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Meat Quality and the Jacobson's Organ
Posted by Jeff Shannon on Mar 02 2005
Gary,
The best explanation that I've found as to why the meat of any ungulate generally tastes worse during the rut is this. Most vertebrates have an organ in the roof of their mouth known as the Jacobson's organ. The Jacobson's organ is basically a complex chemical analyzer, and deer, along with numerous other species, use it to determine breeding status of the opposite sex. If you've ever seen a buck, bull, or ram, doing a Flehmen (lip curl) what he's doing is trying to use his Jacobson's organ to test the hormonal readiness of a receptive female. Now they can use the Jacobson's organ to simply test the air, but they also use it to directly test the urine of receptive females. When they do this they end up ingesting the urine. At the height of the rut males will often ingest so much urine that the nitrogenous toxins present in the urine overload their kidneys. Once their kidneys are overloaded the toxins remaining in the bloodsteam begin to accumulate in their musculature. Thus, rutty meat. Pretty nasty isn't it. I know that didn't have anything to do with blacktails specifically, but hopefully it shed some light on the general situation.
Regards,
Jeff
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