Good stuff Gibb. I hang mine as I take it in a shed with lot's of humidity but when I have a few days worth I take it into my drying area which has a fan and a large dehumidifier. The dehumidifier in the insulated room keeps humidity down around 30-40% and creates enough heat to help pull moisture out. I like to see the bridge connecting the two sides to be firm and dry and a good glaze over the pods. Usually 3-4 days in there and I freeze it.

And another thing....regarding milking off liquid castoreum:

I have noticed that some castors have excessive amounts of the liquid relative to the amount of solids in the sacs. Almost like a boda bag filled with liquid. Having understood that buyers wanted the liquid in there (as well as the solids) I used to try to tie off the apertures with a small piece of hemp string to keep them from leaking. But they always did anyway and I have long since gave up on that idea.

The last buyer I sold to recommends milking off the excess liquid and stated that the end users don't want the liquid, just the solids but squishy, not bone dry. So now, particularly with the ones that have a lot of liquid in the pods I milk them off just before skinning and add the effluent to my lure bottles.

I'm still trying to figure out the best preservative to keep the stuff from tainting and getting that "off" smell to it.

Once a preservative has been used the perfume manufactures will reject the whole shipment PERIOD
Did I make that point; no preservative.

Quick drain of fluid will aid in drying time, some have 2-3 ounces or 60-90 grams of fluid which can go into a squirt bottle with canola oils as it combines well with it as lure on dry vegetation in the spring

When I do my next run of beaver in March and since I have a scale I will weigh each set before and after they dry for 4 days and do a final weigh when I pull them back out of the freezer to ship.

I have caught a lot of beaver in my 40 plus years of trapping but have never found the need to milk any castor.

Very educational. Thank you.

You misunderstood me. Preservative for MY OWN usage. Not for anything I sell.

When I get a really nice big castor set I often weigh them fresh just to see how big they are and for curiosity how much weight they lose. The real big ones don't lose very much...maybe 12-15%.

If I wasn't shipping castor I would do my best to keep the juice in the pods, after all it adds considerable weight. Just too many bad things have happened to me shipping the stuff so draining it off only makes sense to me nowadays. Plus, today I caught 14 beaver out of 21 sets using Q tips dipped in the stuff!


This one dried down to just over a half lb.

I wouldn't add preservative, I'd freeze and just thaw what was needed .

Dean, that's funny...I just had figured out that was what I was going to do next time.

It's what I've been doing for long time with my green castor that I grind and use.

Was it someone on here that mentioned grinding the 3's and shells and do you think that gets better reaction since its usually from small young bvr that are "invading" new territory ? I generally grind some 2's from female for my personal use.

If this is distracting from the thread we could start another or just continue our pm.

I'm starting us a new thread Eedup...

I normally count the castors and divide it by the dollar amount to figure the avg price that the castor adds to a beaver.
For example,a few years ago I sold 120 castors and recieved just under 1200 bucks-so just under 10 bucks a beaver extra for castors at that time.
That was all in,1's 2's and shells.

I do the exact same thing with all my beaver by-products so I can figure out just how profitable my beaver trapping is...or isn't. This year I will likely add my cats caught off beaver carcasses to the equation.

If I recall right last year I was around $35 per beaver.