Comparing energy state and environmental impacts in ostrich and chicken production systems

Energy state and environmental impacts of production systems are of main criteria to reach sustainability. In the present research, ostrich was compared with a broiler production system based on the criteria. The required data was gathered in Boukan Township, West Azerbaijan, Iran, by a questioner method. The total input energy in ostrich and broiler systems was calculated as 150,419.81 MJ (1 ton of bird year)^-1 and 344,579.58 MJ (1 ton of bird year)^-1, respectively. Diesel fuel and feed (41.39% and 36.95%, respectively) in broiler and electricity (45.87%) in the ostrich production system had the highest energy shares. Eleven impact categories were estimated by SimaPro software in the studied systems. Except for human toxicity, fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity, and terrestrial ecotoxicity, the amounts of other environmental impacts in the ostrich production system were lower than those of the poultry production system. The amount of global warming indicator for the production of 1 ton of broiler chicken was 17,400 kg CO₂ eq year^-1 that was equal to 4350 kg CO₂ eq period^-1. This value was obtained as 1.68 × 10⁴ kg CO₂ eq year^-1 for the production of ostrich meat. In both production systems, feed was the main factor responsible for almost all studied environmental impacts.