I know there is gonna be a large variation in pricing, but on your typical fur bearer removal, what do you guys charge? I'm just curious, adc work has always peaked my interest. Thanks for any estimates.

Okay, lets use raccoon, $150 for the service call, set-up, trip charge, whatever you want to call it, and $50 for each one caught.

Now that comes to $200 apiece if there is only one and $65 apiece if you have 10. You see what I'm getting at? I would have a hard

time figuring a flat rate that would not be so expensive that I didn't get the job, but still guaranteed me the profit that I needed.

These figures do not take into consideration the distance to the job either. If it's the farthest distance that your business covers,

there certainly needs to be a bump in price. Giving prices for Miller County Mo. would be a crap shoot. I have no idea what the

average income is or what the competition charges. That you will have to find yourself.

I understand Paul, I knew this was a very hard question to answer, I wasn't really sure how to ask. In my area, most people will dispose of the issue themselves, do most ADC trappers rely on helping city folk? Or do you get a lot of rural calls? Also, by trip charge do you mean so much per mile? Here gas is $2.50, and average income is 40k per year, I honestly can't say that I have ever heard of anyone doing ADC in my area or neighboring counties

Start with Paul's numbers, and if you are selling every job, bump up the price until you sell about 60-70%. Work smarter, not harder. Even if you sell 50% of the calls, at twice Paul's prices. Same income, less work.

I think you got the picture when you asked, "do most ADC trappers rely on helping city folk?" We use to live above a really nice

public hunting ground that was 1/2 hour from where we live now. That's one hour round trip and we worked almost every day. We moved

here over 15 years ago. Let's take 350 days a year X 60 miles a day = 21,000 miles X 57 cents per mile = $11,970 X 15 years =$179,550.

So over the last 15 years I saved about $180,000 by moving where we live now. This became even more clear to me when I realized that

the two houses across the street and the two houses on either side of our house are all customers. We have probably had more than 100

customers within a one mile radius of our home/business over the last 15 years. Location, location, location!

P.S. I can't remember what happened to the 180 grand but I hope I spent it on wine, women, and song.

Paul, was it in that order?

Osage Beach, near Lake of the Ozarks should have a lot of reasonably well to do weekenders that won't want to deal with problem animals, so you should do OK there, but any distance away and they will likely take care of it themselves.

Jeff, of course! When wine, women, and song, start getting you down; you can always stop singing!

Rural folk arent much for customers as a rule. Its funny, every hillbilly here with a gun thinks he has his problems solve, but most rarely actually get a shot off. Not every one wants to stay up all night three nights in a row to shoot a possum.

It's not something I am seriously considering, I am just curious more than anything. Thanks for all the help.

I spent most of mine on wine, women and song and just wasted the rest.

Almost all of my work is "Cabin people"(and townships) I find about half of the Cabin people balk at my mileage charges more then my set up/inspection charge. However after they and their neighbor "who knows how to do this stuff" don't get the job done they eventually call me back to handle the problem Beaver/Racoon/Muskrat etc...

I wonder if it is something I want to bother with as a side job, then I think I don't want to lose my free time either...

Bobcat:
It is something that most ADC people like doing. Yes, it is a job, but most of use enjoy doing it. I do not do it full time because I am retired. But when it stops being fun, I am done. I should say, I answer all calls year around but I do not have a web site, name in the phone book. I put an add in the paper in the spring. But that is it. This allows me to be flexible.

I've been so close to adding my information to the "Need a trapper?" section of our local association, but I thought "Do I really wanna do this for free? The answer was a resounding "no". So I wanted to come here, get some ideas of what I was getting myself into. I like the idea of overpricing myself, that way, it won't take up all my free time, but when it does it will be well worth it. At the moment, I am in the middle of a move, plus building a house, so I won't put my name out there now, just something I have been pondering.

I have another question for you ADC guys. Let's say you get called on a job, but your confidence of a catch is low, how do you handle that? Example, in my area, everyone who has a pond has an otter (in their mind) even when I find otter sign, it's usually very old, and I have never caught an otter in my life out of a pond. So what would you do here? My fear is taking jobs and charging high set up fees but not delivering on the critters, seems to me this would be a quick way to get a bad name.

I just secured a beaver client today and at the end of the conversation he kind of sheepishly admitted he was surprised my prices weren't higher given how hard a work it is. LESSON LEARNED! Don't forget to include mileage if you think you might travel!

Low confidence of catch jobs are great ones to pass. Maybe, someone else will have a higher confidence of catch.

Thanks Dave.

Find someone that you can recommend for those type jobs. In return maybe that person will refer you for work also