Maybe better mink prices will help the rat market a little eventually. These nice prime rats you catch right now should indeed be worth a premium over flat early season ones. Be nice if those Chinese would wake up and realize quality also sells. FHA has trying to hold the line on those rats for a number of years now with little success.

Black hammer,
Different animal (and ur from MN) lol
Mikes from NY
Thanks for making my point.

yukes I sure would not want to travel in that land of Blackhammers......his rats have 3 feet as that picture of his shows

Rats have four but some Norwegians have three.

$3 nose count on rats is pretty solid ever expecting them to average $10 again is unrealistic. Last year I averaged u see two and had tough clearance on better rats

If Russia gets back in the game, that should help prices and clearances, especially coon, but rats also. $3.00 average on rats is not OK. It's pathetic. If you take into account inflation, it's beyond pathetic. The finished products made with those furs haven't gone down, they have gone up, like everything else, except the raw material used to make them, (the fur itself). And production is way down.
In the big scheme of things, consumers of finished muskrat products is currently smaller than it was 10 years ago. Sanctions on Russia is a big problem for fur trappers, and tariffs on finished products hurt, too. Europe as a whole is not rolling in money. France, Italy, and others are broke, as is their citizenship. South Korea and Tiawan are loaded, but has there been a marketing campaign there to help sales of end products? Just where is that 11% commission on our fur sales being spent?
A $7.00 average on rats would still be a poor return but might be a start. $10.00 average would be a much closer to inflation-adjusted "fair price", considering a current small harvest and possibility of re-emerging markets.

Not to bad I’ll see him March 6

Right on!

I'm waiting impatiently for one beaver plew being a month's average wage like the $5 was back in 1830. That would be around $1500-$2000 wouldn't it?

I remember someone saying that "Beaver will shine again". Could this be the year!?

I think Nimzy should be ecstatic about $3 rats. My uncle was getting $2 in 1972, so you are doing waaaaay better.

Disagree! $2 in 1972 would buy a lot more than $3 will buy now!

It would take approx. $15 today to buy what $2 would buy in 1972.

I got 10.00 for carcass rats in 78 straight thru.

I am just glad that rats can be sold. Quite a bit of our WI fur does not even get an offer. I don't have near as many rats this season as in the past but will hold until March as it seems that interest is gaining.

Bryce