Python Farming Could Provide The Most Sustainable Meat Yet
Farmed pythons could provide people with a highly sustainable meat that could help prop up global food security. Are snakes a better protein for the planet?
A young Burmese Python, Python bivittatus, in Homestead, Florida. (Credit: Charles Ommanney)
An international team of researchers conducted a 12-month study at two commercial python farms in Southeast Asia and found that the snakes are remarkably efficient at converting food into weight gain compared to more traditional livestock such as chickens, pigs and cattle. Further, farmed pythons grow rapidly, even when they are inconsistently fed.
“In terms of food and protein conversion ratios, pythons outperform all mainstream agricultural species studied to date,” the study’s lead author, reptile biologist Daniel Natusch, who is an Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Natural Sciences at Macquarie University, said in a statement.
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