Web Site a Landing Spot for Ostrich, Emu News

As far as Mike and Linda Kapala are concerned, the Internet is for the birds. Ostriches and emus to be exact.

The Oak View couple, owners of the Masterpiece Ostriches breeding operation, have set up a World Wide Web site to promote the international ostrich and emu industry. While the Kapalas wait for their nine ostriches to produce chicks for breeding and for sale later this year, they are earning an income by selling ad space on The Ostrich-Emu InfoNet.

The site, set up in September, provides advertising for breeders, incubators, veterinarians and others involved in the bird business. It also offers general information on the emu-ostrich field. Since mid-December, Mike Kapala said, more than 11,000 Internet users have visited the bird site.

Kapala charges $15 per picture on the web page and $20 per month to display the ad.

“My wife and I have been involved with ostriches for a couple of years. When we saw what was possible on the Internet, we thought it might be a good idea to create a web site,” Kapala said. “It’s a place where we put information for people trying to get into the industry. It’s for newcomers who have thought about the business or heard about it.”

The Kapalas heard about it in the early 1990s, when the market was at its peak.

“People were getting astronomical prices for birds. A friend was making $1,500 per egg, and the hen was laying like crazy. She had one breeding pair and she was making $150,000 a year just selling the eggs to people,” Mike Kapala said. “We saw it as a viable agribusiness for the future.”

But the bottom dropped out of the market two years later.

Bruce McLoughlin, northeast representative of the 4,000-member American Ostrich Assn. based in Fort Worth, Texas, said slaughter birds sell for $500 to $700 each and breeding birds can go for $500 to $10,000 per bird. At the market’s peak, a pair of breeders sold for an average of $30,000 to $40,000, he said.

Ostrich meat, McLoughlin said, averages $3 to $5 per pound for ground meat and $15 to $17 for prime cuts. The average bird, he said, has 80 to 100 pounds of meat on it.

Kapala said the foreign market offers potential for the sale of birds and meat. By the end of the year, he expects to serve as an intermediary between American ranchers looking to sell their ostriches and potential customers in China.

“We were approached by agents for some people in China and we’re looking forward to exporting,” Kapala said. “Linda has done some brokering where she has found birds for people. We have the knowledge of what it takes to sell birds to China, the mechanics of getting birds through quarantine, the crating, the shipment rules and regulations.”

Burt and Lynn Smith, owners of the Rancho de Casablanca ostrich farm in the upper Ojai, have been online with Kapala for about five months. They have received numerous inquiries in that time, they said.

“It’s a central clearinghouse for all ostrich business,” Burt Smith said. “I haven’t seen any monetary benefit yet, but it’s just a matter of time. People are asking, ‘How big a pen do I need? What do I feed them? What does the meat sell for?’ I’ve gotten responses from all over the world.”

Henry Smith, a partner in the family-run New Horizon Ostriches ranch, also in Ojai, came along for the ride on the information superhighway when Kapala established his Internet site last summer.

Smith, no relation to Burt and Lynn Smith, said his 6-year-old business has received little response from the Web so far, but he holds out hope. For him, the international customer base provided by the Internet is the main attraction, he said, with ostrich meat being a potentially lucrative business overseas.

“Other countries have been eating ostrich for years. Asian and European markets are big, they eat it in England and I understand there’s a German demand,” said Smith, who has 30 ostriches for slaughter and breeding purposes. “People in the United States are awfully finicky about trying new things, especially as far as food is concerned. Until people in this country get educated on the health benefits of ostrich, we have to go to other countries.”

McLoughlin said that almost all of the ostrich meat produced in the United States--about 2 million pounds annually--is sold domestically. He said the ostrich industry is not yet dependent on the Internet, but it is likely to increasingly benefit from an international presence in years to come.

“It’s a worldwide industry,” he said. “It had its start in South Africa commercially 150 years ago, spread to the United States in the mid-1980s and made its way to Canada and Mexico.

“I think [Kapala] is doing a good thing. Everybody is looking for a cost-effective way to advertise. There are some Web pages from Australia, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some from Israel, too.”

McLoughlin is creating a Web site for the ostrich association itself, and he expects it to be online in a month or two.

Similarly, the Dallas-based American Emu Assn. has had a Web site for about a month, promoting emu-related businesses and providing the latest information on industry technology and research.

“This is an emerging agribusiness that is very much positioning itself for the next five to 10 years,” said Pierce Allman, executive director of the 5,500-member organization. “It would be folly to position a business for the future and not use the technological tools at hand.”

The Internet address is https://www.ostrich-emu.com for Ostrich-Emu InfoNet.