pelts

I'm sure there is a market though it's probably small.

Most products that demand fur and leather get their material from farms.

Martens, minks and chinchilla are all farm bred anymore.

If you want to sell like coyote, deer or fox fur you may want to try your hand at local specialty shows. The only time I see full pelts are at Pow wows, renaissance fairs and what have you. I've seen vendors trying to sell full deer pelts (minus head/face) for $250 and coyote face leather for $30. I don't know if they sold though.

Bobcat is through the roof, 500 being the average I have heard lately. One big one was sold for 1100 by a guy I know. Coyotes are 30-60 lately.

check Hardings magazine "fur,fish and game" they always posted fur prices when I was trapping. but my local buyers write the check.
there is a market last I heard coon were up to twenty for prime.
but don't quote me on that.

Depends alot on size, prime, condition, and location taken.
Good quality fur is selling for a pretty darn good price, as it was last year.
Witchhunters bobcat prices are accurate for my area, High end coyote and fox can top $100, average grades $40 to $70. Good coon to $20 as stated is also spot on.
I did hear it might be slowing a bit, I will find out when I take mine in.

taliv said:

$500 for bobcat?? wow

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I know of several that reached $1100 last year.

We have quite a few bobcats in Fla. but the warm temps don't make for good fur.

trapperman.com has some good information. THR poster JimmyRayThompson probably has some good info for pelts in the Southeast.

Looks like prices are on the way up again, then. I quit trapping coyotes when prices fell and wasn't worth my time. If I can get 50 bucks for a good one now, I may have to put a line out again.

Furs can be valuable, if they are prime and handled properly. To get top dollar, they need to be prime, skinned, fleshed, dried and stretched to the proper dimensions. Bullet damaged pelts have little to no value, which is why most furbearers are trapped. Animals from different parts of the country have different values also, southern Raccoons for example are only worth 1/3 to 1/2 of a thicker furred, larger northern coon. trapperman.com and predatormasters.com have a lot of info if you are interested in taking some fur.

Raw furs are strong this year. International buyers are driving up prices. Russians and Chinese consumers love American furs and have the money to buy them. I expect a good season.

Fur prices and demand are up this year. I heard folks are gettin' $20 a piece for muskrat and even coyote is worth bring home.

I'm not sure on the prices here, but there is an old feller with a beat up john boat that has over 1500 traps on the Tennessee River around Guntersville. He focuses on beaver and muskrat. He must do alright because he is out there every day, rain or shine, checking his traps and setting them. We have no shortage of Muskrat or Beaver around here.

Does anyone know a good tanning recipe for multiable pelts I would like to soft tan them!? Kirklandk

THR poster JimmyRayThompson probably has some good info for pelts in the Southeast.

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I shipped 61 pelts to North American Fur Auctions (NAFA) which shipped them to Canada. I sent 22 beaver, 12 muskrat, 16 coon and 12 otter. Only 21 pelts sold at the May auction. The remainder have been held over until the September auction. Most of my pelts graded Superior. I sold all 12 muskrats at an average of $11 ea. I sold one otter for $64 (it was xxlrge) the rest graded Superior DK (dark) went unsold. Bobcat and red fox are selling well as are muskrats. Coyote are fair as are grey fox but mink are about $10 for males and $5 for females.

The NAFA September auction concluded on Saturday. Wild fur did poorly overall but red fox, coyote and muskrat (trim fur) did fairly well. Otter and other short haired fur, which brought a premium last year, were way down. Of the 41 pelts I offered(held over from the May auction) only 19 sold. Out of 11 otter only 2 sold @$41.50 ea. This was not a good year unless you had a lot of bobcat (AKA lynx cat) or muskrats to sell. A warm winter in China and a flood of ranch mink was given as the reason for the dip in prices.

NAFA auction conclusion (from NAFA's homepage.)"NAFA CONCLUDES WILD FUR SALE

September 6, 2014

NAFA concluded its wild fur sale today with clearances much higher than expected. Fresh offerings of Coyote, Muskrat and Lynx Cat sold 100%, but more importantly, we offered all of the unsold skins from our May sale and were able to clear out large quantities throughout.

Wild Mink sold 100%, as did Fisher, Sable, Lynx and Red Fox. 350,000 Raccoon were sold in this sale under strong competition, with China and Russia dominating. We have now sold over one million Raccoon this season, which is a Company record.

65,000 trapper owned Beaver were offered, of which over 50,000 were sold. In most articles we now have very small quantities left and are going into the new season with most articles completely sold and the remainder with low inventories.

Overall, the result of this wild fur sale can only be described as better than expected and hopefully the wild fur market has now turned for the better."

NAFA's outlook for 2015.

NAFA's outlook for 2015. "Given normal weather conditions, we expect similar results next season, with good demand and clearances for long haired trimming articles, while shorter haired varieties and flatter sections may not perform as well. Low grades, damaged, early and late caught pelts will have little or no commercial value, and will be nearly impossible to sell. It will not be worth our producers’ time and effort to process and ship this type of merchandise and our shippers would be well advised to be selective in their hunting and trapping this coming season. In a market such as this, any inferior quality skin will be substantially discounted by the international trade simply because the cost of dressing and handling a lower grade or inferior pelt exceeds the value of the pelt and therefore is not worth it for them to buy, nor for you to ship."

We have a very good market for them out here in Arizona. My Wife and one of my son's trap. And some friends of our's we have will hunt them with firearms, bob cats, skunks, coyotes, fox, and a few others. They flesh them, and do what ever must be done, then freeze then until the buyers are in town, which I think is twice per year, from what I remember.

I don't know much about what price they fetch, but it's definitely worth the trouble. A couple of the friends we know got in excess of 18K for about 6 months of work. I just ask my wife and she said bob cats go for $300 and up, coyotes and fox about $35, just to give you some idea.

GS

and she said bob cats go for $300 and up

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Western bobcats are very much in demand right now with some exceptional individuals fetching $1,000. These are heavily spotted cats specific to that area of the country and cats from other parts of the country don't come anywhere close to those figures. Cats from my area didn't reach $100this year.

Right you are Jimmyraythomason, a good cat that has the characteristics most appreciated by the buyers can go for as much as $3K, but the average seems to be around $500 - $1K.

I should have gotten into the trapping business years ago when my health was good.

GS

I should have gotten into the trapping business years ago when my health was good.

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I hear ya! I ran a line last season (on foot)from November 9th till February 28th and didn't miss a day. I had 2 bypasses that were completely clogged and the original blockages that had been bypassed were 99% and 99.9% blocked. I now have 3 stents and plan (key word) on hitting the line everyday GOD permitting.

NAFA Fur Auction Results – February 2014

http://trappingtoday.com/nafa-fur-auction-results-february-2014/

WWW.NAFA.CA/ will get you the auction data for the last few years.
The Nafa auction on 5-20-2014 for western bobcat (lynx cat in nafa lingo)
showed an average price of 323.07 . ( a 28% decline from 2013 )
The Nafa auction on 6-3-2013 for western bobcat (lynx cat not to be confused with lynx) showed an average price of 450.97


The top lot for 2014 was 2,150.00 and the top lot for 2013 was 1,550.00 .

Since the buyer of the top lot gets used in NAFA's worldwide marketing campaign, there is much incentive to bid up the best lot.

But the top lot certainly isn't the best indicator of where the market is at.