red deer/axis compare to whitetail meat?

If and when I get to texas, It will be for Axis! Im told there is no better meat! Not to mention they make nice trophys!!!



Scott Neeb

Chanlow Farms

If you have ever had axis you will have a hard time eating whitetail in my opinion. It is amazing! When I head down to TX this year I will be shooting a large axis buck and 3 or 4 axis does for meat. I will be happy as a clam! If you have an opportunity to try it do not hesitate.



Johnny B

Axis is great. Red Deer is comparable to elk and it is fine too. The BEST by frar though is Eland!

Axis is the best !!!! It's 97% fat free ......Last time.... I did a research on it "online" .

I have had Texas Axis and thought it was really good!

If you ever come downunder try hog deer ,Axis porcinus only half the size of chital, Axis axis, still a white meat as tough as marshmallow. Both species hybridise easily in captivity, American hunters don't seem to care or can't tell the difference between choggles & hoggies. It takes seven or eight years for a hoggie to get 18 inches if ever, a hybrid does it easy in three. I don't agree with it however the demand is there.

Can you post some pictures of them please?



Johnny B

I don't keep hybrids myself. I do take photos of curiosities when I can (usually I am pretty occupied If I'm working other peoples deer).I will post what I can find on various hybrids,chital/rusa, chital/hog ,rusa/sambar sika/red.

Sharkey,



I looked on google images. The chital is also known as an axis deer. The rusa deer to me looks just like an axis deer except slightly more mass in its antlers and they dont have spots, with the addition of a black face and neck. I have seen the sika and red deer before. I am just curious what the hybrids look like.



Johnny B

Johnny B I will post some photos soon.Once I get on top of this' World Wide Interweb' stuff.Be paitent 'I work with my hands'. Cheers Mate

We had an accident last fall and had to put one of our Red Deer down. I processed the deer myself and this was a couple weeks before I shot a white-tail, so I have had both Red Deer and White Tail in my freezer over the winter and prepared a fair amount of both.



I find our farm raised Red Deer venison to be a bit more tender and a bit less gamey -- just a little more like beef than the White Tail. Also when I was cutting the Red Deer meat up, it seemed a more pinkish red than the White-tail.



Otherwise, a well-treated White-tail carcass yields excellent cuts. I have concluded that most bad Whitetail meat has been more a function of poor handling during processing than the meat itself. Or it was in the freezer a bit long and got some frostbite.



I used beef suet for fat in the grind of the Red Deer and "Beef Belly" for the White-tail. "Beef Belly" is far superior to suet in my opinion as the texture of the fat has more body and the suet is simply more "oily" tasting when cooked. Comparing the grind is therefore not a fair comparison.



So I'm a little more partial to the Red Deer cuts but you cant go wrong with either beast!



My $0.02.

it is all about what you feed them a good protien corn and whole cottonseeds plenty of fresh alfalfa hay and good clean water my whitetail have no to very little game taste i loved the red deer when i had them better than axis in my opinion now i,am working on blackbuck i have heard they are good cant wait till i get enough to harvest one but if you feed good they all taste great jm2cw Troy

Over this side of the pond, our wild red deer eat mainly heather and so just like the bees, our venison has a very distinctive taste, whereas farmed deer here is grass fed and has a very mild flavour that is not too different from beef.


My question is......

Do all you commercial deer farmers design the diet to produce venison with a particular favour and does flavour vary much between different regions?
And a second question, is smoked venison just a case of gilding the lily?