Raising hippos for meat

Strange as it may sound, raising hippos for meat was something actually considered. There was once a plan to introduce hippos in Mississippi with the purpose of breeding them for their meat. It was called “The Hippo Act”.

Although they may look fat, they actually have huge muscles hidden by a thick layer of adipose tissue. Because of that, hippos could probably make good eating but would be terrible livestock animals.

Apart from being massive and extremely deadly, since they are responsible for more human deaths than almost any other animal, there is a further issue.

The real obstacle would be the long lifecycles of the animal. Which is also the reason why elephants are not bred on large scale, but caught as cubs in the wild and tamed later.

Hippos have a lifespan of up to 60 years, and a female hippo gets pregnant every other year, giving birth to just one calf after a gestation that takes more than a year.

This means that it would take very long to breed them, and that they would have to be fed with great amounts of food in the meantime. And that food can’t be regular grass, either.

Even if a single hippo was worth a couple or more cows’ weight of meat, common livestock animals are simply a faster, cheaper, and more convenient option than hippos would ever be.