Pizzles go limp as Chinese turn off

New Zealand's deer pizzle trade is facing its stiffest test - the growing use of a Viagra substitute by Chinese men.

About 200,000 of the deer penises, complete with testicles, are sold to China each year.

"For a long time men believed that the larger the pizzle, the stronger their own would be," said Murray Hamer, Oriental trade manager for the Wanaka-based Alpine Deer Group. Now the market, mainly in northern China, is gradually declining.

"The belief in the sexual vigour of pizzles is slowly dying out. Modern Chinese men believe they don't work. They have turned to the Chinese version of Viagra and are getting results."

Frozen pizzles from New Zealand are dried in China and sold in four grades - under 10 inches (25.5 cm), 10 to 12 inches, 12 to 14 inches and over 14 inches. Colour, length, circumference and weight are all important. In some cases they can be as long as 20 inches, but most are around 12 to 14 with a circumference of a 50c piece.

Mr Hamer, who has dealt in deer co-products for 34 years, said it was important to leave a ring of hair around the pizzle's foreskin to prove it was from a deer. Sometimes unscrupulous Chinese traders substituted sheep testicles for the deer's because they were twice as big and the extra weight made them worth more.

The pizzles were generally served in a soup, after being boiled for hours with herbs. Sometimes, a three-pizzle soup was made, from deer, snakes and seals, and served in slices. They could also be found whole in alcoholic drinks, similar to the mesquite worm in tequila.

Mr Hamer said he had tried pizzle soup, "but it was simply awful".

- NZPA