I have a bit of product up at FHA....so they can keep going...

Way to go Lester.

Whatever remains it’s safe to say production has finally dipped below demand. Theoretically that principle alone will push pricing. Defining demand remains the wild card in this convoluted mess.

Recovery always appears distant until it arrives.

What happens in the next few years if there’s no more ranch mink? Does the end user make less product or change to a different product?

I would think that will hurt trappers in the long run. The volume and uniformity of ranch fur would be hard to replace with wild fur.

They are obviously making less product now, or they would still be buying 50....60 million ranch mink for $60 average where mink ranchers can turn a profit. If you want your fur tied to the price of a farmed product that makes it's money on large volumes, be prepared to make your money on large volumes if it is possible. I'm sure many of these ranchers, especially the Europeon ones, have been getting subsidies to keep losing money. That is another problem with being tied to a farm product. I think Groeny mentioned that the the ranch end users don't know how to make stuff with wild fur anymore, if they ever did. It is mass production with little pieces of carpet. You pluck, shear, and dye a beaver and you have a nice bigger piece of carpet. All those steps cost money and take a skill set. When wild fur was booming it was the cottage industry driving it. Cottage industry ,meaning not mass production. Primarily smaller manufacturing and local furriers. That was skilled labor. It does not exist anymore. Nobody knows what is going to happen. Ranch mink is not going away as long as somebody can turn a buck off the end product.

imo. Unfortunately Dirt is absolutely correct.

That might be a bit easier for a pensioner/retiree to do than a working person trying to keep up with the times and pay the bills.

No it is the opposite actually.
As an old age pensioner i cannot come close to what I produced when I was younger,even though for 35 years during the peak of my trapping career I also worked full time on the Railroad.
Although if I become so debilitated before I die that I cannot trap at all I may still be able to keep in the game on the manufacturing side as long as my substantial inventory of tanned fur holds out.

Wild fur prices are set to take off with the demise of the ranch fur industry.
The Chinamen it Toronto are scrambling already trying to buy fur directly from trappers.One guy I talked to is particularly interested in Lynx.
Can only imagine how many show up at the next auction in N Bay.
Fur fashon has changed again like it always does.

Is that that Ming guy? Terrible 1st post on a trapping site, and huge red flags the way he’s talking and asking for info.

Not only him but several others too that I have sold finished goods to in the past.

He says he’s new and being Chinese his English comms skills probably aren’t great, but his phone number reverse look up didn’t look good…lol

FHA should be pushing hard to fill in the gap left by Canada Goose. Show one of their competitors what kinda mistake CG made.

I looked at Canada Gooses site and they’re still advertising their trim as fur……false advertising.
I’m gonna email them and straighten this out, if they could see me I’d be giving them a frowning of a lifetime!

I thought they were still using re cycled fur.
Just stopped using fresh caught that trappers did not want to certify.
Instead of CG (Canada goose)you could get the CC (Chinese chicken) coat.
Its the same thing only with dog fur and chicken feathers.

Canada goose got in some hot water marketing their coyotes something like" certified Canadian coyotes". The bunny huggers were all over them, so they had to make some nonsense certification form that trappers were to sign. It had a list of do gooder crap on it, that probably not everybody does. I know I don't. The fur industry came up with auotocertification to appease them. The bunny huggers pounded them good, and they finally caved. They lasted longer than I thought they would.

Trappers killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
Trappers in the US told them they wouldnt certify their harvest and FHA told them they wouldnt separate out certified Canadian goods from uncertified American goods,so CG told them basically hawk your goods somewhere else,we dont want it anymore.
I think the coyote trappers didnt have a clue how important CG was to the coyote market-they thought another company would continus where CG left off.I guess most dont know what Branding means.

Well Done.

Didnt affect me,there are no coyotes on my line,so no skin in the game,metaphorically speaking..

Youre full of it, Doesn’t affect me is a great attitude. Keep blaming US trappers for anything you can Go have tea with your boy Trudeau LOL

You read the caveat wrong-just pointing out no bias on my part since i wasnt supplying that market.
You know as well as everyone else who killed the goose-and it wasnt Animal rights by a long shot.They did jump on the self inflicted wound though like a bunch of buzzards.