecurity program goes far beyond these.

Proper use of veterinary drugs is essential for optimising animal health status and improving animal productivity. Veterinary drugs have various uses such as disease prevention, therapeutic treatment of disease and for growth promotion.

Some EU ostrich producers have suggested agro-tourism as a source of income. I have seen two of these in action: both farms were less than 20 kilometres from a tourist centre by the sea-side and both had a bar with a small shop selling ostrich products.

Over the past years we have seen major changes in the structure of the poultry meat and egg business. Many small to medium scale companies used to supply local retailers and could make a decent price for their products. How different is the picture today.

Previously confinement was only for ostrich chicks (of all ages) at night to prevent them from getting too wet and developing hypothermia (Mitchell, 2001). However, the recent outbreaks of avian influenza have triggered a new reason for ostrich confinement, disease prevention (Huchzermeyer, 2006)

It is well-known that coccidiosis is a common and important disease of commercial poultry production all around the world.