Travis Johnson wrote:I do not castrate my ram-lambs, but it has nothing to do with taste, but marketing. I winter-lamb just so I can hit the high-price market in the fall when the Muslims have a holiday that require INTACT ram-lambs. They pay a premium for that.
Typically whole sale markets dock the farmer about $10 per ram-lamb if they are INTACT. That is a flat fee, but since intact Ram-Lambs put on weight faster, (not to mention their nads weigh some too), I can actually make more money by the conversion of grass to meat and still take the deduction at the wholesale market. This actually extends to tails on sheep too, but I still dock tails despite the 1/2 pound I lose, only because I dislike dealing with flystrike.
Taste is a very subjective matter. I once knew a customer that insisted upon Corridale lamb because he thought it was the best tasting. I have cooridales so I did not tell him the difference, but it had more to do with the "customer is always right" than any convincing theory he gave me. So most of "taste" is really just marketing. Take Black Angus beef for instance. Again it is just marketing, in blind taste tests 7 years in a row the Jersey Dairy Cow Breed came in first place, and the lowly Holstein came in second for just as many years, yet most people turn up their nose at the thought of buying jersey beef...such is the power of the Black Angus Beef marketing campaingn. BUT...and this is a huge but...a Jersey Bull is downright mean. On teh dairy farm we would let intact Holstein Bull Calfs be sold to homesteaders, but any Jersey Bulls had to be casturated. They are so mean that we just did not want someone to be hurt by them.
Joshua Fryc wrote: Examples of animals that are not typically raised for food anymore are bulls, boars, rams, cockerels etc.
1. How does Testosterone/meat from animals impact the body (specifically male animals)?
I know a common issue with male animals aside from issues of raising them would be taste. We recently butchered a grass fed bull (to be honest it was more swamp raised) who was 2 years old. Most of the bull was processed into ground meat, but we decided to have some various cuts, mostly steaks saved and they taste amazing. I wouldn't be able to tell you it was a bull. Oblivious this is one sample, but an additional question I would have would be do others have experience with this at all? Do male animals really taste that bad?
Hester Winterbourne wrote:Raising bull beef as a commercial proposition is not uncommon here in the UK. I am not involved, just aware.
Joshua Fryc wrote: I have read as well that bulls put on meat significantly faster and more efficiently than steers and cows.
Joshua Fryc wrote:Can you go to the store in the UK and buy meat packaged as bull meat? I have read as well that bulls put on meat significantly faster and more efficiently than steers and cows, maybe that has something to do with it.
Hester Winterbourne wrote:
Joshua Fryc wrote:Can you go to the store in the UK and buy meat packaged as bull meat? I have read as well that bulls put on meat significantly faster and more efficiently than steers and cows, maybe that has something to do with it.
I've never seen it marketed as such, no. Some farmers do it because it is faster, like you say. I think they are required to put up warning signs once the bulls get over a certain age (you don't have to put up a sign just if you have a bull running with cows) and not have them in a field with a public footpath. But they are mostly barn-raised anyway.
Leora Laforge wrote:
Joshua Fryc wrote: I have read as well that bulls put on meat significantly faster and more efficiently than steers and cows.
Yes they do, a bull should gain weight 10% faster than a steer. A heifer will gain weight 10% slower than a steer. A bull carcass will have a higher proportion of lean meat compared to a steer, the heifer will put on fat earlier.
Feedlots feed synthetic hormones to steers to make them gain weight more like a bull does. I.e faster gains, more lean meat.
Joshua Fryc wrote:
So it would be reasonable to think that bulls that are not pumped with synthetic hormones would be a better dietary option if one was looking for food with natural hormones as heifers and steers would not produce hormones as much as a bull would?
Leora Laforge wrote:
Joshua Fryc wrote:
I wouldn't go looking to consume male animals to increase testosterone levels.
Why not ?
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