So why don't we farm kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle?

So why don't we farm kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle?

Here is a rough estimate of how many kangaroos would be needed to satisfy the meat demands of the Australian population should cows and sheep no longer be farmed.

Of just those animals, cows and sheep, Australians eat an average of 48.8 kg per year of boneless meat, the equivalent of the of 4 large kangaroos a year. Assuming all kangaroos are large (which is wrong,) in fact the average wieght of commercially killed and dressed kangaroos is much less than 20 kg. So 81.7 million kangaroos would need to be killed each year to satisfy Australian meat eaters at current rate of consumption.

Assuming 15% are culled each year, which is approximately how many grey kangaroos are killed now, (supposed to be a sustainable figure) there would need to be 544 million kangaroos at any one time.

Assuming a 20% cull (as with red kangaroos) there would need to be 408 million kangaroos in Australia at any one time. Comparing this to the Government's estimate of 24 million or so we have now, (actually its probably much less than that) there would need to be 23 or 17 times (respectively) the number of kangaroos there currently are, and that's assuming they're all 'large' which they wouldn't be. So the question now is, is this ecologically possible or sound?

There are at any one time about 27 million cows and 100 million sheep in Australia.

So that if Australians substituted just 10% of their meat intake for kangaroo meat, then they'd all be gone in just over a year. So, by saying kangaroos breed 'slowly' we mean that they wouldn't be breeding prolifically during that year so that their number would be replaced, ready to kill the same number again the year after etc.

In comparison to pigs and hens, a kangaroo reproduction rate one or two or even three a year is very slow indeed. Also many joeys are lost to foxes, eagles, road kills, ect. Kangaroos do not breed like rabbits, contary to some rural comments. An Australian breeding sow gives birth to about 23 babies a year, each baby growing to about 96kg by the time he/she is killed.

For chickens it would be even more babies, hundreds probably because they have been bred to lay so many eggs. For cows it is a bit different, they only give birth once a year too, but they are much larger animals and have more flesh on their bodies, so it's profitable for a farmer to keep them.

But from a farmer's point of view, keeping enough breeding female kangaroos to continue their 'mob' would be unprofitable, because they breed slowly and are small animals taking 10 years to reach adulthood, whereas a beef animal reaches killable weight in couple of years.....and depending on the breed, produces over 200 kg's of boneless meat.....compared with a maximum of 12 kg of meat from a large kangaroo.

So to feed Australians the amount of meat they desire from kangaroos, because it is presumed by some to be 'environmentally friendly' there would need to be 187 million killed each year, or 1.25 billion alive at any one time with a 15% cull rate. Another issue is that most Australians dont want to eat kangaroo meat anyway, so what do farmers do with all this meat? Our overseas customers demand beef and sheepmeat and pork, not to mention wool, so if Australia didnt supply it, some other country would.

Coles and Woolworths display a liitle kangaroo meat, and its only sold because it is cheap, because it's a free good. It costs very little to go out and shoot kangaroos...there is no land to buy, no breeding stock or buildings to erect. Same with kangaroo meat and ground kangaroo meat exports, its cheap protein for third world countries.

So 1.25 billion kangaroos in Australia, given that there are currently 24 million, seems implausible. The population density would be; there are 7.617 million sq km of land in Australia. For there to be 1.25 billion kangaroos, there would be 164 kangaroos per each and every square kilometre of land in Australia. For every 78mx78m square of land, a kangaroo.

So common sense tells us that's ridiculous, and eating kangaroo instead of other meat for environmental reasons is a stupid idea. Reducing the amount of meat people eat is a bit more sensible, sensibleness increasing with the amount of reduction, eating only vegetarian is even wiser, and eating only locally grown organic vegan food is best.

Finally proponents of kangaroo farming argue that kangaroos have bred up since white settlers arrived because we have dug dams to provide more water, and planted crops for them to eat. Well, noone knows how man kangaroos were here when white settlers arrived. However studies of the the available grasslands in 1860 by Dr John Auty show that there was enough native grasslands to provide food for at least 200 million kangaroos, and with 5 major river systems across Australia, kangaroos couldnt get drink until we arrived and dug dams?