When you say "civit Cat" musk...do you mean a civit cat, which is a spotted skunk...or, do you mean an African Civit which is where real "civit" musk comes from? I used to have an African civit amd this is what they collect the musk from. It comes from a gland beneath the tail and is used to scent mark their territories. A civit cat or spotted skunk, well, I've used that too but that is just skunk essence, slightly different from the stripped variety but skunk essence just the same. Each does a different thing to a lure but all will attract furbearers, which is what you asking , I guess.

If I can remember, Carmen used 1/4 of an oz. to 4 oz of fish juice. I believe it was a tincture of civet. So it could be anything, as far as smell and power, first run, second run. ?? But that was long ago, but I believe that is correct. Hope this helps. LM.

LT I believe it was African Civet musk as it wasn't skunky..heck I don't know label was worn...you know the deal. Smell was NOT skunky.

The African variety that I use is called Ethiopian Civet Musk. It isn't the skunk relative, but a different critter with a much different smell. This stuff smells like burnt axle grease.

This civet musk for many years has come from China. From what I hear, all the civets were killed when the SARS outbreak occurred. I was also told there is no more new batches of civet musk available, and its not known if it ever will be again. I have heard of some pre-SARS stuff that is available, but awfully expensive. When it was readily available it ran about $90. per ounce.

I was offered some awhile back, but the minimum order was 10 kilos and I wasn't rich enough to purchase it - lol.

I do use it and like it in a couple of my formulations.

I believe the Ethiopian Civet Musk was boycotted by this country for inhumane practices many years ago. The musk come from Ethiopia as the name suggests and it was collected in what was considered an inhumane manner. The musk is a very thick substance that oozes out of the animal when it is mad or excited. The natives would whip the civets and make them ooze the musk which was scraped of the animals rear with a stick and put in a jar. When available it was top quality musk for formulation in canine lures. My Dad was the first to use both Ethiopian Civet and Tonquin in lure formulation. It was introduced to my Dad my the legendary Walter Arnold who at one time had worked briefly for a Boston importer of fine expensive. perfume ingredients. It became rare in pure form many years ago but one was able for many years to get a quality part genuine and part synthetic version called Civette. Civette has nothing in common odorwise with the cheap imitation civet musk sold by most perfume suppliers today. Ace

So those of us wanting to learn more about lure formulations starting now and moving forward I guess have no choice but to find something new since all of the old time favorites are no longer available to anyone anywhere.

depends on what is called new i would think, there is a bunch of synthetic materials invented and tested by the government in the 70s and 80s, probly some even newer, they range from synthetic urine, to fake calf crap to rotten meat oodor to undigested stomach contents to synthetic fermented eggs, my guess is another bunch has been invented that is not even talked about lately, some lure makers swear these synthetic additives are no good or have no value, but others use them a great deal, synthetic fermented egg for example is cussed out loud by some makers and herelded as a major attractor in formulation by others, another thing is how mamny even common ingredients are unknown to most trappers, if what the lure makers tell us is true then there would only be about 4 different lures available, cuz there is only so much can be done with the common ingredients, for example how many have heard of synthetic or artificial mole musk?? nick whshinski knows about it in fact he had it for sale not to many years ago in the trapper predator magazine, so how many others are out there we dont hear about?? lure makers hold thgeir formulas so secret its amazin but then laughand say there is only a few ingredients known to man still used today, thats laughable, they stick their foot right in their own mouth by admitting their lure is either very simple and common, or they lied about ingredients and their lure is very complex and unknown, ill just pick on ole bogmaster for a moment, not that he disusses such things, he once told me he would not take 20 thousand dollors for either one of his beaver formulas, but how complicated could such a formula be, now either it is pretty complicated or he qwould not think it worth 20 grand or more.

lol possum, I use a long list of ingredients in my lures. Way more than four or five. Heck, I have one lure that has 9 ingredients in it. I know Asa also believes in using multiple ingredients.

I just ran through a quick list in my head and I use well over 30 different musks, glands and essential oils. This doesn't include glycerine, propylene glycol, sodium benzoate, etc.

I would be hard pressed to limit myself to four or five ingredients.

With over 4ooo catagerized ingredients, a good chemist can pick apart and match an products DNA right down to the gram. Don't let any lure maker tell you with todays science that it can not be done! For that kind of money, I could have you a list of any lure makers entire lure line. I work with the best chemist at P&G....Don't tell me it can't be done because I'll prove somebody wrong!
As far as African or Ethiopian Civits, they are raised right here in the United States as exotic pets...don't ask me why because the one I bought was so mean they weren't even sure of the sex. You just have to know where and how to look! Mine was a female and had 3 vents, one of course was it's musk gland. I have some musk I collected by running it in a very narrow cage, so narrow that it could not turn around. A door was then opened at the back of this cage and the tail was then lifted and I scraped the musk with a spoon. I can tell you that you would not have whipped this one as it would have eaten you alive! No, I do not have any for sale.

paul, i really did not say 4 different ingredients, i said 4 different lures with the ingredients supposed to be available,with the 3o ingredients off the top of your head that would leave only so many used per lure and only so many true varations, i think my point was there is more ingredients used than just the ones in lets say your catalog, or lure makers lures would all smell so much the same that the animals would burn out on many of them in only a few seasons, just for example awhile back several people were talking about muscaro, sweet musk, from what was said one luremaker may use the same formulation as another but yet another will use a different one, so even muscaro or sweet musk can have vareations the common trapper would not know of as he would assume muscaro was muscaro,civet musk and tonquin is another example as person after person will tell you it is unavailable due to a law passed against it but lure makers always are usin it, so it must be available from some where as you already said you were offered a large amount, a western luremaker stated in his catalog he had just purchshed some of the genuwine and what he had paid for it as the reason for his lures going up in price, now i do not think you or this other fellow ar telling lies, so, there must be a source for at least these two ingredients in the real or near real form , yet it is common knowledge to average trappers that no, it has not been available for many years.