I was thinking of buying stretchers for fur and I was wondering if there is even much of a price difference for it to be worth a hundred or few hundred bucks on stretchers. I sell to a local buyer and don’t go auctions. Should I try to sell at auctions?

There are thousands of trappers who wished they sold to a local buyer rather than having sold to NAFA.

Keith

At my local buyer I got 2bucks a rat and 1something or 2something a rubbed coon... is that good? (I’m pretty new to trapping and don’t know the “good” prices for fur)

I made a ton of money over the years selling to NAFA. I would have never made that kind of money with a local buyer. I'm sorry to see them gone.
The fur market Is In the crapper no matter where you sell your furs.

To put up/stretch your fur you'll need a beam and fleshing knife plus multiple small items (pins, hangers, etc) plus hanging room above and beyond stretchers. In this market, if you have the money it's a good time to learn how to do it. Few of each stretcher plus the small items as money permits through out the season.

I have some money that I set aside for trapping/fishing/hunting/camping stuff like for the outdoors and I was thinking of just buying what need with it and then the left over money I’ll buy stretchers with

Part of that decision depends on you. How old are you? Girlfriend? What do you do at the end of the day? Finishing fur requires time and dedication, and forcing yourself to do it even if you're tired and don't feel like it. There is pride in seeing your finished fur, but it doesn't necessarily make you more money.

As far as stretchers go, you should start small. Looking into different brands. Wood versus wire. Talk to your local buyer and see what he recommends. Check out stretchers and other items at your state convention.

The mistake new trappers make is that they jump in with both feet, spend a lot of money on supplies and then don’t like what they bought and are stuck with it. Start small.

You do not stipulate what you are catching. Almost 100% of the rats trapped are stretched on wire stretchers. Mink were wood, but they are worthless. I personally use wire for almost everything, but if you are really new to this, you have to mostly dry fur side out fur with the fur inside first, or it will stick to the boards or wire and it will be a disaster.

I have sold to both local and national buyers. With local you have to dicker a little to get what you think you want. I will also tell you that my first fox was sold to a local buyer in West Central Minnesota. He lied to me and told me it was a sammy fox (sammy have no hair and look like a cotton ball). I was just starting trapping and as a young kid that really ruined things of a great memory in that horrid cheat. Unless it is NAFA problems in Canada of selling out to fur farms to cheat you, you are not going to be cheated on fur like I was as a kid. The big fur houses grade closer and in more categories. If you do a bad job on furs, you are going to get graded.
You might also find out that you dislike fleshing coons as I do, so you may just skin them, freeze them, let them thaw and then take them to a local buyer for a sale.

Sit down and decide how much work you want and what is work to you, as some people like fleshing. I like skinning a great deal as I enjoy the process. You are not going to get rich doing this, so focus on what you enjoy and tailor what you are doing to give you the best experiences.

15 now but yeah I was thinking of using a freezer to keep animals I don’t have the time to skin then get to them when I get a chance. And on days where I know I’ll not be able to skin animals or check my line because I can’t always because I do swim, I’ll just set them off the day before that when I check them.

It is going to be a much better idea to skin the animals as you catch them and then freeze just the pelt. Freezing carcass animals takes up a lot of freezer space and it takes a frozen carcass longer to thaw than just a pelt.

I know you are pressed for time but I would seriously suggest that you juggle things to avoid freezing carcass animals if at all possible.

I’ll probably do that but if I did flesh and dry do you think I could get good deals on a beam and stretchers at my local convention?

Might find some used from tailgaters at a decent price.

Mason... What county do you live, in Ohio?

Garry-

I made my own fleshing beam out of a 2x6 and a wood rasp.

Start with muskrats. Skin every day. If you get rushed for time, freeze them whole. And plan to thaw and skin when you have the time.

If you can’t skin coon daily, waiting a day is gonna get stinky fast. Sell on the carcass daily if you can. If you can skin daily, then freeze the skins and sell green later on. The difference in price is going to hurt but until you learn to scrape without a lot of holes, it’s going to hurt anyway.

Carcass coon (dead but not skinned) typically go for 50-60% of finished coon. Skinned only coon go for about 75% of finished coon. Finished without holes are at 100%

Okay, a $10 finished (Skinned, scraped and dried) Minnesota big prime coon is going to be at $7.50 skinned only and between $5 and $6 on the carcass. But if you’re from Ohio, a big coon isn’t nearly as big as they are here, so your top price is going to be $8. Now knock off 25% and you’re at $6. And if you knocked off 50% you’d be at $4.

On muskrats, if you just skin and freeze, then thaw and sell, the price differential is something like 25 cents. If you’ve got 100 two-dollar ‘rats, and some significant draws on your time, this might be the way to start.

Go buy Gary Schumann’s Welcome to the Rat Race video. He’ll get you started on doing ‘rats.

But if you want to scrape and dry, our upcoming $5 coon season wouldn’t be a bad place to learn the art of scraping and drying because even if you screw it up, you won’t be loosing much.

There really isn’t a market for mink or red fox though they’re interesting to skin, fleshing is minimal, and drying isn’t hard. Coyotes and 40 pound PRIME beaver and otters and bobcats have value but they present a lot of work. For any of these, I’d make friends with a local trapper who puts up his own fur and have him show you how to skin, scrape and dry.

I did too Gary. I went to the mill and ordered a 2" x 6" x 4', clear number 1 grade basswood board. It was easy to work with, no knots and straight tight grain.

Garry-

If you're young and don't have a lot of money, I'd start with buying traps and supplies. You can learn fur handling next year, or the year after... If you have a good local place to sell fur, you'd be further ahead, imo, to spend more time trapping than to spend the time on putting everything up.

Yes I am kinda young and barely got enough traps to even consider my “trap line” to be a line, more of a hiking trail lol. And I think I’ll do your idea and just get gut handling stuff it is a really good deal. I’m not too bad with skinning and fleshing because I’ve skinned a lot of animals as I love hunting and I have fleshed a muskrat and squirrel here and there. My biggest worry would be putting holes in my hide because I think I can skin well. I just don’t know about fleshing

It seems to me if you spend more time trapping your going to catch more fur then your going to have to deal with more fur.

Start out with rats and coon. Make positive drowning sets then you can do 2 or 3 day checks.
If your checking daily you will have to skin your rats that same day. But once they are skinned you can leave them lay around for a few days before boarding. Just turn them fur out and roll them up so they don't dry out. With coon you can leave them un skinned for several days as long as they are kept In cool shaded area. Then once you skin them you can leave those hides lay around for a few more days before boarding them. Just turn them fur out and roll them up so they don't dry out.
Freezing whole carcasses takes more time to thaw but It doesn't matter the end results are the same. Take them out of the freezer let them thaw and that gives you more space for more critters In the freezer.