Like if Arbys wanted enough venison to have their sandwich available all year? Or even just in the fall season as a limited time item? If they committed to buying a large, long term supply of it could the supply chain materialize? Is it even legal for ordinary people to raise deer on a farm or ranch?
There is farmed venison. There’s even an association of venison farmers:
http://www.nadefa.org/docs/north-american-farm-raised-venison.pdf
I believe that’s the source of almost all the venison served at restaurants, (and lots of high-end restaurants have venison on the menu) as meat that’s sold at restaurants needs to be USDA certified, and I don’t think you can get USDA certification for wild-killed game animals.
Could it be a regular fast food item? I think deer are more skittish and less social than cattle or hogs, so it’s more expensive to farm them – you can’t crowd a lot of them into a small pen. (Reindeer are more social. But reindeer meat tastes like dry tough gamy venison. I doubt there’s much market for it outside of being a Scandinavian novelty food.) So probably not affordable as fast food, but it could be on the menu at a “family” restaurant, I imagine, if there was much demand for it.
Part of what makes animals worth farming for meat is how long it takes for them to reproduce.
For example: Rabbits can start breeding when they are around seven months old. Once they are mature enough to mate they can deliver a new litter of baby rabbits once every three months. There might be ten baby rabbits in a litter so you can see that their population can explode like crazy if nurtured so the baby rabbits all survive long enough to mate.
This is an animal you could use to feed a lot of people.
You might think elephants are so large that they would produce enough meat to feed a lot of people. That part is true. However elephants don’t start breeding until they are around ten years old and the pregnancy is two years. And they will only give birth to one baby at a time.
They are just not practical for breeding for food.
Deer are closer to elephants than rabbits where comes to feeding the hungry masses.
You will find most animals that are practical to breed for food are the ones we are familiar with like chickens, pigs, and cows.
What Puzzlegal says is spot on correct. Deer are much harder to manage than the more social animals we now use as protein sources. They don’t domesticate well and they fight amongst themselves too much.
I saw quite a number of deer in farms down in New Zealand - especially, IIRC the south island. I recall reading they were imported, to keep hunters amused in the days before the danger of alien species was truly understood. But - I haven’t heard of any directed breeding programs intended to select for traits - docile, meat production, etc.
But they are closer to cattle than to either. The age of first breeding and number of offspring of white-tailed deer isn’t much different from cattle.
It’s not the reproductive rate that produces an obstacle to farming deer. As has been mentioned, it’s the fact that they are more difficult to keep that’s the problem.
Whoa, whoa, whoa? Arby’s has a vension sandwich? Starting October 21? Is it every store?
We have bred cattle for centuries to be docile and take to a pen. Deer can be farmed it just takes a lot of work. Cattle are also (mostly) docile, at least compared to wild counterparts. Many deer are more difficult (and moose are terrifying).
Right, but rabbit isn’t exactly a common table item in many western cultures. Which is a shame, as it’s good, and venison is better.
There aren’t any native deer species, so they were probably red deer imported from Europe, which really took off in NZ. Slightly smaller than the American elk/wapiti (and quite a bit smaller than moose).
Goats, that is all I 'm gonna say.
Baaah!
Goat meat is increasing in popularity here in the UK - to me, it’s like a milder-tasting, leaner version of lamb (I expected goat to be more strongly flavoured than lamb).
I guess it’s a bit like venison, but then, venison seems to be quite a variable product - I’ve had some that was really tender and mild - almost like a good cut of beef - and I’ve had it other times when it was incredibly dark and gamey.
Goat is good. Usually called birria in Mexican places, though sometimes it’s sheep (probably lamb) or beef, you’d have to ask.
I don’t know if this is true, but I’ve been told venison flavor varies quite a bit depending on what the deer have been eating. (E.g. that if the deer are agricultural pests and eat mostly corn, soybeans etc. then the flesh will taste much milder and sweeter than deer from more forested areas).
I suspect you could make reindeer meat palatable. I wonder if there’s increased warming of the Arctic and Antarctic regions (although I really hope we can come to our senses and do something to stop it) if we might see reindeer farming become more of a thing in places that are currently too cold for it.
As far as I know, New Zealand has no native mammals (certainly nothing carnivorous) so the deer probably really took well to the lack of predators.
Interestingly I’ve actually seen venison at restaurants quite a bit in England, never in the US (although I’ve lived in parts of the US where venison is quite commonly eaten, it’s just that you have to hunt it yourself or get it from a friend who does). Maybe deer farming is more of a thing in England than in America.
I’ve had deer that ate “bad” plants (sagebrush mostly) and it was still delicious. I’m thinking the “common knowledge” is a good part BS.
You can find it in some fancy restaurants in the US, but especially in brewpub type places. Elk (Cervus canadensis) is a little more common on menus.
Ostrich is a good “venison” that can be (and is) farmed on commercial scales - it’s available at most any supermarket here. Tastewise it falls somewhere between beef fillet and true venison. Ostriches actually have the best feed-to-weight ratio of any farmed land animal, so from an efficiency standpoint, farming them would make commercial sense for any food chain.
Are there any ostrich-beef blended patties? I wonder if they might taste like bison. If mass-produced ostrich turns out to be cheap then I’d think a blend might be a fast food-able item considering fast food restaurants are already experienced in blending meat.
So the punch line seems to be that venison *can *be farmed on a mass scale. It isn’t right now, but it could be. But even on a mass scale it wouldn’t be close to matching the prices per butchered pound for the common meats. Because of the relative intractability of the animals with their current lack of domesticity.
Given that fast food is all about low cost with just a smidgen of room for promotional gimmickry, that says that even if venison became mass market fare the last place you’re gonna find it is in fast food.
Trickledown economics applies: first the specialty restaurants, then the snooty ones, then mainstream, then Applebees, then finally Arby’s.
Why would you want to blend the ostrich with beef? 100% ostrich burgers are good. They do taste a bit like bison - it’s a lean red meat taste, even if it comes from a bird.
deer are comparatively small and scrawny, too. one animal might get you 50 lbs of usable meat, while a steer can get you 400-600 lbs.
I’ve eaten reindeer meat while I was in Finland and didn’t find it objectionable at all. It wasn’t considered exotic like a game animal, so I suspect it was farm raised. I think the main problem with raising whitetail deer for food is the fact that they can jump over a 12 foot fence.
My local Tesco sells venison steaks as well as ostrich; sold as low cholesterol and low fat. There is a deer farm on one of our favourite walks too.
Deer are harder to farm; they need higher fences because they can jump and they have to be killed in the field (by shooting) as transporting them live stresses them out and ruins the meat.