Chairman World Ostrich Association
Chairman British Domesticated Ostrich Association
Stan Stewart, Fiona Benson and Daryl Holle,
Stan Stewart
Chairman World Ostrich Association
Chairman British Domesticated Ostrich Association
Stan Stewart has been farming ostrich in Devon, England since 1994. He is the chairman of the World Ostrich Association and British Domesticated Ostrich Association.
Stan was brought up on a small mixed farm in Northern Ireland but joined the Royal Air Force from school 'to see the world'. Starting his service life as a photographer he was then selected for aircrew duties and was eventually commissioned as an Air Electronics Officer. He saw service in many parts of the world and had tours flying on Canberra, Nimrod and Vulcan aircraft. The management experience gained during his service career was very much appreciated in his new career as an ostrich farmer.
From the beginning, Stan's aim was to rear and sell meat-producing birds, so to this end purchased five trios of Zimbabwe Blues as his first breeding stock. During this time he has gained a vast amount of experience in most aspects of the industry from rearing chicks to operating one of the few licensed slaughter units in the United Kingdom.
Stan has been active on both the domestic and international ostrich scene including exporting birds to countries as diverse as Moldavia and Jamaica. He is now retiring from active farming to concentrate on promoting and furthering the genetic development of the ostrich throughout the world.
Born: Northern Ireland July 1944
Educated: Northern Ireland at Rainey Endowed Grammar School, Magherafelt.
Work Experience: Grew up in mixed farming environment so familiar with stock and arable farming activities.
Fiona Benson
Founder Blue Mountain International
Director World Ostrich Association
Chairman World Ostrich Association Meat Standards Committee
Fiona grew up in the United Kingdom, the daughter of Rex Paterson, OBE, who had the largest dairy farming enterprise in the country for several decades. His operation extended to 10,000 acres and in excess of 3,000 cows in milk. Rex was a pioneer in modern Dairy Production practices. Fiona learnt never to be afraid to question the reasons for commonly accepted practices.
Husband Richard and Fiona became involved in the Ostrich Industry in 1994, living in Cape Town, South Africa. Their particular interest was Ostrich meat. Very quickly they learnt that very little was known about the meat and production levels on farm were exceedingly low. They purchased a smallholding and by the end of 1995 had their first ostriches on the farm to experience first hand where the problems lay. It became clear very quickly that there were a combination of factors – poor nutrition, outdated farming practices and the monopoly situation that had controlled the industry till the end of 1993 were the most significant.
At the end of 1996 a major incident resulted in the temporary ban on SA Ostrich Meat to Europe (the main market). At the First Ostrich Meat Congress, held in Oudtshoorn in February 1997, as result of the ban, a plea was made from those marketing Ostrich Meat - “please overcome the inconsistencies in colour, taste, aroma etc. in the meat currently being produced”. Through the Internet, Fiona became aware of Daryl Holle sending out the same message. Fiona recognised that Daryl Holle not only understood why the meat had these difficulties but he was also providing the solutions that addressed both the meat quality and the many production problems.
Fiona established Blue Mountain International (BMI) as a mechanism to enable Daryl Holle’s expertise to be available to producers outside the United States of America.
BMI established communications with producers in many parts of the world. These communications have placed Daryl and Fiona in a unique position in the industry as these contacts are seeking solutions and therefore share their difficulties. This communication combined with the intimate experience of the South African Ostrich industry has provided a unique understanding of the current situation in the Ostrich Industry today. In 2001 – 2003 Fiona was a member of the National Agricultural Marketing Council Ostrich Section 7 Committee. This committee was set up by the South African government to investigate the effects of deregulation on the Ostrich industry.
From 1998 Fiona imported the Blue Mountain premixes and worked with the BM formulations on her own ostriches until leaving South Africa at the end of 2002. During that time, operating her own farm, she was able to have hands on experience of ingredient sourcing, feed manufacture and rearing. She experienced the extraordinary untapped potential of Ostrich. She carried out a number of personal studies – most importantly:
Since returning to England Fiona has carried out a number of training courses extending from 5 days to 12 days. Most recently she has carried out a 6 day Business Planning workshop with the Canadian Ostrich industry that was sponsored by an Alberta government agricultural support program.
Born: United Kingdom, 1947
Employment
1968 – 1971 Resident in Canada Bookkeeper Medallion Cabinets
1971 – 1983 Self Employed UK, Wales 200 acres 150 cow Dairy Herd
1983 – 1987 Dorset House School, England School Bursar
1985 – 1992 Hill Samuel Financial Services Financial Advisor
1992 Moved to South Africa with husband Richard Benson
1992 – 1994 Chanarins, Cape Town. Administration Manager
1994 – 2003 Self Employed Zannone Trading cc, South Africa
2002 – Current: Specialising in Education, Consultancy and Business Planning in association with Stan Stewart and Daryl Holle.
Associations
Publications and Speaking Engagements
Daryl Holle
Founder Blue Mountain Feeds Inc. USA
President World Ostrich Association
Animal Nutrition is not anything new to Daryl Holle. He started, with his father as the tutor, developing balanced feed rations for his livestock projects when he was growing up on a northeast Kansas farm. These livestock projects included poultry, beef cattle, hogs, pheasants, and quail. He began intensifying his study of nutrition, at an early age, in order to help his brother increase production on a large poultry operation of 4,000 laying hens. After that, Daryl went to work for IBM as a technical trouble-shooter flying throughout the United States solving various technical problems for IBM. In 1979, Daryl returned to the farm life that he missed and bought a dairy farm of 400 milking cows. Using the computer skills Daryl learned at IBM, combined with his previous background in nutrition, he become very proficient at nutrition and feed formulation. He experimented with new ideas and concepts constantly. Other farmers noticed his work and began asking Daryl to do their nutritional consulting and a whole new business began. In 1991, Daryl sold the dairy farm because the nutritional consulting business had become almost full time.
Today, Daryl still does some dairy cattle nutritional work, but his new love is Ostrich nutrition.
He formulated Blue Mountain Ostrich Feeds in 1991 after purchasing Ostriches and was unable to find feed that he felt would work well enough to be a productive performance feed. "These birds respond more to good nutrition than any animal I have ever worked with and that makes it fun," says Daryl.
Blue Mountain Ostrich Feed began interstate distribution in 1992 after friends and neighbours began asking Daryl for his feed and the demand just kept growing. The Blue Mountain feed is currently being distributed in many U.S. States and in 1998 began international distribution overseas.
One of Daryl's main objectives is to educate farmers about feed--specifically the feedstuffs, minerals and vitamins and how they all must work together. Daryl has travelled extensively throughout the region speaking at local community meetings, seminars and workshops in an effort to help people become knowledgeable about the details of feed. He has also taken many field trips to help solve various bird nutritional problems that farmers are experiencing.
In addition to managing his company, Blue Mountain Feeds, Inc., Daryl keeps busy assisting others who have trademarked license agreements for processing and marketing Blue Mountain Ostrich Meats, Blue Mountain Ostrich Leather, Blue Mountain Ostrich Oil and Blue Mountain Feeds International. Daryl's accumulated experience in all these Ostrich product areas led him to design cost effective and productive concepts that will allow the Ostrich industry to be a viable industry. He also spent over a year full-time at a processing plant to fully understand the differences in Ostrich meat and fat products and what makes those differences. He then designed a plan to solve those differences and how to achieve a consistent quality product.
Born - Kansas, USA, November, 1944
1980 – Current: Animal Nutrition Consultant
1980 – 1992: Dairy Cattle Farm Management Consultant, serving thousands of dairy cattle in Boulder, Larimer and Weld Counties in Colorado.
1980 – 1992: Developed dairy cattle premixes for two major premix companies in the Midwest USA resulting in new production standards being set.
1980 - 1987: Owned/managed large dairy farm in Longmont, Colorado, milking 400 head at full capacity. I constantly managed nearly 1,000 head of cattle at this same facility.
1987 – 1991: Owned/managed medium-size dairy in Loveland, Colorado, milking 100 head at full capacity.
1990: Purchased first Ostrich
1992: Founded Blue Mountain Feeds, Inc. Specialising in:
1994: Member of National Ratite “ad hoc” committee for Ratite Nutrition research.
1996: Developed a Grade system for “quality meat” and a Classification system for “meat yield” for Ostrich, now adopted by the World Ostrich Association.
1997 – 2000: Founder and President of Premium Red Meats, a Kansas meat-processing corporation doing business in Oakley, Kansas. This company specializes in raising, processing and packaging naturally-fed ostrich, emu, pork, beef and buffalo meat.
1999 – 2000: General Manager of Blue Mountain Premium Meats in Oakley, Kansas, a USDA-certified meat processing plant specializing in ostrich, emu, beef, buffalo, and pork.
1999: Granted Expert Witness Status by the United States Courts in Ratite Bird Management, Bird Behaviour Responses, Ratite Nutrition and Ratite Farm Management
2001: Developed live bird Grading Standards to identify quality breeder birds in Ostrich.
Associations:
1991-1997:
Member of American Ostrich Association
Member of Rocky Mountain Ostrich Association
Member of Kansas Ostrich Association
Member of Oklahoma Ostrich Association
Member of New Mexico Ostrich Association
Member of Southwest Ostrich Breeders Association
Member of Central States Ostrich Association
Member of Greater Missouri Ostrich Association
2001: Founded Blue Mountain International Ostrich Alliance
2002: Founding Director and President WOA – World Ostrich Association
Member of Meat Standards Committee, World Ostrich Association
Member of Bird Standards Committee, World Ostrich Association
Chairman of National Ratite Nutrition Committee NRPC (National Ratite Producers Cooperative, US)
Chairman of National Ratite Feed Program Committee NRPC
2003: Chairman of Development Committee NRPC.
A committee established to carry out a full Industry Analysis and develop the Business Plan for the NRPC.
Publications:
Authored and published the following books, which are sold worldwide:
1996: Introduced Ratite Nutritional Bulletins now achieved in excess of 100.
Own, developed and manage Ostrich Industry’s largest information web site.
Written many articles for many magazine publications throughout the world and published in a number of different languages
1995: Ratite Feeds & Feeding,
1998: Ratite Feeds & Feeding - Appendix 1
1999: Ratite Feeds & Feeding - Appendix 2
2000: Ostrich Feeds & Feeding
2001: Understanding Production Ostrich Nutrition
2001: Ostrich Diagnostic Centre
Ostrich Feeds & Feeding
Co-authored: Soyabean Meal, an Important Component in Ostrich Diets – Feed Mix Volume 8 No. 2
Lipid (Fat) Utilization in Ostrich - Feed Mix Volume 8 No. 3
2002: Developed Ratite Management Software called DataSync
1992 – Current: Numerous speaking engagements to private, commercial and association groups on all subjects relating to Ratite Production
Summary:
Daryl Holle’s interest in Livestock Production nutrition arose from the need to make a living from own production livestock. He has brought to Ratite Production the methods of production that other main stream Livestock Industries have developed over the past decades to enable Ratite producers to compete on equal terms.