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Nutria Rat - Dog Treats ?
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Gigafowl
MMT Elite Member
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:19 pm Posts: 6441 Location: Trinity Bay - Texas
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Nutria Rat - Dog Treats ?
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_________________ Eat - Sleep - Hunt ! ! !
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:24 am |
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Gigafowl
MMT Elite Member
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:19 pm Posts: 6441 Location: Trinity Bay - Texas
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Re: Nutria Rat - Dog Treats ?
PECAN ISLAND — Drive until you see the Gulf of Mexico, and before you hit the water take the last left on a dirt road. That's where Justin Choate lives.
Choate, 43, has been around Louisiana's waters all of his life. He started working those marshes, streams and bayous with his father at the age of 9.
When he's not serving as an alligator guide, he's out hunting nutria, the invasive, orange-toothed swamp rodent that's devouring Louisiana's coast.
The state's marshes are so overrun with nutria that it doesn't take long for Choate to bag enough to call it a day. A couple of times a week during hunting season, from November to March, he's out from daylight to 10 a.m. and then 3 p.m. to dark. It's easier working the swamps during the coolest hours.
Choate kills at least 120 nutria a week, as many as 6,000 a season — his best day: 238 nutria in less than 11 hours.
If he doesn't kill them with his rifle, one of his three chocolate labs — Jake, Buck or Duke — will spot one, kill it and bring it back to the boat. Some days, the hunting dogs are quicker than Choate.
For the longest time, he and other hunters had only a few uses for the dead nutria — skin them for the fur, turn their tail in for $6 each from the state and use the rest as alligator bait.
But now there's another reason to make nutria a target. The destructive mammal that has hastened the loss of hundreds of miles of Louisiana coast now can serve as the main ingredient in dog treats.
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Nutria as treats Hansel Harlan wants to convert Louisiana's nutria problem into a nationally distributed dog biscuit. Marsh Dog, the Baton Rouge pet food company he co-founded, uses wild nutria as the main ingredient in its new generation of dog treats.
In 2012, the company received a grant from the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program to begin production of the dog treats, which mostly have been sold in Louisiana stores. But now Marsh Dog has partnered with a larger manufacturer, tweaked its production process and set its sights on building the brand.
The goal is to help to eliminate as many nutria as possible to reduce the destruction of Louisiana wetlands. There are no other commercially produced dog treats that use protein from non-domesticated mammals like nutria taken from the wild, Harlan said.
The company gets its nutria from the 4.1 million-acre estuary, located between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers in south Louisiana.
Marsh Dog gets the majority of its nutria meat from the 400 licensed trappers in the state, most of whom participate in the nutria control program with Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
_________________ Eat - Sleep - Hunt ! ! !
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:25 am |
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Gigafowl
MMT Elite Member
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:19 pm Posts: 6441 Location: Trinity Bay - Texas
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Re: Nutria Rat - Dog Treats ?
Although the number of nutria killed by trappers each year has decreased, Harlan and his business partners hope to help increase that number.
After the state control program began, 2010's hunting season ended with a record 445,936 nutria killed. That number dropped to a low of just over 170,000 killed in the 2018 season and about 223,000 killed when the last season ended in March.
With nutria averaging about six to 10 pounds each and each providing nearly half that in usable meat, Marsh Dog uses hundreds of thousands of pounds each year for their biscuits. The company could get rid of more than 55,000 nutria each year.
The company “found a sustainable solution for the planet,” said Dr. Marvin Moncada, research and development food scientist at Louisiana State University's AgCenter Food Incubator. He worked with Marsh Dog to reformulate their products and extend shelf life. “Why kill it if you won’t use it?”
_________________ Eat - Sleep - Hunt ! ! !
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:29 am |
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Gigafowl
MMT Elite Member
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2009 7:19 pm Posts: 6441 Location: Trinity Bay - Texas
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Re: Nutria Rat - Dog Treats ?
Harlan came across the unconventional meat thanks to his dog, Chien du Marais, French for Marsh Dog, who has chronic allergies. He developed the recipe so it wouldn't trigger an allergic reaction.
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_________________ Eat - Sleep - Hunt ! ! !
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
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Sat Sep 07, 2019 9:31 am |
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