Muskrat stretcher size

OK, I trapped rats 40 years ago. During the coyote season here I got access to 2 drainage ditches with a good number of rats. Looking at the FHA dimensions for a rat stretcher it appears that they are narrower than just about anything I have see in videos posted that people are using. I spent a couple hours today bending wire stretchers to those dimensions. They look pretty narrow.
All you professional rat guys please comment. Should I stay as close to those dimensions as possible or what? Thanks.

Those measurements are for the wood boards. You dont need to bend the wire stretchers, they'll narrow up when you put the rats on them.

Side question: does FHA use the scanner for muskrats and beaver or did NAFA not sell them that toy? If so, you dont have to worry about the dimensions quite as much, just make sure you get the hips of the rat as far down as you can to get the biggest triangle you can.

Grawes lures has some of the best basswood boards at good prices. Sm, Med, Lg for any critter out there. Check them out.

I use both wood and wire stretchers. Go with the sizes that FHA has on their website, they will be what the market wants. Of the two types of stretchers, I prefer wood. I have three sizes, XS/S, M/Lg, XL/2X/3X. Sizes for these wood stretchers came from NAFA specs. When I run out of wood I use wire. I use three clothes pins on each rat when they are drying, one on the nose to hold it in place and two on each side on the bottom to keep this in place. Then use the two hooks on the tail to finish it off.

Best of luck and have fun putting them up. NAFA had a terrific video on muskrat put up a couple of years ago if you can track it down.

If you buy Duke wire rat stretches they may collapse (sorry Bill) when you put the hide on them but good rat wire will not collapse.
In my opinion every commercial rat boards are to wide In the necks and shoulder area. A 1/4" off those areas on both sides will get you about a 1/12 more In length. And that means more money A rat Is a rat you can't make It bigger then It Is but you can display It to your advantage. Groney doesn't like rats on wood I wonder way that is.

I think he explained it on one of his videos but can't remember what it was now

He did say that rats put On wood didn't pile up as good as rats On wire. Now what kind Of excuse Is That.
Wire will thin a rat hide while drying. The form acts like a spring and Is always putting pressure on the hide as It dries.
You can take a wire dried rat and a wood dried rat and I could pick out the wire dried rat blind folded.
And I will continue to preach the fact that most trappers over dry their rats. If your shed Is heated a rat shouldn't be on the board more then 2 days and In some cases that rat could come off the form In a day. The longer a rat dries the more weight It loses and that Is going to cost you money.

Think there was something about pinholes too

The wire ones do stack nicely.

I started listening to Beavs preaching on rats about time on the stretcher and my rats come off the board no more than two days later and I can tell a noticeable difference.

I bought 1/2 dozen Ausable wire stretchers. Not impressed. The wire is good, but bend shape is not symetrical from the nose, and the nose isn't on center with some of them. I still had 5 old wire stretchers from 40 years ago that I cleaned up. I can see why the wire could cause an over stretched hide. I usually just do coyotes and some coon green to Grony. These 2 ditches were just to good an opportunity to pass up. I am going to buy a couple mink boards too because I have seen mink running the banks. We have snow, I have a couple mink boxes and frozen rats for bait.

If I go serious after rats next year I will have some boards to use. I've been drying in my basement, it's about a constant 60°F. I leave a small fan on low circulating air.

Don't know if FHA is using the scanner method, but can find out. I have a fellow not too far away that works with FHA.

Thanks for the answers.

So this Is how the square centimeter scanner works. It automatically eliminates the area above the ears.Than It scans to the shortest part of the rear end of the hide.
So the narrower the head end Is the better off your going to be and the and if you can square off the hide on the rear end your going to do better size wise even when and If they use a scanner.

Not to ask a stupid question. But I leave my rats on the wooden stretchers until i need the stretchers and then hang them in an unheated garage.If you pull off the stretchers in 2 days how do you store them. Just hang or freeze or??

Pack them In cardboard boxes or some type of tote. Try and keep them as tight as you can. You want those hides to retain any grease or fat that Is left on the hide. In other words you don't want them to dry out.

Makes sense, I just sold early Nov rats and they were extremely dry and papery.
Thanks again

It's just about impossible to make a papery rat better but It's very easy to make a good rat Into a papery one.

Paper grocery bags will hold 50 rats, they will be tight. I then put them in the freezer, this way they hold up for years.

Bags will work you just need to keep the hides from drying out.

I dry for two days on wood. After day one, I wipe the oil back into the leather. Day two, I wipe oil back in again and take off the board. I store mine in paper grocery bags. I like rats put up on wood WAY better than those on wire. I cannot understand what Groeny has against wood.

He doesn't want to pay you what your rat Is worth.

I watched one of his videos on You Tube yesterday and he said wood is ok if not too thick. 1/4" or so max thickness. Another trapper has a video and he recommends after elections to grab all of those plastic cardboard type voting signs, get a template and cut stretchers out of those. Easy to pin.

That stuff will make some decent forms.

Pins go in easy certainly. Don't have much grabbing power though.

Would this really work? Seems like it would roll up on the edges as the skin dries.

I had signs in my yard leading up to the election. They are stiffer that you would guess.

I made stretchers to FHA's size charts, Small, med and large. Will probably use the med size most often though for average size rats.

Here's the video. He shows the sign use at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2QJFrwiwGw