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The Forum > Article Comments > The ruse of farming 'roos > Comments

The ruse of farming 'roos : Comments

By Ian Mott, published 16/2/2006

The returns from kangaroo farming are unlikely to be sufficient to make it sustainable.

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Bernie Masters your post has confirmed alot of my thinking all along. The author was approaching 'roo farming from the same perspective as cattle & sheep farming. A different approach which respects the environment such as you suggest makes sense.

We can keep smaller farms for traditional livestock & large areas for the roos (and wallabies).

Also second your suggestion to encourage viable ecosystems. The way ahead is for balance and sustainable practices rather than the exploitative methods used currently.
Posted by Scout, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 9:56:21 AM
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I would also like to add support to Bernie Masters' comments. We need to look at our ecological problems from a different angle than "business as usual" and see how we can best use our assets.

Whose assets? Within some fairly light regulatory framework I would also support more "ownership" by those on the land. Australia is a heritage for us all, and we have the right to voice comment and concern (yes, even from the city!) but it is those who are actually there and living with the land who need empowerment to care for it.

The "Campfire" initiative in Zimbabwe channelled fees to local villagers for game hunted in their districts. Animals that were previously viewed as a nuisance were thus given economic value and a chance of survival. Such "ownership" made a difference to often impoverished communities.

Previous posts point out the inherent value of natural resources, and it is the general undervaluing of these resources and the best practice care of them that has resulted in much of the environmetal degradation the continent suffers today. If it means that such resources need to be assigned monetary value then let's get on with it, whether it be Roos, water or carbon. If capitalism is the game, let's play it for the benefit of all not just those at the centre of the web.
Posted by Robert, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 2:06:30 PM
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It is true that properties of 100,000 hectares may avoid the need for fences but how many of them still exist. And what they save in fencing costs they pay in distance from ports, rail and markets.

And there is one other very significant factor that was touched on earlier and that is the lack of a 5000 year breeding program for 'roos. For one of the main benefits of that breeding has been to produce sheep and cattle with a high 'meat-to-bone' ratio.

For example, cattle in their prime will produce a carcass weight that is approximately half of it's live weight. The remainder is blood, head, stomach etc of low value. But there are no such 'beefy' reserves on a 'roo carcass where the meat to bone ratio is much lower. And it could take centuries to breed these attributes into the 'roo herd to the point where they would compare with cattle or sheep. So yes, 'roos have a higher efficiency in converting food to body weight but a higher proportion of that body weight is non-meat.

Furthermore, it is one of the much claimed benefits of 'roo farming, their rapid breeding response to good conditions, that precludes them from additional weight gain. That is, when cattle enjoy good conditions they gain weight but 'roos simply produce more 'roos to exploit the abundant fodder reserves. And that expanded population remains mostly bone and offal, not meat.

Indeed, it is no small irony that the only way kangaroos could become a viable, sustainable farming option would be after extensive genetic manipulation. And given the existing opposition to genetically modified crops, it is hard to see how GM kangaroos, released on any property without a very good fence, would gain much public support. Especially from the green/left for whom private ownership of wildlife is an anathema.
Posted by Perseus, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 10:33:09 AM
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From reading some of the above posts, one would be lead to think that you couldn't run any hoofed animals in Australia without destroying everything. I'd ask for some common sense here, with good management, the doom-and-gloom prophecies of the Watermelons will not come to pass. Rotation of stock on a properly-managed property will avoid any long-term problems.

It's probably better just to shoot roos on demand than try to farm them.
Posted by DFXK, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 2:07:31 PM
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Thank goodness for the informed comment of people like Bernie Masters.

It so happens my family owned a station in the Upper Gascoyne (north-west Western Australia) in the early 1980's. We ran a few sheep and cattle but lived mainly on the proceeds from our 'roo licence which covered a block of some 3 million acres. From memory, we were issued with about 5000 tags per year.

That's one 'roo per square mile of country!

The female red kangaroo, macropus rufus, carries a joey in her pouch and has one at foot. She has another as a cystoblast in the reproductive canal in a state of suspended animation just waiting for rain to bring on the feed. The red 'roo is the most incredible animal, perfectly adapted to living and breeding in one of the driest regions on earth and they survive where the sheep and cattle perish for lack of water or feed.

Red Kangaroos can travel extreme distances following inland rain storms (green feed) whereas sheep can travel about 4 miles from water in summer and cattle about 6 miles. The range of sheep and cattle is entirely limited by access to watering points while that of the kangaroo is not. Sheep need water every day in that climate, cattle every two days and red kangaroos about once a week.

On top of that, as old Jack Absalom very bluntly told the South Australian Governor on one occasion: 'Kangaroos provide the best meat in the world. It is ultra-lean, has less than 0.1% cholesterol, is better than 48% protein... and we feed it to our bloody dogs!'

Kangaroos don't ordinarily overgraze (unless humans have altered the environment so they over breed); they don't cause damage to our highly fragile soils; and they can reproduce at more than twice the rate of domestic animals.

Throw a tail on the barbie and try it!

Kaz
Posted by kaz3g, Wednesday, 22 February 2006 10:43:40 PM
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The notion that a 100,000ha property or bigger would not need fences needs a closer look. For this is 1000 square km or a 31km square. So a 'roo that is half way between the middle of the property and the boundary is only 8km from that boundary. And this is only 15 minutes at 32km/hour. This isn't too bad by itself, provided the neighbour is doing exactly the same things at the same time.

With this level of mobility, a neighbour could sell all, or most, his own 'roos when feed is still available and then sit back as stock from all the neighbours drift onto his property and mingle with the remaining herd. And while any identification system may pick them up when they come up for sale, that may not take place for a few years and all their progeny would remain the property of the neighbour who de-stocked. There is a very sound practical basis to the old saying, "good fences make good neighbours".

It is the shorter distances travelled by sheep and cattle and their greater dependence on water points that enables them to be successfully managed on broad acre properties without fences. So while this may be a competitive disadvantage in the wild it is a distinct advantage on a managed farm.

One of the main disadvantages of kangaroos as a farm animal is a lack of all those attributes of sheep and cattle that enhance their ease of management. They don't show up in the growth data but they certainly do show up on the bottom line. These attributes did not appear by chance, they have been bred into them over a few millenia.

So my advice to the 'roo promoters is, it sounds fine in theory but you need to get to work on the selective breeding and come back to me when you have an animal that suits our needs and that our customers here and abroad will buy.
Posted by Perseus, Thursday, 23 February 2006 12:09:28 PM
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