The University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences Lahore has distributed cheques worth Rs 1.5 million as subsidy among ostrich farmers under its project titled "Developing of Ostrich Farming in Punjab. Minister for Livestock & Dairy Development Punjab Asif Saeed Manais gave away the cheques to 18 successful ostrich farmers.
The project is a joint venture of UVAS and Livestock & Dairy Development Department Punjab and is aimed at establishing ostrich farming as a cottage industry in Pakistan. The project was launched in October, 2016 with a total budget of Rs 69.94 million with major portion of around Rs 60 million to be distributed among ostrich farmers as subsidy.
The UVAS has so far registered 3,000 ostrich chicks at 61 ostrich farms in 18 districts of Punjab. The project team visits each registered ostrich farm regularly and guides the farmers about feed, medicine and management related issues.
One model ostrich farm is also being established at UVAS Ravi Campus Pattoki, where ostrich-related facilities will be available for ostrich farmers and on-farm trainings for ostrich keepers could also be conducted. The UVAS also arranged a project inception workshop at Lahore, two training workshops and six informal meetings with different ostrich farmers in northern, central and southern Punjab. UVAS nutritionists have formulated ostrich feed for the first time in Pakistan which is now available to ostrich farmers. Six MSc and four MPhil research students are conducting research on nutrition, medicine and management related issues of ostrich at the Department of Wildlife & Ecology of UVAS.
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