Besides diet, the color of the fat also depends on the species.

Does anyone here get deer/elk, etc. from an area with no agriculture?  I'm curious about the amount and color of the fat, since I'm not sure if local deer are finding any real amount of grain or not.


I recently went shopping for the first time at a supermarket in big city.  I saw this horribly-fake-colored meat and stared slack-jawed.  This was followed by laughter when I saw the prices for meat that even wal-mart would be ashamed to carry.

From wikipedia ...
"Cursorial hunting is a hunting strategy practised by animals that are much slower over short distances than their quarry but have superior endurance over long distances.

The hunters will pursue at a relatively measured pace a targeted quarry which in response will make short but high energy sprints to escape. Eventually the relentless pursuit will exhaust the quarry allowing it to be brought down by its pursuers.

 
Wolves, hyenas, lungless spiders and humans are all animals that are well adapted to using this hunting strategy."

You've never seen a dog loping in the heat with his tongue hanging out?  If he's breathing, it still helps cool him.
Also, most of our potential prey can also sweat, it's just a matter of how much.  Persistence hunting usually seems to suggest heat, but you can also kill animals if you can get them to run hard enough to sweat in the cold.

Of course, as crappy a runner as I am, that may not get tested very soon.

I read about some hillbillies who caught some rare disease from eating squirrel brains.  It's not recent, but something to think about.

I've only had them cooked before, and I don't think I could handle it raw.

And 'effects' seems a little bit mystical to me.

Someone commented on  collecting  wild  bird eggs.  This is likely to be highly illegal as most birds are protected. Unless you live in a heavy agricultural area, pesticides aren't much of an issue.  I wouldn't want to eat city pigeons though, though with baiting, they would be easy to snare.
There used to be a lot of hunting, but costs and crowding have cut way back. Unless you can hunt on national forest land in your own state(USA at least) licenses and leases can make it a rich man's game. 

In the south bag limits on deer in some counties are amazing - nearly unlimited. Wild hogs are unprotected, but very wary.  Unless you are a very good hunter with good locations, it can be pretty hit and miss - mostly miss. Unless you are very experienced it can be very time consuming to scout out locations and actually find something.  In some areas(Texas) feeding is allowed, which guarantees success.  However, nearly all hunting is on leased land.  Its not unheard of to sneak a salt block to encourage showing up.

A group effort can be useful. join a drive.

In squirrel used to be common fare in the south. They could never be hunted to scarcity.  Ugh! - Rats with tails!    If you put out bird feed and don't make it too squirrel proof you can get almost unlimited squirrels. Just don't let them see others in the traps.

If costs are your concern, I would go Neolithic and raise your own. Rabbits are quiet and can be raise in the city.  Chickens are a bit noisy.  Doves are pretty quiet.  You could raise quail and feed them on earthworms and crickets to get away from a totally grain fed meat. I would look into aquaponics as a way to raise both fish and Veggies.

I don't think I will go this way though I could. I have deer moving through my backyard nearly every morning. Also rabbits and plenty of turtles, alligators,and fish in my pond and the nearby canal.  I'm too much of a Vegetarian!
I really don't enjoy ending another life even to eat, though I have hunted and fished at times.

John

It is getting harder to find places to hunt these days, but you can still do it a lot cheaper than buying meat outright.  Licenses aren't too bad, if you go for that type of stuff (I'm just trying to be realistic here), and to be affordable, you'll have to do something other than leases.  Homegrown veggies and some meat might be an option with older folks, things like that.


If you learn how to shoot well, and have even the foggiest clue about where things like deer are in you area, it's almost impossible to miss, provided you're not trophy hunting or something.

I was wondering if anyone else has an urge to do this.


It was posted in the exercise topic.

Humans hot, sweaty, natural-born runners

Monday’s cool-weather marathon wouldn’t bring down game
By Alvin Powell
Harvard News Office
Hairless, clawless, and largely weaponless, ancient humans used the unlikely combination of sweatiness and relentlessness to gain the upper hand over their faster, stronger, generally more dangerous animal prey, Harvard Anthropology Professor Daniel Lieberman said Thursday (April 12).

http://www.physorg.com/news95954919.html

I've been looking for this topic, but I was too scared to start it!

What I've had of wild game has been excellent, except a deer that got way too warm (that was a long time ago), and wild geese that were just too ...wild... tasting.  I've only ate a few things raw, but the best so far was antelope (the raw was an accident).  Deer is good, and I have all sorts of birds in the freezer to try. 

I haven't figured out what to do to get enough fat from deer though.  All the muscular fat (at least on my last one) was very sticky, almost impossible to eat, and when cooked, practically turned into super glue that could stick a spatula to a skillet.  The other fat was a giant slab over the hind part of the back.  Is that what we should be eating?  I wussed out on the marrow too, because of the smell.  I'm not sure what's normal.