[originaltext] Good morning, I am Ted Hunter. Today I am going to talk to yo

Good morning, I am Ted Hunter. Today I am going to talk to you about the possibility of ostrich farming. When you look at international restaurant menus and supermarkets they all tend to feature the same range of meats—beef, lamb, chicken, pork, that sort of thing. But people are always interested in something different and we’re now finding that farming can bring new types of meat to our tables. The kangaroo is one animal that’s now being farmed for its meat and eaten outside Australia, where it comes from. It looks and tastes rather like rabbit, though it’s slightly darker in color, but it is rather tough, so that’s a problem for some people. Crocodiles are also being farmed for their meat. This is rather like chicken, pale and tender, and it’s getting quite fashionable. Although it’s rather fatty, it makes a really tasty sandwich. Now a third type of meat becoming increasingly available, and the one that I think is by far the nicest of the three, is ostrich, which most people say has a similar taste and texture to beef. However, it’s much better for you than beef, as we’ll see later.
    Most people think of ostriches as wild animals, but in fact ostriches have been farmed in South Africa since around 1860. At first they were produced for their feathers. In Africa they were used for tribal ceremonial dresses and they were also exported to Europe and America where they were made into ladies’ fans and used for decorating hats. At the same time, some of the meat was used for biltong—the air-fried strips of meat popular in South Africa as a sort of fast food.
    However, recently there’s been more and more interest in the development of ostrich fanning in other parts of the world, and more people are recognizing its value as a food source. Ostrich meat is slightly higher in protein than beef—and much lower in fats and cholesterol. It tastes good too. A series of European taste tests found that 82% of people prefer ostrich to beef.
    Farmed ostriches don’t need African climates, and in fact ostrich farming is now becoming well established in other parts of the world. However, setting up an ostrich farm isn’t something to embark on lightly. Mature breeding birds are very expensive, so you need quite a bit of capital to begin with. Then the farmer needs special equipment such as incubator for the eggs. The young chicks are very dependent on human minders, and need a lot of attention from the people looking after them. In addition, ostriches can’t be intensively farmed—they need space and exercise.
20 What do we learn about crocodile meat?
21 What were ostrich feathers used for in Africa?
22 What do we learn about ostrich farming?