Can you eat Aoudad?

Pardon the ignorance, but can you eat Aoudad? I have never shot one, and may have a possible hunt lined out on one.

I've never had it but the guys I know who have tried it say its terrible. Probably one of those things you'll have to decide for yourself.

Yes they are. But like any game if you do not take care of it properly it will taste like the effort you put into saving it. I have eaten young rams and all age ewes. Made sausage, jerky, smoked meats, dried sausage, tamales and prepared the cuts like I would other venison. I have been told that large older rams need to be skinned immediately being careful not touch the meat if you touch the hair and get it cooled down in a walkin cooler. Then allow the carcass to age as long as you can if at all possible.

My stepdad shot on in 1997. Around 2004 I finally got the taste outta my mouth.


that said, none of the family at that time were gourmet chefs....they would have made a Kobe Ribeye taste horrible.



I don't know of anyone who eats them in anything other than sausage. Client of mine shot a big one in October. They are from Baton Rouge and eat anything. They cooked it in crock pots and said it was tough but decent flavored



I do know a coyote will clean one up almost overnight

We tried cooking some that my daughter gave me like it was venison, we tried everything. We even wrapped it in bacon grilled it, and it made the bacon taste bad.
We finally decided that aoudad was to be a jerky animal, and we made a lot of jerky, and sausage. Everybody loved it.

Sounds like you cooked the "last part" over the fence first.

eat?
sure..
like it?
yer call...
billy goat w hair..
kill'em ,take horns and hair..
go to town and get a steak..
they're vermin anyway...
shoot all you see.
leave 'em lay..
they're just hogs w/horns

They make good coyote bait. If I wanted one to eat I’d kill a cabrito size.

A lot more majestic than a hog imo but not the greatest table fare

You can eat pretty much any animal the question is do you really want to?

This^^^^^

I'd have to be very hungry.

As has been stated, aoudad is in the same category as sheep/goat. If you don't like lamb and/or goat, then you probably won't like it. Also, if it free-range, it will be a lot more gamey than one that is eating mainly corn/protein feed.

Like with lamb/goat, slow roasting with lots of good spices (I recommend Moroccan, Indian and Persian spices) is the way to go. If you have a tagine, then I highly recommend trying it out in that. If you don't have a tagine, you should get one.

Sounds pretty good, because we like lamb and goat. I'd like to try some. Can't afford to hunt one currently, though. Wanted to when I was young and dumb stationed in NM. But I was... young and dumb and didn't make time. My loss.

The ewes and young ones are ok to eat. The big rams? No. We usually take a ewe off of our place each year and have the whole thing made into smoked sausage. It is quite good that way.

I'd have to be starving to consider it.

I'm wondering how many have actually had it. I've had two and one was great and the other I made jerky from which tasted great as well but had a slightly "different" smell. Now I attribute that to its care. I wasn't able to get it on ice as quick as I normally would and it was probably in the 50-60 degree's. Buddy of mine made a dish out of it that was outstanding (the auodad I didn't get taken care of quickly enough for my liking). Another buddy shot a young ram and he said it was one of the best meats he's had.

Its red meat.... you would be surprised what taste good if your mind could get out of the way.... iv had it and its good... like all meat it can be ruined by handling it wrong...

It’s fine, just make it into sausage and not cut steaks out of it. Backstraps aren’t bad either.

You know what opinions are like. That is what you get here. Try it yourself. That is the only way you find out. Every ones taste is different.

Makes excellent ground meat when mixed with some beef fat, also makes good sausage, and if you marinate the tenderloin and backstrap in some buttermilk before cooking it ain't to bad either

I guess you could make most anything edible if you added enough spice to cover up the taste of the meat. No way would I try eating an old billy goat...and that's about what you would be dealing with. Everyone wants a large one with big horns for a trophy, and those would be the worst to try to eat. Maybe a little kid could be made palatable...but who wants to shoot the baby ones?

I don’t eat anything I can smell from yards away

My little guy that I give all my meat to said it was tough and not very good

We shot a young one the first we had our place in Junction and it was not bad at all. I think we had it mostly made into link sausage. I wouldn't try that with a full grown one.

So you wouldn't eat elk? Those things reek of a barnyard and leave a very distinct odor.

Once I get a whiff I’m pretty much done

Brother in law has clearly never driven through the panhandle beef country or through east Texas chicken country. Or he'd be vegan.

Sausage and hamburger mixed 50/50 with beef is very good. Even the backstrap tenderized and fried like deer meat isn't bad but the few I've eaten have been processed quickly after killing.

Ground aoudad tastes as close to beef as any game meat ever. I smoke the half grown ones and make chopped bbq out of them. I have fooled MANY bbq aficionados with it.

That said, aoudad is without any doubt the toughest meat on the planet. If you don’t grind it you better cook it a really long time.

I stand by my suspicion that meat processors talk aoudad down so they can get the meat for free from ignorant “believe everything idiots say” hunters. Mainly because they can keep the meat, but also because they can mix it with cheap beef burger and sell it as ground ribeye.

I've shot them and ate them. Makes decent sausage. Field care is everything. Not as good as deer or elk but edible and in my humble opinion if you are going to shoot it then show respect for the animal by not wasting it.

It is very tough, the toughest meat I have ever had. However, it tastes great. Grind the entire thing and you will not be disapointed..

I have had aoudad sausage and back straps and they are not bad at all.

I always enjoy reading these threads on eating aoudad. The best palatable aoudad I've eaten was a young ewe that came off a ranch we protein feed heavily and I had about 18 beers first. Every thing I've tried from far west Texas was yuck.

Exactly.

It ain’t what they eat out there. My first one came from my ranch off Dolan Creek road with nothing but range brush in its diet. Beef hamburger is the best way to describe it.

Currently I can eat any game meat I choose from my own ranches. We eat eland, pere david, aoudad, bison and wild pig. Eland and pere david are the best of all. But aoudad beats even axis.

was the axis bloated on the side of the road for a week before eating it maybe?

Uhhh, no. Axis is the best “deer” meat. But most people think of beef when benchmarking red meat taste. And ground aoudad is muuuch closer to beef than axis. You just can’t eat an aoudad steak.

Beef is not my benchmark. Good game meat is better than beef to me. I would rather have deer/moose/elk/sheep backstrap than beef loin. IMO what many call a “gamey” taste in wild meat is just the flavor of real meat instead of the sterile, flavorless beef you get in the grocery store.

I don’t really see how meat that has to be ground into hamburger to be palatable can be said to be better than meat that does not. But, whatever.

I've culled probably 100 aoudad, and have never found a way to fix it that I thought was half way decent.

I've also gotten to eat most every African antelope except eland, which is supposed to be the best over there. I find Axis to be the best tasting game meat I've ever had the chance to eat, including gemsbok, springbok, elk, and moose.

Last few years I've had whitetail, axis, blackbuck & mule deer. I thought axis tasted about as good as whitetail and blackbuck. All were great. The mule deer was a little more flavorful but he was old as dirt. I'm blessed with a wife that actually likes game meat. She liked everything I bought home. it's been 20 years since I ate nilgai but I remember it being one of the best.

The better tasting Aoudad I have eaten have been ones that have had access to a lot of protein and alfalfa that we feed. This I know in my experience as
a fact. You may have had your own experiences but these are mine.

As I said, my first aoudads were from within a few miles of where your hunters kill many of theirs. No protein or alfalfa. My aoudads here in mountain home have no supplemental feed either. The only thing I haven’t had is an aoudad that has been on supplemental feed. Man, I guess I’d really like them if I had lol.

Take Aoudad back strap, wrap in foil with a piece of green Mesquite. Cook for 2 1/5 hrs on BBQ. Take off, unwrap it, eat the green Mesquite and throw the Aoudad away

as with any wild game, some have stronger flavors that don't suit everyone's palette. I have never tried Auodad, but I suspect it would be similar to barbado??? We used to do large organization BBQs and several we would kill a couple of spanish goats and a couple barbado to put on the pits next to brisket, chicken, pork & sausage. It was all fine table fair IMO but definitely different flavors that some people didn't care for but with the variety we served, everyone could find something they liked. Personally, I have yet to find a way to eat a rocky mountain mule deer as the flavor to me tastes like a gut shot rutted up white tail smells, maybe something in their diet, but I can't even stand the smell of it cooking. I don't know if the TX desert mule deer are similar?

I shot my own, skinned my own and aged my own....never touched water and aged 10 days in my garage fridge. It tasted fantastic. Any animal tastes bad when not taken care of properly.

After reading these replies, I don't what I did wrong.
I shot one years ago, had it processed and it was the BEST wild game I ever had.
Wife, kids and myself preferred to venison any time.
Easy to tell the difference when we opened a package that we couldn't read because the aoudad was SOO red in color.
Wish I had some now.

My experience as well.

There are some people out there that prefer a sirloin or chop steak to Ribeye.....just the way it is.



I think if you had a panel of judges though, aoudad wouldn't be on the top of the list compared to Axis, Nilgai, Oryx, Etc.


A lot of people don't care for Lamb or Cabrito but I love it and prefer it to a lot of other meats so I get what your saying.



I have eaten Aoudad on Several occasions but I think having it prepared by a actual chef would be a bit different and may be more enjoyable

I ate a groundhog once or part of it. Pretty greasy. Aoudad and pigs at my lease go to the pig dump for the coyotes and occasional bald eagle. Last time I hauled a big sow there I was listening to sat radio and about 30 seconds from the dump "Little Piggies" by the Beatles started to play.

I think it would be a waste to not at least try. I have never had Aoudad but I would try different techniques and research some recipes to see if I could make a good tasting dish out of it.

My brother and dad each shot a good size ram on our old lease. They were skinned gutted and ices quickly all handled well, we have been butchering our own game making our own sausage etc. for decades. Started cutting it up at the house after being on ice a while and noticed the meat had an unfamiliar smell to it. Decided to go in and cook a piece of backstrap to see how it tasted before we got any further. Prepared it like any other chicken fry. Was it edible? absolutely. I didn't care for the taste at all. We fed the coyotes, buzards, and whatever other scavengers might have eaten it.

I eat anchovies, liver, spam, potted meat, gizards, calf fries, etc. and I like to try new things. Aoudad was a no go for me, maybe it would be better if they weren't big old males, maybe not, but I don't plan on finding out.

This is a mindset I think more hunters need to lose.


you kill a animal and leave it lay something eats it. Maybe the coyote that got a free meal won't pick off the fawn or doe the next day.

in any case, if you shoot something and let it lay the result is the exact same as if the animal doesent get shot and dies of old age or dies in a fight.


I have had to unlearn the theory that the animal is wasted by not consuming it. Best use of the meat, probably not, but its not a waste.

On the other hand if we didn't at least try nobody would know how "good" axis is, which I tend to think people put it on a pedestal when in reality, to me at least, it falls way short of the hype.

its better than a whitetail but its not like a wayagu beef

To each his own. I've eaten most all of the African antelope species, and most everything over here. Axis venison has no peer, period, in my book at least.