Reason you don't see more is you can keep Corsicans in a 4' net wire fence and aoudad and nilgai can fart themselves over it

IMO aoudads are a much better animal than a Corsican

Same here. A mature aoudad with a full mane and chaps is a great looking trophy!

Really nice mouflons, like the ones Ricky Hunt has, those are beautiful. I like the Aoudads too when they have big chaps.

You need to go to Raz and get yourself a bunch of Aoudad.

I don't think Don was saying they are better...he was commenting that Corsicans are cheaper & easier to keep.

Regardless of the debate, it's an interesting market as a whole to follow. It's really not a pure supply/demand commodity market - there is certainly a luxury component that influences some of these animals you are referencing even as they do become more common (and most are still much more readily available than 20 years ago - even if more challenging to raise). With a little bit of the ratite pyramid scheme thrown in to make things fun.

What I mean by that is some animals function as a commodity - most of the commons function basically on supply and demand with a quality multiplier. They are easy to move on both the breeder and hunting side.

But once you start getting into the 'supers, the market seems to be much more fickle, and things tend to look more like luxury products - I.e. Supply doesn't really influence price as much - buyers are more willing to hold stock and swallow some death loss to stick to a given price - and if you think about it, most of the guys with enough land and the $for initial investment to hold large herds of them (not talking brokers) probably aren't living off that income so it is truly a luxury product. This is why while something like kudu have actually become much more common, the price hasn't come down.

Get into the really rare stuff, and you have the pyramid scheme - early entrants or those that establish a name for themselves can name their price to an extent, but the price is way more supported by the next level of buyers than any true outlet like hunting. TCUs, Pure ibex, and pure markhor are somewhat like this (you have maybe a half dozen well known guys putting out good stock on the breeding side, and probably about twice that on the hunting side that attract the clientele to charge the top dollar for them with regularity) those 'exceptions' drive the price at the second and third tier, but in reality there really isn't the outlet market to support the second ant third tier guys.

Don, I'd add Sika to your list - those buggers are going to be everywhere in Tx that grows trees to 20ft someday. I think the only thing that's been holding them back is most ranchers don't appreciate the little japs, but as you start seeing some bigger ones with mixed blood get out, I bet the tolerance increases.

Are there actually any established sika free range?

Kobus - Far from rare - draw a traingle between Boerne, Junction, and Camp Wood and they are pretty common in there. Pockets in quite a few other spots. I would really expect them to catch on East of I-35 with more exotic places showing up there. They are prolific little critters

I think there were actually more of the pure small Jap Sika back 30 or more years ago when I was in the hunting business. Many of the ranches we hunted had them and most of the landowners hated them. During their rut they became very aggressive toward it seemed anything alive. Now you see very few of the small ones anymore. I have only seen 2 around here LF in the last 19 years or so. Also Fallow don't seem to be able to breed and survive the LF world. See one or two once in a while then never see them again.

All you guys lamenting the high prices of super exotics... I can fix all that guaranteed.

I bought my first pere David and eland when they were both ~$10,000 for a mature bull. Pere David are now ~ 4500 and eland are 3,000.

I'm not going to do it by myself this time tho. Y'all are gonna have to pony up some cash!

Hopefully you made up for it back then. It is kinda like Transcaspian Urials now. I have been thinking about getting a few but then you see all the people getting into it and makes you think before shelling out the big bucks.

You win some you lose some Don. I have no regrets and I'm no where close to recovering investment.

Just remember, you need to be real nice to me...

Believe me I try.

I'm in the TCU game - worked my numbers on a lower selling price by the time I have surplus before pulling the trigger, could still lose my shirt, but I like having them . . .guess that's what really matters.

Real issue I see with them is their value is likely to be undercut by the better quality urial hybrids. Experienced the same thing with Manchurian Sika - paid the money to get top quality purebreds, and now your seeing any kind of hybrid with spots sold under the same name. Again, I like having them so guess that's what matters.

Don, agree with you on fallow - personally think they just aren't smart enough to survive pressure on smaller LF places. We have fallow and Sika LF on our place and they do fine, but we have enough land that the bulk stay on our place and our neighbors are reasonable size too.

We are actually seeing more Sika - but agree with you, landowner bias hurts their ability to be widespread - they are the worst competitors with WT as well - think that's why you see them more in pockets than widely distributed like axis. I just think if they got out in some of the thicker country east of 35, they'd be able to hang on.

Is it illegal to import rhino? They should do well here.

Do you think there will be a time when there will truly be no pure representatives of the sheep or goat species left.

^no way.

Let's not get into that debate again. Believe it's been covered here before. Apologize if my comment took it that way - I was purely referencing influences on market price.

Kudu, gemsbok and it's sisters, impala, blesbok, springbok, Thompson's and Grant's gazelle, sambar, and nilgai sort of.

First two are like an "I wish", but the rest of them are increasabe.

Hey, it ain't my job to make life easy.