I was reading Mangetout’s thread about a pigeon he almost ate (But...But... They're made of *MEAT* - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board) and it brought to mind a question that I’ve wondered about off and on, but never really searched for an answer to.
Why don’t we farm “game” animals like deer, rabbits, wood pigeons, wild turkeys, etc. on a large scale like chickens, cattle, or pigs? Is it because they’re difficult to raise in captivity? Is it because the populations are large enough in the wild anyway, as long as we’re careful with hunting seasons, so what’s the point? Is it because the market for the meat is small? (I can’t imagine that would be the case with venison, once people got hold of it regularly. Lots of people think venison = yum.) Deer, for example, seem to need quite a bit of room per animal, compared to herding animals like cattle. People do raise rabbits, but they’re not very popular (in America) for meat, probably 'cause they’re widdle and fwuffy. Wild turkeys, well, we’ve already got turkeys, but the flavor is different.
I saw an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and he mentioned something about game being quite popular (seasonally) in France. Is it actual game that hunters bring in? If so, is there a specific appeal to hunted game that free-range farming couldn’t offer on a large scale? (I’ve had game many times, and I understand that it’s necessarily going to be a little different from farmed meat, but I’m no gourmet.) Is it cultural, and I’m just ignorant of animals people raise throughout the world?
(Thanks in advance!)
There is a farm here in Ontario that raises red deer for venison and that industry is growing. There are rabbit farms (for meat) too.
I think deer have strong seasonal metabolism stuff happening (related to how long the days are), so it’s possible that the meat is “in season” only during a certain time of the year, regardless of whether they’re farmed or not.
One of the Asian stores I frequent sells rabbits, pheasant, quail, goat and venison so I assume somebody’s ranching it. I get fresh killed bunnies from a friend of mine who raises them as well. Buffalo is now ranched, Fred Meyer gets it in stock a few times a year, and if you’ve never had it you should because it’s delish.
Considering the reactions I get from people when they find out I eat all these different critters I assume the reason we don’t see too much of it around is that people in general have some silly ass prejudices against non-standard food animals. It’s a pity, really, because many game animals are lower fat and much tastier than the critters we commonly eat in this country.
I have seen elk farms and buffalo farms in northern BC and Alberta.
As the other posters have said, they do some places in the country…or Canada.
Ostrich is remarkably good and good for you as a meat goes. IIRC there are a few Ostrich farms in the US now.
You know…the other red meat.
See, this is what I figured, that I just didn’t know about it. Thanks guys.
I saw ground farmed elk yesterday at the store. If it hadn’t been four times the price of the ground turkey I was looking for I’d have bought some.
I’ve seen deer farms here and in New Zealand. There are also emu and ostrich farms in Australia.
Now that you mention it, I’d heard of emu, ostrich, and buffalo farms, but they weren’t on my “game” radar. I was thinking of animals that are still hunted regularly in the wild being farmed, and the pros/cons and ROI of hunting those animals vs. farming them. (I was under the impression that buffalo and ostrich didn’t have high enough numbers in the wild to be hunted. At least as far as buffalo are concerned, I thought people only did that on ranches or preserves, and then usually just for sport. Wrong there?) Maybe I was just defining “game” too narrowly based on my own experiences.
Anyone know if there are any game animals that we do have trouble farming because of the requirements or quirks of the creatures?
Deer tend to spook easily and run into fences, injuring themselves, IIRC.
There are more than a few rabbit farms in Kansas. I’ve been to one. Not my taste in meat, really.
I found that I liked deer only as long as it was a novelty. When I had occasion to eat it once or twice a week, I quickly grew sick of the gamey flavor in a way that I’d never get sick of beef or chicken even if I ate those things daily. That’s my guess as to why deer isn’t mass-produced.
Also, a deer farmer told me that it’s hard to keep them because they’ll jump a 10-foot fence, sometimes with success and sometimes with serious injuries.
Emu and ostrich farms here too – also llama and alpaca (though I’m not sure these count as game animals precisely).
People farm way more stuff than you may imagine. I used to work at corporate headquarters for a major Boston area supermarket chain. Sales reps came in all the time to try and sell exotic farmed meat. Everyone was invited to attend the tasting and rate them.
We tried:
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Alligator (I knew that was farmed in my native Louisiana and it is very good. We carried it and it had decent sales).
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Rattlesnake - (Farmed and we carried it for publicity purposes but the sales volume was low. It is tasty).
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Buffalo (American Bison). Almost mainstream.
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Beefalo - A hybrid between bison and cows. It is good and always supposed to be the next big thing but never has become that. It still sells however.
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Ostrich - these are farmed all over the place. They are healthy and tasty but still a marginal product in terms of sales.
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Crawfish - farmed on a large scale.
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Trout - ditto
There are deer farms all over the place. There is a venison farm right down the street from my in-laws farm in New Hampshire. It is irritating because it is a very rural area with small roads and there is a good chance the car you are following with out of state plates is going to slam om its brakes suddenly as you pass it.
The part that you can see consists of a high chain-link fence and you usually can’t even see the deer. I find it hard to believe that any Americans haven’t seen lots of deer before. They are pests even in big city suburbs. They roam around on the front lawn McMansions in this neighborhood. It is like being fascinated by a squirrel farm.
On the other hand, farm-raised elk and/or deer seem to be more susceptible to chronic wasting disease. IIRC, Colorado used to have elk ranches but they shut them down because of CWD.
I suppose I could try to dig up cites if necessary.
Gamebirds (grouse, pheasant etc) birds are farmed, for the estates that do it in England and Scotland it’s big business.
They just don’t intensively farm them, as they do broiler chickens. The reasons are the people who eat game birds actually want them to taste of something (compare free-range chicken to intensively raised chicken and you’ll notice a significant difference in flavour), and shooting them on the estates brings in a large amount of cash (people pay a lot to be a gun on a shoot).
In Africa there are “farms” where big game are raised for the sole purpose of hunting them. Hunters, primarily from the US and Asia, pay vast sums to shoot a lion or other big game animal. Ironically, if it weren’t for these farms a lot of the game would have become extinct because the natural habitat has been so degraded and poaching is still a problem. The thing that annoys me about it is that the hunters generally prefer to sit in hides or shoot from land rovers at really rather close range (less than 50yds) rather than stalk their prey, and they employ local guides and trackers to actually retrieve their kills. I don’t consider that sport, but, if the choice is between no hunting and no animals or hunting and the survival of these animals, I’ll choose the latter.