I’ve used the same bait I’ve made for 50 years. A bait recipe given me by Swede Israelson that I’ve never seen in print. It works great but I want to play around with some new baits just for fun. I saved a bunch of beaver fetuses and placentas and am going to grind them up and preserve some fresh and slight taint then preserve some. Anyone ever try this ?

I cant imagine this not working. Wish I had some to experiment with myself!

I cut one open and it’s guts were nothing like a normal beaver. Everything was flesh colored almost like no guts. I cut a placenta are pretty solid and weird looking. I figured it would be a nice change up and maybe really get them excited. I’m going to have fun making new baits as I’ve got a freezer full of beaver meat , bobcat meat bags of beaver and deer liver, bags of pure beaver fat , otter glands and lots of castor. A friend has a laberdoodle I’m going to test stuff on. I’m thinking of making my old stand by bait and selling enough of it to cover some expenses. A tip from Bud Hall , the 800 fox a year and 300 mink a year Iowa legend of an addition to this bait separately in the hole really ramped it up. He said do this and the canine won’t leave without getting caught or digging out the bait. That has for the most part been true.

Oakey, you have some good materials to start making bait. Better gather up some buckets, jars, etc. and get the grinder going!
The tainting, rotting, sun rendering & ageing processes takes Time!!!
Almost everything on a Beaver carcass can be utilized for bait & lure.
The laberdoodle is going to love you! lol.

Oakey, In theory, testing smells, baits, lures and ect. on a domestic dog sounds good but domestic dogs dont have the natural fear and caution instincts as wild canines. So there interests in things can greatly be exaggerated compared to a fox or coyote. Make your baits and put em to a real test in trapping seasons and conditions and let the wild canines tell you how they work. Good luck with your new projects!

I've used several dogs as the first step in testing. Some will get excited about anything and some take a bit more to show real intrest. After a lot of testing on dogs then coyotes you will get a handle on how valuable the feedback u get from a particular dog is. But a dog is only the kindergarten test when it comes to coyotes attractants.But if a dog has little to no interest then u dont have much in the way of a formulation for coyotes yet.And no need to wait till trapping season to test it, thats what the other 9 months is for. No reason to waste trapping season to find out the formulations is only mediocre or worse. Even athletes practice before season starts. One important thing to do when testing is understand where the bar should be set for a good or great formulations. One guys idea of "good" might not be the same as someone else's. Good luck and if you want someone outside your area to test some give me a shot I'd be willing to test a little. We have a healthy population and it's not hard to get it in front of coyotes

Dave Edwards once warned me about relying on domestic animals' reactions when evaluating ingredients and formulations.

My wife's house dog we have now will fall for anything that he might want to roll on or might be able to eat. I use to have a border collie that was decent for the first step of testing. She had been caught several times while trapping with me and was pretty cautious. She would never touch a dirt hole no matter what u put down it as she recognized that as a trap set. I even put steak scraps (which were here favorite) down a dirt hole a foot off the side walk right in front of the house. She never touched that dirt hole.

And that additional ingredient was?

Should be good advice, but technically may be illegal in WI: (from the regs)
“You may not: Place bait or scent for furbearing animals during the closed season, except for efforts specific for nuisance wildlife control”

Seems odd, but something to be aware and careful of.

WOW! That's a unique reg. I could understand if they'd have used the term wild game rather than furbearers- may have an argument- but def not now. send it my way, I'll put a camera on it! hahaha