by MARY BAXTER & DON STONEMAN
This past summer, Pigeon King International, a Waterloo-based pigeon breeding business that was the subject of a special investigative report in Better Farming’s December 2007 issue, closed its doors abruptly, casting hundreds of farmers on both sides of the border into financial turmoil. So how do you avoid the pitfalls so often associated with new agricultural endeavours or exotic products?
Though the craze to raise flightless birds is long over, a handful of ostrich breeders, such as Don and Deborah Simmonds of Rockwood, east of Guelph, remain in business on a large scale, serving well-heeled customers who want to put a new kind of meat on their table.