I didn't want to hijack the thread about coon priming, so I thought I'd type this all out here. Light wavelength has a whole lot to do with priming. It's a huge factor in plant lifecycles as well. In the summer we get more blue wavelength light, in the winter we get more red wavelength light. It determines when plants vegetate vs bloom. You can manipulate plants (legal or otherwise) when growing indoors by playing with light wavelength and daylight time. I used to do it with pepper plants. Marijuana growers are concerned with growing big plants fast, you can learn all you want to know about growing anything indoors from marijuana growers. When they want their plants to grow and vegetate, they'll put them under a blue light on a 16hr on/8 hr off light schedule, something in the 5000-10000k range, typically a metal halide light. This will allow the plant to get big and leafy. When it's time to make flowers, they'll switch to a red/yellow light on a 12 on/12 off light schedule, something in the 1000-4000K range, typically a high pressure sodium light. This causes the plants to bloom and make flowers. I used to do the same thing with pepper plants to keep them over the winter. I'd cut them way back and stick them in the basement under a couple 5000K "daylight" fluorescent bulbs, and they'd grow all winter long without making peppers. As soon as I switched to 3500K "warm white" bulbs on a 12/12 schedule, they'd start making peppers. I was essentially tricking them into thinking that winter was coming, and they needed to make peppers, in order to make seeds and reproduce. Animals respond much the same way. It's not just the temperature, or hours of daylight, but the changing wavelength of light they receive that tells them winter is approaching.

Wow, you put some thought into this. I love people that provide an opportunity for education. Best I can do is a truck traveling at 35 mph is about 51 feet per second: I think: kinda like 12.2 usec is a radar mile; So the real question is if I take a harvested coon and put him under a red light over night will he be primer in the morning or the skinned hide? Thanks for the in sight.

So is this an experiment to catch early coon, hold them alive in pens and fire up the hps?

i remember guys live trapping early coon when they were worth money and trying to hold them until prime. but they never turned prime. they did fight alot though

Why does everyone believe there is an external factor causing fur primeness. Wouldn't evolution be a better reason? Animals have adapted through evolution to have the best fur during the time that is most beneficial to where they live. Thus since their fur is fully developed thier skin would also show a similar behavior.

I have read a muskrat study where the primeness of the hide was said to be best when the fur was fully developed because the blue color in The skin comes from the undeveloped hair folicals.
I personally would theorize that some of the blue color may also come from blood in the skin. My thinking is that cold/cooler conditions cause the blood vessels in the skin to constrict keeping blood deeper in the body and conserving heat. Thus less blood flowing into the skin leads to a whiter color.

I believe the ultimate test would be to take an animal from somewhere in its northern habitable range and transplant it into a similar environment at the same distance relative to the equator in the southern hemisphere. If external events are what triggeer primeness, the animal should prime approximately 180 days apart from other animals from where the original animal lived.

mutt evolution is why the light triggers them to get prime to prepare for winter. It's not random. In other words, (micro)evolution has programmed critters to respond to external stimuli to prepare for winter. That was the whole point of my OP. It's easy to demonstrate that plants respond to winter-like light conditions due to what (micro)evolution has taught them. Plants that could respond to changing light survived and passed that on, plants that couldn't died. It's easy enough to correlate that to animals. It's certainly evolution that has taught critters to prime, the debate is what stimuli causes them to prime. I believe it's light time and wavelength, as demonstrated by my plant example, and also other stimuli possibly, which we don't even understand. Animals likely have senses we don't (think of geese flying north, and monarchs and salmon returning to their place of birth) and use them to help them survive.

Thanks for posting this loosegoose. I assumed this was going to be the response to my post when I hijacked the thread you didn't want to. I imagine in a week's time I will be hearing about it is the amount of daylight again, but we can cross that bridge when we get there. If I can poke any holes in this theory, I'll get back to you .

Sounds good TrapperTone:) I find it fascinating how nature is so in tune with itself, how everything works in harmony.

No I understand what your saying. I'm arguing that there is not a trigger.

First I don't believe you can corralate those changes in plants based on wave lengths of light directly to animals.

If your theory were correct why wouldn't the mink ranchers developed a system of developing animals under artificial light and bringing them to primness throughout the year in batches rather than waiting to do it all at once? I would think business would be much less volatile for them if they could continuously supply a constant number of prime pelts rather than a mass number all at once.

Second if primness is the best when an animals fur is fully developed, you have to look at why an animal would need its fur fully developed when it is. Why does a raccoon need a fully developed coat of fur from say mid Nov through Jan, but after Jan it starts to decline? Well most of the food a raccoon relies on diminishes drastically beginning in Nov. So to conserve energy evolution has made raccoons fur be fully developed when its food source is lowest, thus they can take in less calories and also need less to stay warm because thier fur is helping insulate them. They loose prime sooner than say a coyote because raccoons have a trait where they den up during Jan and Feb. Denning is somewhat related to hibernating in the fact that the coon is expelling very little energy/ reducing the blood flow to the outer layers of its body, because why pump extra blood to areas that don't need any more than the minimum amount of energy. So raccoons stay warm enough without the need to maintain a fully developed coat of fur. While coyotes stay prime a little longer because they endure the full force of thier environment throughout the year.

Actually Mutt, growers have done exactly as you postulate. There have been many experiments that show beyond any doubt that it is photoperiod that triggers the priming process, and reverses it as days start to grow longer again. There really isn't a scientific question about it.

Evolution has indeed created specialization among species in different environments. A Montana coyote has better hair than a Mississippi coyote simply because he needs it. But the external factor that triggers that hair growth is daylight. You can't take a MS coyote to Montana and expect him to grow Montana hair because he doesn't have the DNA for it. BUT........he will prime as best he can based on the available daylight wherever he is located.

On the subject of blue hide you are very close. As the priming process proceeds, the hair follicles become more deeply/firmly embedded in the skin. Eventually, the follicle is no longer visible, thus giving the critter a white skin rather than blue.

Spot on White. Cloudy days won't make a difference either. YOYs prime later than adults of the same species also.

Correct. Because their endocrine system is not fully developed at that time

Always educational info....thank you.


See you on the surface ....

I'm truly amazed at how many people think that temperature has anything to do with the priming of fur, in this day and age of information about trapping !!

Even more amazed at how this process is so hard to accept to people, like it's never ever been figured out.

Always interesting to see how the process is going to be interpreted each year !

Here, here, Grit Guy !

Hopefully, the ones who want to, will learn , every time.

Enjoy the beauty of the season !

Peter possum patiently waited in the poinsettias for his pelt to prime.

Worst case of photoperiodism I've EVER seen.

Fur farmers keep there critters under cover from whelping to skinning.
When we had fur farm fox they never saw the light of day.

Hard to do that with coon.