I’m playing an Old West-themed video game, and of the gameplay mechanics involves running a business wherein I turn in animal products (whole carcasses are best) to a confederate who then turns them into profit. Yes, it’s all fiction, I get it.
What I’m trying to figure out is if there could have been any kernel of truth to this system as a money-making venture in that time and place. The business applications I’m thinking of include:
a) Furs, obviously certain furs (such as rabbit, beaver, etc.) would be more valuable than those of, say, elk.
b) Meats, almost certainly salted (or whatever) then wrapped for preservation, or perhaps sent to a canning factory. However, I don’t see a market for meats of wild animals when plenty of domesticated ones were also available at the time.
c) Glue and similar uses from hooves and antlers and such.
d) Leather, although again, plenty of domestic animals to provide leather.
Depends on where you are located. In a western town like say Deadwood wild game would be available and cheaper than cattle or pigs. You shot and field dress an elk and bring it into town and sell it to the butcher. Only cost your labor and the cost of a bullit. Cattle are raised and require time to produce.
People also sold wild game to the railroad. They had a steady demand of crews that needed feed. Many Buffalo were killed to build the railroads, although much was wasted.
Hides are probably the biggest value. For small fur-bearers they are worth much, much more than the meat. That meat would go to feed working dogs, probably, or chickens, or even pigs.
For larger animals they still have value probably well above that of the available meat. Different animal’s hides have very different qualities and textures and so are good for different things. Deer tends to be very pliable, buffalo is super tough. Their winter fur is also much better quality than most domestic animals. A winter hide from an elk will be warm, fairly soft, quite pliable, and big enough that you don’t need many of them to make clothes of bed coverings, etc.
And as said above, none of this requires care or daily maintenance.
Animal guts are used to make bows, not sure if there was a big market for it in 1875. Similarly, guts are used for stringing tennis rackets. Gelatin maybe another candidate.
Ha! Two of the animals involved in this fictitious economy are coyotes and wild peccaries. Or, dogs eating dogs and pigs eating pigs. Seems kind of cruel, at least in a philosophical sense. I doubt the animals cared one way or the other.
Before modern levels of nation wide food distribution from industrial meat production supported by industrial feed production meat was a lot pricier and wild animal meat more competitive. Especially in a less developed region.
Proctor & Gamble was founded by candle and soap makers in Cincinnati, which was the largest pork producing city in the country (world?) in the early and mid 1800s, until being surpassed by Chicago around the Civil War which cut off much of Cincinnati’s river trade to the south. Rendered animal byproducts were critical ingredients in soap and candle making, plus cosmetics, waxes, lard, and gelatin.
Aurora noted that because the equipment dates to the 1880’s, modern lubricants can’t be used. They lubricate the cables with pork fat; other parts are lubricated with bull and sheep fat.
Hey how about poison? Was our knowledge of chemistry at this stage in the game such that, say, snake venom or gila monster venom, could be distilled into rat poison or something? (I ask because my “business partner” will gladly accept snake and gila monster parts.)
