# Insite into FUR



## patrick grumley (Mar 9, 2007)

There seems to a lot of questions on the quality of fur and when to harvest. Hopefully this thread will answer some of your questions. 
There are many factors that relate to the quality fur. The first and most important is day light hours, as the days become shorter animals begin to grow there winter coats. 
Raccoons are good example to use, unprime **** leather has a blue or slate appearance. This is do to winter coat still being lock up in the leather, as they prime the leather will turn to a cream color. This is main reason that the standard is to finish ***** fur in, most furbearer leather goes through this transition. 
Canines and Cats are finished fur out because buyers can gage primeness and color by viewing the hide, before processors were up toning color into fur, buyers were much more critical of color. Today it's more about quality and size than color. Cats are all about clean clear spots on the belly, the more spots the more the hide will be worth.

If you are harvesting fur for the market you'll want to wait until the fur is prime. The times listed here are for the best possible fur, a little before or a little after should not hurt the fur that much. Remember these are generalization and may differ in your area.
*Canines*-mid October through mid January 
*Cats*- mid December through January
*Mink, Otter*- November through mid December
*Muskrat*- November through February
*Beaver*- late December through March
*Raccoons*-late October through mid December

Fur quality for land mammals deteriorates as winter presses on, if you could think of fur as a new pair of shoes it makes it easy to understand. New shoes are just that NEW, but as you wear them they get abused and lose the look they had when you first bought them. Fur does the same thing, as the animals go about there normal activities they abuse the fur and it gets damaged. Mink and Otter get a condition called singling, Beaver and Muskrats end up with bite marks on them, Canines and ***** will become rubbed as winter presses on. Damaged skins have market value but at a discounted rate. So when you sell your skins and you only get half of what you heard the price is for that hide, ask and I'm sure you'll find you harvested an unprime animal.


----------



## smitty223 (Mar 31, 2006)

Good post Patrick :beer: Though some of it is somewhat "regional", as is the quality (and therefore value) of fur. Generally speaking northern regions have better quality fur than southern.

Smitty


----------



## patrick grumley (Mar 9, 2007)

Smitty, I understand it's regional. Could you imagine how long the post would be if I covered the lower 48, besides I only am familiar with the northern states. With all the young people posting in the furbearer threads I figured it would be good information for them.

To clarify: all seasons listed for harvesting above mentioned animals are for northern tier states.


----------



## Fallguy (Jan 23, 2004)

Thanks Patrick for a great, informational post!


----------



## smitty223 (Mar 31, 2006)

patrick grumley said:


> Smitty, I understand it's regional. Could you imagine how long the post would be if I covered the lower 48, besides I only am familiar with the northern states.


I'm aware you knew, my reply was more for the benefit of those who didn't.

Smitty


----------



## lladnarc (Feb 17, 2008)

patrick grumley said:


> There seems to a lot of questions on the quality of fur and when to harvest. Hopefully this thread will answer some of your questions.
> There are many factors that relate to the quality fur. The first and most important is day light hours, as the days become shorter animals begin to grow there winter coats.
> Raccoons are good example to use, unprime **** leather has a blue or slate appearance. This is do to winter coat still being lock up in the leather, as they prime the leather will turn to a cream color. This is main reason that the standard is to finish ***** fur in, most furbearer leather goes through this transition.
> Canines and Cats are finished fur out because buyers can gage primeness and color by viewing the hide, before processors were up toning color into fur, buyers were much more critical of color. Today it's more about quality and size than color. Cats are all about clean clear spots on the belly, the more spots the more the hide will be worth.
> ...


 The thing I would add to this is our northern **** a born so late in the year,that come Oct. the young **** are not prime until mid Nov.or later.


----------

