# Could you live on wild game alone?



## Oldcountryboy

For healthier eating, I've been thinking of my meat diet consisting of nothing but fish and venison with a few wild rabbits, quail, and squirrels thrown in when I get to hunt them. 

I know I'm just getting too much fat in my diet. Hamburger, sausage, bacon, and sandwich meat makes up the majority of my meat diet. With a family of 5 I cant afford the higher end of the cut meat such as steaks and chops. But since I live out here in the country where theirs still plenty of wild game to catch, I shouldn't have a problem filling the freezer if I'd try real hard. The last few years I've been passing a lot of does and young bucks and mostly horn hunting. So I've been basically deerless the last two years because of that. But if I was meat hunting, I know I could easily stick several does and young bucks in the freezer. Plus I've recently purchased me a small boat. I still need to get a small motor for it, but when I finally do I will be setting trot lines out to help fill the freezer. I've also got my eyes set on a canoe to do some small stream and river fishing this summer. Hope to bring it home in the next week or two. 

Got to do something to get the rest of this weight off. A couple of years ago I dropped from 305 down to 265 and then it quit coming off and have basically stayed their ever since. I would like to get the more off and have been thinking of how the Native Americans ate before the European invasion took place. Basically all they lived on was what they grew in the garden every summer plus fish and venisons.


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## cur huntin' kid

Most wild game meat would be naturally more lean. Since they are not in a small pen being feed corn and other grains. If you like wild game and think you and your family can do without the normal meat than go for. You really cant do this until next fall, when hunting season is in. But you can start with fish now.


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## OkieDavid

I suppose we could all improve our diet by replacing some of the high fat commercial meats with leaner wild game. One easy start would be to begin with some free range chickens- easy to obtain, require little provided they have good forage, excellent source of lean meat & protein. Use the chickens as a supplement during scarce game availability. As a family "treat".....add in some ground hamburger (cheapest you can find) with some of your ground venison and call it hamburger steak....Don't be surprised if you find that you no longer like beef because of its fat content. A coworker switched his whole family over to wild game and tried to eat a hamburger after a year....The whole family discovered that they now hated beef LOL.


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## EDDIE BUCK

Plus the native Americans did not have hunting or fishing seasons to deal with.If they needed it they went and got it. Eddie


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## Haggis

EDDIE BUCK said:


> Plus the *native Americans did not have hunting or fishing seasons to deal with*.If they needed it they went and got it. Eddie


Therein lies the crux of essaying forth to "live on wild game". The laws and limits seem so designed as to warantee such idea to be nigh impossible, and then too, in addition to strict bag limits on game animals, some regions have warnings against too often eating fish caught from local waters. 

Added to the whole of the other problems with daily bag limits comes at home "posession" limits, again waranteeing that if one is having a good day on the waters or afield, one must ever mind the freeze at home lest it contain one too many of this or that, and one must let go those over the a given number.

One might, if so inclined, live on a daily harvest of in season wild meats and fish, but the lean days ever outweigh the good days; one would therefore need to plan to spend a good many days hunting or fishing and yet going to bed with an empty belly.


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## woodsman

EDDIE BUCK said:


> Plus the native Americans did not have hunting or fishing seasons to deal with.If they needed it they went and got it. Eddie



Luckily there were only so many Indians they were not able drive every animal species to extinction.


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## nduetime

As a child we had freezers full of venison, squirrel, rabbit, fish and whatever else Dad "got". We supplemented with fresh and home canned garden vegetables and fruit. Mom made her own bread and we bought milk and eggs. Fresh fruit was a huge treat! It can be done but gets boring. Or maybe that was just Mom's cooking...sorry Mom.


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## Gregg Alexander

Simple answer Yes


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## big rockpile

Don't know why not I've done it most my life.Our Fishing is year round and Hunting Season is about 10 months so it might as well be year round.

big rockpile


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## Oldcountryboy

Well here in Oklahoma we have a pretty liberal deer season anymore. Up to 6 deer per person. If I just filled all of my 6 deer limit that would probably be plenty for my family of 5, so long as I got fish and other small game animals to catch. We have daily limits on fish, but not yearly limits. And the rough fish such as carps, suckers, sandbass, there is no limit at all. Crappie we're allowed up to 32 fish per day, sandbass no limit, sunfish no limit, catfish up to 10 per day for certain species. But no total possession limits. 

But the small game such as rabbits, squirrels, and quail is a different story. We're only allowed up to 10 per day, 20 in total possession. Which I feel that when it comes to squirrels and rabbits, there shouldn't be a limit as in most places around here very few people hunt them anymore. 

The last few months I've been driving a school bus on the back country roads and I see squirrels and rabbits crossing in front of me all the time. Not to mention deer and turkeys. 

Something else I'm considering is planting my aunts back forty with food plots of some sort. One bad thing about the deer around here is they are mostly Acorn fed deer as there is very little grain farming here in my neck of the woods. Acorn fed deer don't taste as good as grain fed deer. Should also make the small game taste better also. 

Thanks for the replies, keep'm coming.


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## tn_junk

I was on a diet for a long time called the "Paleolithic Diet". Exactly what you talked about, with a couple of exceptions. I did buy organic, free range, chicken and buffalo from a local farmer. In Tennessee the deer limit was extremely liberal, so venison in the freezer wasn't a problem. Finding new ways to cook venison was a problem. 
Never been as healthy, before or after, as I was on that diet.

alan


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## Gregg Alexander

Oldcountryboy
Come on down next fall , Deer Season in Alabama is much better , all the does u can get plus 3 bucks. Between my wife , and I we have taken 49 deer in the last 3 yrs. With our squirrel dog we took 110 squirrels this past season, 42 rabbits, our meat cool is allways full. We have cleaned 250 pounds of catfish, bream, crappie all ready this spring.
Yes we live on wild game


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## newfieannie

that's all my son has done for years. sometimes i have a little store bought meat when he comes to visit me. he's not fussy about it though.i'm actually waiting for him today to bring me a feed of trout. wouldn't he be happy in Alabama! ~Georgia.


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## Cheryl in SD

In years that dh fills his tag, we do live on venison, in off years we have to supplement with store bought but we don't like to. We have grown our own chickens but prefer the ones I can get from the Hutterites.


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## Haggis

tn_junk said:


> I was on a diet for a long time called the "Paleolithic Diet". Exactly what you talked about, with a couple of exceptions. I did buy organic, ,,,,,
> 
> Never been as healthy, before or after, as I was on that diet.
> 
> alan


Off topic perhaps a wee bit but Oldcountryboy did mention he be getting rather too much fat in his diet;

I was, for a couple of years, on what I called a "Trogladiet", and ate primarily meat, and nothing "man made"; I lost 100 pounds in six months, and have kept off these last 3 years. A year ago my Doc said my cholesterol was too high (230 total), so I changed my diet from nearly all meat to oatmeal and egg whites for breakfast, fruit for lunch, and dried beans with smallish piece of very lean meat for supper. Three months after the change my cholesterol was at 125, now, a year after the change, my cholestrerol is at 102; the LDL and HDL numbers are more or less even. Herself says it costs nigh nothing to feed me now, oatmeal and beans being quite cheap, and the meat coming from wild game or our own farm raised meats. Herself purchases our organically grown oatmeal, beans, and fruit from a local "health food" co-op.


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## moonwolf

don't forget to try and include wild plants with your wild meat diet. This could include wild edible fungi, the known root vegetable and berries you could harvest. One of the most versatile things in abundance you could try is cattails which provide a variety for the menu over the course of it's long seasonal growth period


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## Kiamichi Kid

It can be done..I know because I have done it before...


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## Ugly Cowboy

Oh yeah, I've done it, works great! As long as the power dont go out in the middle of summer and all the meat in your freezer thaws... LOL But yeah, its pretty fun way to live really.


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## Homesteadwi5

big rockpile said:


> Don't know why not I've done it most my life.Our Fishing is year round and Hunting Season is about 10 months so it might as well be year round.
> 
> big rockpile


Same here Rock.We've started raising pigs and chickens,but 90% of our meat comes from the woods.Always has since my grandpa was a pup right up to now.If you utilize all the hunting/fishing seasons your state has it can be done quite easily.


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## tamarackreg

Yes, it is very possible. If your deer season is short and you butcher for yourself (the only way to do it) it is work. I used to put 6 - 8 deer in the freezer a year to feed my family. That, small game and fish kept us all year exept for an occasional steak from the market. 
Now I raise 90% of our vegetables in the garden and have a steer for butchering. Still fish and hunt small game but deer season is for fun now.


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## big rockpile

I find that I will have an abundance of meat that lots of people won't touch but me and my wife have aquired a taste for such things.Such as Carp or Groundhog.My wife won't eat Possum so I don't kill them.

But you want to take advantage of things that are fairly easy to get at certain times.Deer we have 4 month season,unlimited Doe Tags.So I kill at least 4 Deer.Trap *****.Set Trot Lines.Warm weather can catch alot of Carp and Buffalo.If river is right I can catch limit of Trout pretty fast.Squirrels are pretty easy to kill.This time of year see alot of Snapping Turtles crossing the road,lots of meat on them.

One thing to take into consideration the bulk of your diet should be vegatables.You can get a large amout of wild edibles but some are not worth the time.Like around here Wild Strawberries and Blueberries.Just too hard fighting other animals to get them.Now Blackberries is a different matter.Mushrooms most really like the Morels but Summer and Fall Mushrooms are more plentiful.

big rockpile


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE

My family of 5 eats about 4 deer a year , also about a half a pig and a few turkeys(store turkey bought on very good salearound 50 cents a #) also some chicken 

lots of stuff from the garden ,rice and beans other grains 

so could you go on wile game alone , probably , but shooting and cutting your own deer sure helps a lot , i have been thinking of just buying the pig and cutting it my self .right now the proccessing is costing more than the pig


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## Oldcountryboy

Well to go along with eating nothing but wild game theory is that I will probably have to make the decision of what is more important? The "Almighty Dollar" or "My Health". 

Right now I'm driving a school bus in the morning, doing electrical work in the middle of the day, driving school bus in the evening, and then I become "Mr. Mom" afterwards, cook supper and try to do a load of laundry. 

Which means: I have very little time to hunt and fish. My garden is more weeds then veggies. Plus I continuously find the cupboards empty so we bring home a lot of take out food several times a week.

With that bit of information you probably have it figured out that my wife and children have too much fat in their diet too! We could all stand to loose lots of weight. So I'm thinking of freeing myself up in the daytime so I can do more gardening, hunting, and fishing for better health.


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