China is a big meat-eating country, mainly pork, poultry, beef and mutton, but we can't help but wonder why venison is often 60 80 yuan catties, and the unit price is far higher than the four major meats
Can venison be eaten?
The answer is undoubtedly yes, and the history of Chinese eating venison can even be traced back to primitive societies, and later Li Shizhen also specially recorded venison in the "Compendium of Materia Medica".
"Compendium of Materia Medica": "The deer is beneficial to people, or boiled, or steamed, or preserved, and the wine and food are good".Of course, there are many classics in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there are also a large number of records about venison, which will not be enumerated here.
The unit price of venison is generally about 60 80 yuan catty, which is also a catty of meat, compared with pork, poultry, beef, mutton, it is obvious that the difference can be seen, in this case, why is venison not popular?Or why don't farmers raise deer more aggressively?The main reasons are as follows:
We humans have domesticated pigs, cows, and sheep for at least 8000 9000 years, so these animals see humans, there is no desire to attack at all, in their inheritance genes, human beings are to provide them with food and drink and shelter them from natural predators, so pigs, cattle and sheep will not attack humans for no reason.
To this day, deer have not been completely domesticated by humans, they are still highly vigilant against humans deep down, and deer, as herbivores, are sensitive and timid by nature, once they see a living person, they will enter a state of high alert, and if a living person is to feed, the deer will even choose not to eat.
And the wild nature of the deer is far more than pigs, cattle and sheep, among which pigs and cattle can even stay indoors for a lifetime, the sheep are slightly special, but as long as there is a sheepdog, the sheep will be honest, and the deer usually like to jump and play, the same clan will fight very seriously, sometimes, the deer will attack the farmers.
To tell the truth, in 2005, an old man in our village, who was idle, took a job to help the boss feed the deer, but once he was knocked down by a deer and broke his bone, and died not long after returning home.
Don't look at the harmless cute appearance of deer, people and animals, the wildness in the bones is still very strong, and I also advise all elders to keep a certain distance when going to some parks where deer are raised openly.
Deer are afraid of heat and cold, so generally deer are mostly raised in the north, and the deer are lively and active, wild and large, and need a certain amount of breeding space, and cannot be kept in a small indoor like pigs, so the rent of the farm is not low.
Moreover, deer at different times and with different functions must be raised separately, plus the costs of water supply, grassland construction, cleaning, etc., deer species have not yet been introduced, and the initial investment is estimated to exceed 100,000.
After the introduction of deer, due to the low gastrointestinal digestion ability of the deer, if the feed is not fed well, it is easy to get sick, for example, farmers need to ammoniate corn stalks, straw, wheat straw, etc., and feed them are concentrate feed, including 60% corn, 20% bran, 20% cake, plus an appropriate amount of flour and salt.
If the feed tastes bad, the deer still choose not to eat, they are far more picky about rations than pigs, cattle, sheep and poultry, hundreds of deer, just the cost of feed every day, is a large expense.
The main value of deer is deer antler, followed by deer blood, etc., deer antler velvet is calculated by the growth stage, which can be divided into virgin velvet, two-bar velvet, tri-forked velvet, four flat heads, regenerated velvet, and can also be subdivided into wax tablets, white powder tablets, yellow powder tablets, red powder tablets, sand tablets, blood tablets, and bone tablets.
Precious high-quality deer antler velvet, the unit price can exceed 50 yuan grams, the general unit price of deer antler velvet is also 7 10 yuan grams, take a sika deer 15 years of life as an example, in addition to 3 4 years without picking antlers, 5 catties of antler velvet can be picked every year, 12 years is 60 catties, even if each gram is sold for 6 yuan, a deer antler velvet can be sold for 180,000 yuan, not counting the value of deer blood.
In June 2020, the first team of Haichang Xishan Farm in Haining City, weighing 2,448 grams, sold 31,824 yuan at a unit price of 13 yuan.If a sika deer is calculated according to 120 catties of fine meat, even if the unit price is as high as 80 yuan, the venison of a male deer is only about 9600 yuan.
In short, deer antler velvet is a sustainable yield, while venison is a stick trade, in exchange for whether you are a farmer and you are willing to sell antler or venison.
Normally, deer can only give birth to one cub per year, which is ideal, and if the fawn does not grow up and dies, the sale will be even more costly.
In fact, a thousand ways and ten thousand, we have to talk about the quality of the venison itself, venison has less connective tissue, low fat content, and with age, the fleshy fiber will become more coarse and hard, generally 2 or 3 years old to be slaughtered, paradoxically, deer antler velvet will not reflect the benefits.
According to the memories of netizens who have eaten venison, venison tastes very woody and has a strong taste, even if it is processed several times, the smell still can't be dispersed.
The reason why the unit price of venison can be sold for 80 yuan is entirely because of the lack of venison in the market, and there are few that are selling it, so it is so expensive, not that it shows how delicious the venison is.
From the above point of view, the difficulty and cost of raising deer are relatively high, coupled with the unwelcome market, resulting in venison is far less popular than beef and mutton.