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Fur farms - Belarus
Dead Critters Processing Unit
Passions always run high over all these fur coats – expensive and beautiful. Some people dream to buy such a posh thing, others are sure they are not worth killing dozens of animals. This way or another fur business is nearly always profitable. Today we are going to visit a private fur farm in Belarus and see how they work there.
The farm was built more than twenty years ago. It belongs to a couple of spouses who breed furbearers. 600 foxes and 1000 minks are waiting for their end in cages. They used to have seventeen thousand animals at the farm but they decided to prefer quality to quantity.
These animals will be killed in seven days, their fur should ripen.
Minks live for about ten years in the wilderness. Here, at the farm, some of them live up to three years old, but most live only eight months – being born in April they are killed in November. The same is about foxes. However some male animals – fertilizers are kept for 7-8 years but they have to work hard, some of them inseminate up to thirty females per season.
When their time comes animals are euthanized by a lethal injection. They fall asleep and their hearts stop beating.
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Yekaterina, the owner of the farm, admits she does not feel sorry when animals are killed. She says it might be a professional deformation. Quite the opposite – she feels satisfied about the work done well, about good profit.
Foxes are more aggressive than minks. However arctic foxes are the most friendly animals at the farm. Besides, the lighter the color of the animal the kinder the animal is.
Yekaterina tells that this work is hard as hell. They need to find food for animals, bring it, find a place where to store it, cook it in a proper way, timely give it to the animals. Any stage of the working process directly influences the quality of fur. Sudden temperature changes, for example, not only make fur worse but also can kill dozens of animals!
The removed skins are defatted – manually and in a special drum with sawdust. After that they pulled on wooden planks and dried. At the final stage ready skins go back to the drum filled with sawdust slightly moistened with gasoline (to fluff up the fur, make it softer and more beautiful). All the process takes two days.
The skin of mink costs $ 50, arctic fox’ skin – $ 100-120, skins of ordinary foxes – from 150 to 170 dollars. To make a long fur coat about 60 minks are killed, 12 are killed for a short fur coat.
Yekaterina has been in this business for many years but she still has not her own fur coat. She just does not need it. “I do not want money to hang in my wardrobe, I better invest them in my business”.
She says that simulation fur will never compare to natural one. “A woman wearing a fur coat looks ten years younger!” Yekaterina is proud to help women look splendid.
Source: Dead Critters Processing Unit
She says that simulation fur will never compare to natural one. “A woman wearing a fur coat looks ten years younger!” Yekaterina is proud to help women look splendid.
Source: Dead Critters Processing Unit
