FOX FARMING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1941, Page 6

FOX FARMING

DEVELOPMENT IN CANADA FABULOUS PRICES PAID FOR LIVE ANIMALS. DEMAND FOR SILVER SKINS. OTTAWA. In the early days of the fur trade, it was the practice in Canada for trappers to keep foxes caught out of season alive until the fur was prime; and from this custom has arisen the modern industry of fur farming. Coming to a northern post with his season’s harvest of furs, a trapper would occasionally bring a very beautiful fox pelt, black in colour, with silver tipped tail and scattered silver hairs, giving to the pelt a silver sheen, whence the name “silver” fox. The black or silver fox is a colour phase of the common red fox and the beauty of its fur and the consequent high price to be realised from the sale of the pelt encouraged the carrying out of experiments in breeding to fix this silver strain. Success came in the year 1894 when a litter of silver foxes was raised to maturity on a farm in Prince Edward Island, and this province may claim to be the birthplace of the industry. Meanwhile attempts at rearing foxes in captivity were also being made in other provinces, the records showing that foxes were successfully bred in Quebec in 1898, in Ontario in 1905, and in Nova Scotia in 1906. The pioneers of the fox farming industry raised the foxes chiefly for the sake of the pelts, as high as 2 600 dollars being received for a single pelt of exceptional quality, and it was not until 1912 that there was any general sale of live foxes. With increased interest in fur farming came a large demand for foxes to be used as foundation stock in newly established ranches. Fabulous prices were now obtainable for the live animals, sales of proved breeders in 1912 being recorded at from 18,000 dollars to 35,000 dollars per pair. The number of fur farms from this time forward rapidly increased, companies as well as individuals engaging in the business, and as larger numbers of foxes became available for sale, prices naturally declined. In 1919 the Dominion Bureau of Statistics commenced the annual collection of returns of fur farms, and the records for that year show 424 fox farms and 5 miscellaneous kinds of fur farms in Canada. The number of silver foxes on the farms in that yeai’i was 7.181. In 1939, the latest year for' which statistics arc available, there were 9,899 fur farms in Canada . As many of the farms raise more than one kind of fur-bearing animal, the totals of the various kinds of fur farms reporting do not add to the total number of fur farms recorded as in operation during the year. Thus in 1939, there were 7,060 fox farms; 3,333 mink farms, and 419 miscellaneous fur-bear-ing animal farms in Canada. A recent addition to the Canadian fur farming industry is the valuable chinchilla. The records of the year 1939 show 146 chinchillas with a value of 220,850 dollars. Fur farm revenue in Canada in 1939 amounted to 5 800,292 dollars, of which the sale of pelts amounted to 5,204.683 dollars and live animal sales to 595,609 dollars. The average price of a silver fox pelt in 1939 had fallen to 16 dollars, although 200 dollars had been paid that year for a silver fox pelt of exceptional quality. The average value for live silver foxes sold in 1939 was 32 dollars, the highest price paid for a live silver fox that year being 300 dollars. The platinum or white-face fox had an average value of 281 dollars, which exceeded the average price paid for any other kind of live fur-bearing animal, the second highest being fisher with an average of 83 dollars.