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Rodents, Lagomorphs, and Taste


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However, 6 months to a year later, he visited the area and the nutria ate up everything. All that remained were the metal nutria guards built to USFS specs that were suppose to protect the saplings.

Slightly off topic but I have to ask: I know we feed a lot of nutria to the alligators but have you tried eating a nutria? I'm curious as to how they taste.

Stosh, I hope someone in the city was ashamed of their inaction.

 

Edit: Nevermind, here's a link: http://boingboing.net/2013/04/29/meat-from-a-20-kb-swamp-rat-t.html

Time to head over to New Iberia to try some.....

Edited by ya lazima vumbi
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Slightly off topic but I have to ask: I know we feed a lot of nutria to the alligators but have you tried eating a nutria? I'm curious as to how they taste.

Stosh, I hope someone in the city was ashamed of their inaction.

 

Edit: Nevermind, here's a link: http://boingboing.net/2013/04/29/meat-from-a-20-kb-swamp-rat-t.html

Time to head over to New Iberia to try some.....

 

Good topic on nutria.  Not being from Louisiana I didn't know.  At first I was kinda drawn back by the thought of eating "Swamp Rat", but then began to think that rabbits and squirrels are also rodents that get eaten on a regular basis.  I have rabbit in my freezer and dine on it all the time.  If it's decent tasting, I'd be feasting on it all the time.  There probably isn't a hunting season on an invasive species like that so it's a pretty cheap source of protein.  We have hunting seasons on rabbit here, but when they're in my garden munching on my produce, all bets are off.

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I haven't had nutria, so I can't comment on that. I do know that when one parish (what they call counties in LA) wanted to charge a nominal fee for an unrestricted nutria hunting license, I wanna say $5.00 and that basically covered the card and processing done by the sheriff, the animal rights folks went ape.The nutria were causing major damage to the parish's drainage system.

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So don't have a license law.  If one doesn't make laws against shooting the rodents, then there's nothing illegal about it.  I don't need a small game license to shoot rabbits in my garden area.  I do need a license to hunt them on the rest of my property because of the laws.  I don't need a license to trap mice, rats, gophers, ground squirrels, etc.  Heck, I have a major mole, ground squirrel problem and I hooked them up to the pickup truck and my problem went away.  No law against that.

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At one time a while back, rabbits, hares, pikas, etc. were considered to be part of Rodentia. But that has changed. Now they are in the order Lagomorpha. The most obvious differences are that rodents have two incisors while lagomorphs have four. Also, rodents only have enamel on the front side of their incisors while lagomorphs have enamel on both sides. It's not a big deal but I thought someone might want to know. Last fall, when serving some rabbit stew, someone objected, saying that they "don't eat rodents" to which I replied, "No problem" and handed them the bowl.

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If rats tasted as good as rabbits, we'd be eating a lot more of them.  Rabbits are the most efficient food to meat ratio of any domestic animal.  It has been known for many decades that the protein meat of the Martian colonies is going to be rabbits.

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  • 4 months later...

I haven't had nutria, so I can't comment on that. I do know that when one parish (what they call counties in LA) wanted to charge a nominal fee for an unrestricted nutria hunting license, I wanna say $5.00 and that basically covered the card and processing done by the sheriff, the animal rights folks went ape.The nutria were causing major damage to the parish's drainage system.

 

Doesn't ring true. There has been a bounty on nutria since about 2002--$5 a tail. 

 

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/01/bounty_hunters_making_dent_in.html

http://modernfarmer.com/2015/01/can-anyone-stomach-orange-toothed-giant-rodent/

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Don't you guys have cheap pork butt (shoulder) in your area? Why the heck would you even think of eating rodent when there is no gun to your head?

 

Heck, you won't hear Texans talking about how rodent tastes. We'd sooner eat bad (northern) BBQ than eat rodent. Just sayin'. ;)

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Them dam'yankees'll eat anything.  Squirrel and rabbits been on the menu since I was a young boy.

 

I was thinkn' the closer to Dixie one got the more expanded the menu got so as to have the 'possum and 'coon added.

 

We boys up here keep thinking that what we do eat doesn't need the stuff spiced to the point where there's nottin' but hot to taste and it all taste's the same in the end anyway.  Without refrigeration, warmer climes had to cover up the taste of spoilt meat with spices, so the story goes.  :)

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.... We'd sooner eat bad (northern) BBQ than eat rodent. Just sayin'. ;)

Round here? Unless it's that one BBQ that upper-middle-class folks are afraid to go in, take the rodent ... seriously.

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