roedeerred
Well-Known Member
Is this real or has !st april come round again.
Roe farming
- Thread starter nell
- Start date
nell
Well-Known Member
Hope its not true ,but this came from a game dealer picking up this week, he recons its already happening!!!!
I regularly drive past a pen with two roe in it, they seem pretty stress free, there is a forestry type fence around a small patch of broadleaves in tubes , but only an open topped five bar gate that they could easily leap.
I regularly drive past a pen with two roe in it, they seem pretty stress free, there is a forestry type fence around a small patch of broadleaves in tubes , but only an open topped five bar gate that they could easily leap.
liongeorge
Well-Known Member
If it is a fenced area with a five bar gate it is not a deer enclosure. It is just a place that the deer like to hang out.
The FC used to have an enclosure with just roe in it in the New Forest. I visited it 20+ years ago. This was I believe for scientific and study purposes. I would be interested if it still exists if anyone knows.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
I have always wondered if muntjac could be farmed in a fenced enclosure like boar in the UK as in here Germany it is nonexistant and as a different species it could perhaps generate some interest I would have thought but not for meat or horn sales. Sorry to go off thread.
Martin
Martin
the only roe I have seen happily in a fenced area were those that had been imprinted as a kid and were kept with a small flock of sheep/goats.
I´m not sure how proper wild roe would like a fence, but they definately freak out when they find themselves trapped somewhere that is fenced in!
I´m not sure how proper wild roe would like a fence, but they definately freak out when they find themselves trapped somewhere that is fenced in!
Dunrobin Sporting
Member
As they are not a herding deer, but rather aggressively territorial (both male and female) I would think it would be near impossible to "farm or park" manage them. I am sue that I have read various articles on efforts in the older established English parks to work with roe with limited success.
R
R
I believe Roger Lambert did some research on the reproductive systems of Roe -
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Embryonic_Diapause_in_European_Roe_Deer.html?id=k-rWmQEACAAJ
I think this was done on captive Roe - but from memory reading this a long time back I do recall there were considerable problems keeping them alive in an enclosure for any length of time.
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Embryonic_Diapause_in_European_Roe_Deer.html?id=k-rWmQEACAAJ
I think this was done on captive Roe - but from memory reading this a long time back I do recall there were considerable problems keeping them alive in an enclosure for any length of time.
Tartan_Terrier
Well-Known Member
They've got munties at my local zoo, so I can't imagine that farming them would be a problem.
Bavarianbrit
Well-Known Member
But not much meat to sell, although it is famous for being the best venison quality vs quantity so that was my thought.
Martin
Martin
nell
Well-Known Member
The very ones...
nell
Well-Known Member
Been around deer long enough to know what im looking at..
8x57
Distinguished Member
Just a few questions.
1) We import red from New Zealand yet doesn't most roe and fallow shot in the U.K. that goes through game dealers go to Europe because there's so little market for it here?
2) Where would any breeding stock for roe come from for roe farms if this story were true?
1) We import red from New Zealand yet doesn't most roe and fallow shot in the U.K. that goes through game dealers go to Europe because there's so little market for it here?
2) Where would any breeding stock for roe come from for roe farms if this story were true?
If it's an open topped five-bar gate they are as likely to go under or through it as leap over the top. I remember watching a couple of roe in a field in Dumfries & Galloway and the colleague I was with told me to watch them as they approached the gate. Expecting them to leap over the top I was staggered when they limbo'd underneath the gate.
I've seen muntjac leap a 6' stock fence before, and this from a standing start. The twin wires on top had caught a roe buck before, but the muntjac cleared it with ease.
nell
Well-Known Member
Sometimes wonder why I bother, I only asked if anybody had heard of Roe farming, now im getting lectured on a roe deers ability to jump a gate...
Sharkey, I never said anything about this ending hunting, but could certainly have an affect on the price of WILD shot venison...
Apparently the farmed roe are not being slaughtered, but sold as breeding stock, so the story goes....
Sharkey, I never said anything about this ending hunting, but could certainly have an affect on the price of WILD shot venison...
Apparently the farmed roe are not being slaughtered, but sold as breeding stock, so the story goes....
timbrayford
Well-Known Member
It will be interesting to see the costings on this, how much is a captive Roe worth?
atb Tim
atb Tim
The greatest threat to wild shot venison is always going to be the health & hygiene issues & bureaucracy, not from competition from farming. If an industry does develop around farmed or "park" roe you can be sure they will be promoting the product & the increased demand would push the price up, not the inverse. Generally speaking people are prepared to spend a premium to eat wild shot or wild caught game & fish, I see this everywhere, even the tourists from Asia down here ask if something is farmed or wild now before they even discuss the price.
If folk are keeping red deer & fallow in "park" conditions & there is a demand then it is only natural that there would be a demand for all the other available species. The most expensive deer a person can buy down here is also the smallest, because they are hard to acquire & keep. Hog deer are about $3000 a pair at the farm gate (producers can & usually do insist that you take them in pairs 1:1 instead of 2:8 etc). I can buy good red hinds or young red deer stags for less than $250 each ATM at the farm gate. Fallow for as little as $50 each although they have twice the venison of a hog deer. IMO good live roe deer should fetch much more than good red deer until the supply meets the demand.
Sharkey
Logic would suggest that, if they were remotely amenable to captivity, they would have been farmed a very long time ago. More broadly, I cannot think of a single solitary-living species that has been successfully domesticated for agricultural production
Everything about their life history and behaviour indicates that they would make a very poor candidate for farming. It will be interesting to watch how this turns out, but I suspect there will be only one outcome.
However, it is just possible that the definition of 'farming' is being stretched here. It might just be possible to actively manage an enclosed population in a way that approximates a captive breeding programme: if the enclosures were large (on the order of a few acres), and only contained a few deer (at the same density as they would ocurr naturally), then it might be possible to stock the enclosure with selected animals and manage which animals survived and bred by selective culling.
It would have to be a labour of love/obsession rather than something intended to generate real profit.
Everything about their life history and behaviour indicates that they would make a very poor candidate for farming. It will be interesting to watch how this turns out, but I suspect there will be only one outcome.
However, it is just possible that the definition of 'farming' is being stretched here. It might just be possible to actively manage an enclosed population in a way that approximates a captive breeding programme: if the enclosures were large (on the order of a few acres), and only contained a few deer (at the same density as they would ocurr naturally), then it might be possible to stock the enclosure with selected animals and manage which animals survived and bred by selective culling.
It would have to be a labour of love/obsession rather than something intended to generate real profit.
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