Has anyone ever gotten sick from eating beaver meat? I ate some and fed it to the family tonight but for some reason now I'm paranoid.

I've eaten a fair amount if It over the years and my buddy eats a LOT of it. Never had any issues.

I've about killed a dog or two feeding them muskrat, though.

Why did it almost kill the dog?

Eating beaver has never phased me. I quite enjoy it.

I thought it tasted great. I just got paranoid about possible parasites or something.

I've never heard of anyone getting sick from eating beaver meat.

I am also interested in why muskrat might be hard on dogs. Same reason perhaps that a man cant survive on snowshoe hare for too long ?

Calvin was talking muskrat. My uncle feeds his dogs beaver all winter. Never had a problem. He does use supplements/dog food of some kind occasionally so they get some other nutrients.

I have corrected my post, I meant muskrat.

After handling them for months and everything has that beaver smell the last thing I wanted to do was eat one!

I have never been that hungry. But, of all the things I trap, beaver is highest on the list of critters I would eat, and fairly easy to come by. We live in a great country filled with pork, beef, and chicken. What more can I say .

x2

Here is my beaver smoked sausage. 100 percent beaver meat and fat. Polish seasoning and 3.5 hours of smoke. Quite possibly the best sausage i have ever eaten.

X3

I'll take beaver over venison any day. To me beaver tastes like veal and has triple the omega 3's (over beef or pork) and no fat.

But back to the question of whether you can get sick eating beaver: Yes! YOU CAN. The Malade (french for sickness) river in Idaho is named that because a group of Hudson Bay trappers got sick eating beaver flesh on its banks. The issue was that the beaver had been feeding on water hemlock which grew rampantly along its banks and had a sub-lethal amount of poisonous alkaloids built up in their flesh.

We eat it in my house. Well all but the wife. My 2 girls eat it in hamburgers and my oldest doesn't like beef hamburgers at all but will eat 2 beaver burgers in a sitting. Haven't got sick or any adverse effects from eating it.

I've always it eat it but never got sick, I have heard the story about the trappers in Idaho I had forgot about that!
Colt

we like the loins.

I have mix grounded beaver with high fat grounded beef.1/2 and 1/2 and you would find it is better then one think.Have use it to make meat ball for a family reunion and all the ones that ate it came back for more.Since beaver is so lean and the fat from the low grade beef make up for it and you do not have hardly any fat left. I also use the beaver for lunch meat also.

The primary risk I'm aware of is giardia, AKA beaver fever. As long as you cooked the meat well there's no worries.