![]() ![]() 'If I made sloppy joe's with beef and elk and I didn't tell you, you would not know which is which,' she said. 'If you cook it too long, you might as well chew on your shoe.'Įmily said elk can be substituted for beef in many recipes without a difference in taste. It also cooks faster because it doesn't have all the fat to heat up. 'I add lard or olive oil to a pan if I am cooking it on a stove. ![]() 'You cannot cook elk the same way that you cook beef or pork,' she said. She also educates them on the proper way to cook elk meat. We had a customer who would order rib-eyes with the bone in them, and Bud's would prepare 20 of them.'Ĭhris's wife, Emily, provides recipes for customers to use elk meat. 'If a customer wants something out of the ordinary, they will cut it for us. 'Everything is processed at Bud's Custom Meats in Riverside,' Thuerauf said. The Thueraufs sell their meat and other products directly to customers, at Dan and Debbie's Creamery in Ely and each year at the Downtown Cedar Rapids Farmers Market in the spring and summer months. It is very low in fat and cholesterol, and high in iron and protein.' 'People want red meat, they want it very lean and they want meat that is healthy and tasty. 'We were hitting small-time markets - six or seven a week - and it just exploded. 'We started processing animals and selling red meat,' Thuerauf said. When the velvet antler market declined, elk owners needed to shift to another market for their investment. 'They were making money and didn't have to worry about the antlers again until the following year.' 'They also didn't want the bulls to have their antlers because they were coming into town and destroying things,' he said. Thuerauf said the buyers were able to get velvet antler cheaper from New Zealand and Russia, where elk bulls were tranquilized before their antlers were cut off. ![]() Then the buyers cut off the American suppliers cold turkey and the price dropped from about $100 a pound to as little as $5 a pound.' 'There were people raising 100 bulls just to cut off their antlers. It was cut off at 65 days of growth and frozen. 'It's kind of a meaty substance with blood flowing through it. 'Velvet antler is the whole antler before it calcifies,' he said. Thuerauf said the elk breeding industry was booming in the 1990s, when there was a strong Asian market for velvet antler as a food supplement and nutraceutical. 'No packing plants were taking elk for meat.' 'There were some people doing it for themselves or a neighbor. 'When we got into this, the main way to move animals was as trophies or breeding stock,' Thuerauf said. The harsh weather forces elk and deer to migrate to lower-elevation winter range in search for food, which is often scarce and not very nutritious.īy late winter and into early spring, the ungulates depend on fat stores almost exclusively, and it is at this time that bucks shed their heavy antlers to preserve energy.You will begin to receive our Daily Business News updates. When rutting behavior ends and winter conditions set in, survival becomes wildlife’s priority. The large antler displays not only attract females, they are also used to joust with other males as they compete for mates. In areas where elk are abundant, mangled shrubs and small trees are obvious signs of the presence of bulls and their preparation for breeding, Porras said. ![]() Regardless of the cause of this behavior, the result is obvious: Small saplings and shrubs are left looking like someone with a hedge trimmer went on an angry rampage. It has been theorized that this “horning” of shrubs frequently causes shrub branches to be broken off and intertwined with the bull’s antlers, effectively making them look larger and more threatening to rivals and more impressive to potential mates. “The growing of the antlers, the velvet that forms and then the shedding of the velvet is all in preparation for mating.” “Elk and deer use their antlers really only for rutting season,” Porras said. This rubbing behavior may also be the first ritualized use of the bull’s hardened antlers – the process of shedding the velvet as elk and deer is noisy and attracts the attention of other elk.Īt the same time, bull elk begin their low- to high-pitched bugling to attract females and to show dominance among young bulls. “The velvet begins to deteriorate when the blood supply to the antlers is no longer needed, Porras said.Įlk typically shed their velvet around mid-August, and mule deer shed their velvet around mid-September this period is also referred to as “rubbing season,” Porras said. ![]()
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