Los Angeles herald., 1890-09-26
MINK FARMING.
Profit and Enjoyment in Raising the
Little Fur Bearers.

Profit and Enjoyment in Raising the
Little Fur Bearers.
My father had at one time thirty mink,
mostly of his own raising, and they were
as tame and easily handled as so many
kittens, but the decline in furs, and conse-
quently of our enthusiasm in the enterprise
and our subsequent removal to Tennes-
see, put an end to the experiment. We lost
number, remember toward the last by
feeding them too much beefs liver. The
little animals were exceedingly fond of
liver, and we threw into the yard one day
a whole beef's liver, on which they gorged
themselves for several days. This brought
on kind of dysentery, of which a good
many died. We also lost a number from
no cause that we could ascertain, but
which l now believe was from keeping too
many confined in too small a space. The
mink is a solitary animal by nature, and
when too many are by force congregated
it brings on contagious diseases among
them.
Our enclosure was at first about four or
five rods square, and surrounded = clump
of small spruce trees, and had Stream of
water constantly running through it in a
box about foot wide and the same depth.
Later we found that the animals had to be
separated most of the year, for they are
vicious fighters, especially the old ones,
and thus the inclosure was divided up into
small compartments. The outside was an
upright tight board fence six feet high,
resting on stone wall one foot below the
surface, with fat stones at the bottom,
projecting in, also with board a foot
wide, projecting inward from the top, and
the corners lined with tin. Then to insure
their not climbing out we used to clip the
two front nails of the forepaws. If this is
done when the animal is young, and the
nail clipped close up-that is, taking off
the end of the toe with tit will not be
likely to grow out again, and this quite
effectuallv spoils the animals ability as a
climber or digger.
AS boy it was my part of the farm
chores to look after the "minkery," and an
agreeable duty it was to me in many re-
spects. The feed consisted almost entirely
of woodchucks, in which our section Of
western New York abounded, and many
an afternoon the excuse of being out of
mink bait" was sufficient to let me off
about milking time, and many a poor
woodchuck fell victim to my little
smoothbore at short range. The young
ones were fed mostly on milk, tapping it
up greedily like young puppies.
A young mink is easily tanned, and they
are the most cute and playful little Great
ures in the world. They will play together
for hours at time, rolling and tumbling
over each other in the water and out in the
most amusing manner. They were sociable
and friendly, and seemed delighted when
came into the yard to see them. They
would crawl all over me, and up my coat
sleeve and pantaloon legs, and let me feel
of their sharp, needle like teeth without
offering to bite. have seen them rolling
and tumbling in the water, when one
would stretch out and appear to be dead,
and the other seize him by the nape of the
neck and drag him out of the water and
several feet out on the ground, when the
dead" mink would suddenly jump, and
they would both scramble into the water
and reverse the performance.
Like all meat eating animals the mink
would gorge themselves with enough at
one time to last them two or three days,
and during such periods they are stupid
and quiet, spending most of the time
asleep, and when handled will lazily open
their eyes and stretch out and go to sleep
again. But let them once get fairly hun
CRY and they are about as lively varmint
as 1 ever saw. At such times it is best to
be careful about feeding them bits of meat
from your hand, for they are liable to grab
hold of your finger instead, and then a
mink will beat any bull terrier that ever
lived in the matter of hanging on, and a
dozen tomcats cannot do as lively snarling
and scratching. You may swing them
around, rap them against the fence or
duck them under the water, they still hold
their grip, and nothing but good strong
choking until the breath is fairly gone
will induce them to let go.-Cor. Forest
and Stream.