Already shedding

Caught my first beaver that's shedding this year. Early for sure.

I'm in central Minnesota.

Has the dispersal even started yet?

Wow

Beavers here in southern Georgia never do that.

In my experience, that is an unusual shedding. Normally I have seen the underfur start to shed around the legs and not the guard hair. I could be wrong but I think something else happened to that beaver. I have noticed the beaver starting to lose prime already around the front legs. The water level is super low and I think that is going to affect the dispersal.

I think that beaver has some other issues. We caught 2 yesterday and they look fine.

That could be a rub.
See that occasionally when beaver are squeezing thru a tight spot on a regular basis.

Ya that looks like something else bad rub maybe. If you catch more there see if they bad also. Maybe coming from their lodge.

I have never seen anything like that. I think there is something else going with that.

Looks like a rub. Either rock or tree roots in the den entrance, or some other run they are using on a very regular basis. This winter I had one bank den entrance that produced 2 beaver just like that. Out of curiosity, I put on waders and lowered myself through the ice. After feeling around with my foot, the unusually narrow entrance was bored through a mass of cedar roots.

Looks like a rub to me.

Did you lay him down on some ice,or bust a chunk of ice off him with the axe?

Bet you MN guys wish you had some of these Eastern MT blond beauties.
I get green with envy every time you fellas post one of those almost black beaver.

I'll take more pictures today. Last beaver in the lodge. Adult male. All the rest were beautiful and fully furred. Took me 2 weeks to get him. No ice.

Catch a couple light ones a year. I actually like them more.

Many of the ponds here are all but dried up and I suspect I may see some beaver like this from rubbing on sticks and ice trying to get to the feed pile. I am actually expecting fairly high mortality in many of the small, new ponds. The water dropped too much and froze making them unable to reach much of the feed pile.

Upon further review, it appears to be a rub. I was confused by all the loose fur where 330 hit him. He had been getting by the traps on the lodge entrances. I finally got him on a castor mound set using the big females castor/oil sack set. First night after the pond was ice free


.