Density in fur is genetics, health and diet, though the latitude in which the animal lives has a lot of bearing on it as well !

Look at a prime chart as each furbearer is NOT the same, badgers are way at the end of the scale each critter has it's own "range of prime" not all are the same or do they just start on a certain date if that were true we would have a date to go by then you would think!

Found this as a example~

In 1987 I set some fox traps on my line near North Pole, AK. It was opening day of trapping season, which was somewhere around the first or tenth of November. I don't recall. Anyway, Halloween night it got down to 10 and up to 20 degrees. On the 1st of November, it got down to 4 and up to 25 degrees. I caught a cross fox that first night and it was as blue as blue could be. I was amazed that it could be that blue when it was that cold. Dad then told me that it was the amount of daylight that was the most governing factor in fur priming.

Here's that fox.

Me and Abby took a shower tonight and when wet her skin was very white she has a thick pelt now but she was losing some short hairs not sure if that was shedding or not she lost her longer fur about 4-5 weeks ago.

Before shower.

The first thing to grow out in the priming cycle is the guard hair which again can fool you into thinking the fur is ready. It takes time for the underfur to fill in.

Don't go by the open seasons in most locations, government react to less and less trappers by opening the seasons early and early to suck trappers into free wildlife control work. In my home province of Ontario our season now starts Oct. 5th and runs to the end April and in some areas till the middle of May.
Its the trapper who gets screwed catching easy beaver in open water that nobody in the fur business wants or needs. Society gains by the dumb (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) trapper removing problem beaver for free.

Again only a small window of prime fur.

Are primes fur for the yr coincides with are shortest days witch here is around 10.5 too 11 hrs. That's looking at daylight charts and notes on when I've caught the prime of the prime, it's a short window for sure but like lawdog said different critters prime different times,so there's someing to target most all season. That is most not all. I'm a believer that it's day length not temp that primes fur. It changes leaves, makes Turkey's breed,song birds fly north or south, day length and moon phase does more than most people realize. Some times it stays in the 70s till Christmas here but you still catch white leather thick furred coon and mink, and no matter how cold it get in late Jan and Feb my fur is going the other way. That's wy when the question is ask when is your coon the primest ever body's answer dates are on either side of the winter solstice "shortest day of the yr" from Manie to Gorgia. I may be wrong but it's the only pattern I've been able to see!
Colt

DEc 21 shortest day of the year. Sunrise here in NY 7;17 Am Alabama 6 ;42 Am Sunset NY 4 ;32 pm Alabama 4 ;44 pm . there is a difference but not all that much in the length of daylight but there sure is a difference in the fur quality between NY and Alabama

The coon in central Pa are not white leather prime until Thanksgiving. Fox are second week of Dec.
The only way prolonged cold will would change the time fur primes, is if the cold was experienced under constant cloud cover. The way the ranches do it.
Photoperiodisam and Bergamens rule are the two ruling factors on fur prime. All other variables are minor changes in the time fur primes. Say a week or so one way or the other. Just my experience

You can put fans on show cattle to make there hair grow longer "for fitting" but it don't make um prime.
Cold may make the quality of prime fur better and clearly does. But from what I've seen it does not bring on prime.
Colt

x2 on daylight. That coon that is put up doesn't look to bad.

A 25 lb male coon will be white leathered 3rd week of October, fur will not be finished. I had an old time fur buyer tell me a cold rainy period would help finish coon. Maybe this year we will get a foot of snow the 15th of Nov. that will make people glad they waited.

Everything in nature is controlled by the shortening of the daylight hour. From the beaver building his feed bed to the does coming into estrus, this will all happen no matter how warm or cold it is.

This is exactly the type of example I was looking for.

That's just a baby!! LOL

Ditto, Ditto length of day for breeding and fur priming also genetics and food. I have read a study cant remember where but they took a weasel mid summer and started to adjust the light going into the pen. It turned white just like winter had affected the change. Im sure some of the fur ranchers could chime in on this subject as far as primness but I doubt they pelt any fox or mink in October.

Bergmann's rule explains why we have different sections of the same animal. Animals,the further north you go are larger in size due to the cold and the need for larger body masses to cope with the colder weather. A good example are raccoon. the further north you go in their range the bigger the raccoon.

A raccoon in Florida, does not grow to the size of a raccoon in Wisconsin, neither does it need the same amount of fur density/quality that the larger Wisconsin raccoon would need to survive the winter.

Wolves are another good example on average the largest wolves are the Arctic type, the smallest are the eastern type wolves.

True, Steven.
For some reason my mind computed ND Native with South Dakota. Dumb.

Another good point Rat Masterson....Plenty of seasons, there is very limited late Nov....or even mid Nov coon trapping here.

However, in todays fur world, lets try not to get a bunch of crap coon fur into the pipeline. It doesn't do us any good.

I remember years past, when we didn't have a coon season, Some local screwball went out and trapped a ton of coon in Sept. Sometimes we trappers are great at shooting ourselves in both feet.

Even in last years market, and cold, I took a measly few dozen coon for fun in mid November. They were very NICE....and actually paid. I might not do that every year if I didn't have rats to deal with, but it was worth the wait...and all those coon sold well. Just an observation.

You have to consider that the chart Law Dog posted does NOT indicate what area of the country it pertains to.

Prime can actually mean two things to most who are familiar with the term.

Prime fur is denoted as full under fur, guard hairs all not harmed. No rubs, freeze downs or slips from bites or wounds.

Prime pelt is usually denoted as no blue showing on the flesh side of the leather, meaning all fur growth has been finished. Your short window is now in session, as it goes the other way the fur loosen's up for shedding and off it comes, again activated by light time amount.

So we should be careful when talking about prime in the course of description to it's use, it can get confusing pretty fast for those trying to understand the context in which it's used.

To me, logic would say number of hours of daylight is the primary factor and that temperature has a secondary effect on priming. Water cools more slowly than air and would theoretically slightly delay priming of water animals. Dirt cools more slowly than water and would help explain the very late priming of badger. The New York chart posted above does not support that theory.