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I live in southern Louisiana and yes we shoot them regularly. They are very destructive to farmers and levees and as others have stated there is a $5 bounty on them. There is a huge population and a short gestation period. We generally shoot them with .22 rifles but anything goes....................
 
Wow, I didn't think that many folks had experience with them. Louisiana has a mess of them as does Texas. I think a 22 mag would do just as well. What do they use the tails for? I've read they are tasty ... the tv show said a cross between muskrat and beaver.
You turn in the tail for the $5.00 bounty . You get to keep the hide and meat .
A green pelt now sells for $1.77 .
Getting $6.77 per animal sure beats hunting squirrels ...they don't have any bounty .
Gary
 
Discussion starter · #23 ·
You turn in the tail for the $5.00 bounty . You get to keep the hide and meat .
A green pelt now sells for $1.77 .
Getting $6.77 per animal sure beats hunting squirrels ...they don't have any bounty .
Gary
skin them like you would a deer i am assuming?
 
I used to live in a house with a canal running through the neighborhood. The people before me had put in a bulkhead of landscape timbers. The nutria would tunnel under the bulkhead and have tunnels and openings all along the water line. Made it a pain to cut the grass down there. They normally only come out at night. Saw a couple when I was fishing at night. I was constantly at war filling holes they would just dig back up.
 
skin them like you would a deer i am assuming?
It depends. For pelt purposes, we'd make a cut all the way around the rear ankles(?). Make another cut between these two, around the anus. Then start peeling towards the head. Helps if they are hanging by the rear feet. When you get to the front legs, make a similar cut to the ones you did on the rears, pull the feet through. Then peel over the head, trimming out the ears, lips and nose. Pelt comes off a muskrat pretty easily as there is little to no fatty tissue between hide and carcass. We dried these pelts on stretchers until the end of a season to market. I suppose freezing them till sale may suffice? If you are just after the meat, I'd skin the same way, being less cautious about putting unnecessary holes in a pelt.
 
skin them like you would a deer i am assuming?
We do them like you are skinning a Muskrat , Beaver or large swamp rabbit but we are skinning them to sell the pelt ... if you're not going to keep the hide then skinning like a deer is fine . Simply remove the hide from the meat the easiest way you can ,
I like to use two nails driven into a tree and hang them by rear legs , one man can do the skinning and gutting fairly easily then .
Post #26 explains the skinning a lot better than I can ... now that I think about it ...it is sorta like cleaning a deer just smaller.
Gary
 
You described how I skin a squirrel ...
Haha rmichael. Same procedure, different rat! I like hunting and eating squirrel. With them, I'll make a cut across the back and pull hide in both directions until what you want is exposed. A little quicker I think. A pair of dikes for the feet and tail help. No head or brains for me but I hear some folks like those??
 
They’re all over the place in Western Oregon - somebody brought them here to raise for fur and meat and they got loose. They’re almost exactly the size, shape and color of beavers and can be mistaken for them if you don’t see the tail.

I’ve hunted them with a .22 LR rifle since I was a kid - also with a 12ga shotgun (less sporting, more messy) and even once or twice with my .30-’06 while deer hunting. Their fur is sort of like beaver (but they are not protected) and the meat tastes like rabbit... sort of.

In most parts of Oregon where nutria live, they can be hunted night, day and all year ‘round. With permission of the owner, you don’t even need a license to hunt them.
 
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The southeastern US has a climate that is perfect for invasive species- pythons, nutria, lionfish, *snowbirds, tegus, pigs.
Add coyotes and armadillos, we now have both here in the lowcountry. I don't mind the armadillos. They dig up the yard but my yard isn't manicured. I've read they carry leprosy but I don't plan on cuddling them. Although I might have tried eating them if I hadn't read about the leprosy.
The coyotes are a different matter. I've only seen them at night and when it's raining. There is a 30 acre field in front of my property and at least a hundred acres of forest in back of me. I left my property naturally wooded surrounding my house for privacy, so the deer use my property as a path between the field and forest. The coyotes seem to follow the deer.
This morning I saw one the size of a German Shepard cross my backyard range about 50 yds from the house . My Rat Terrier frequents that area sniffing and barking. Now I know why. I normally carry a 22LCR in my pocket when in the yard, I suppose I'm going to have to switch to the LC9S and have a rifle handy to protect the dog. Of course a coyote could grab my little dog and be gone before I could react. I'm going to place some live animal traps.

*Snowbirds: In Myrtle beach they call them Half-backs because they migrated to Florida then moved halfway back.
 
We had none when I was growing up, now they are in every county.
Same here in Virginia. There are considered a nuisance with no season to hunt or trap, and seem to reproduce rapidly. I'm with the locals that safely dispatch every one they can. Keep an eye on your cats and small dogs, easy prey for one or more hungry coyotes, as are whitetailed fawns in the spring. They hunt alone and in groups, are very keen and hard to catch alive in, say, a Havahart. I've caught them in leg-hold traps over bait but they are leery creatures. Snipe 'em when you get the chance.
 
Same here in Virginia. There are considered a nuisance with no season to hunt or trap, and seem to reproduce rapidly. I'm with the locals that safely dispatch every one they can. Keep an eye on your cats and small dogs, easy prey for one or more hungry coyotes, as are whitetailed fawns in the spring. They hunt alone and in groups, are very keen and hard to catch alive in, say, a Havahart. I've caught them in leg-hold traps over bait but they are leery creatures. Snipe 'em when you get the chance.
A couple of weeks ago we saw a doe and couple of day old young fawn in the back yard. The next day saw a doe using the same path but no fawn. Of course I have no way of knowing it was the same doe. Last summer my daughter saved a stray kitten from a coyote in our front yard while we were on vacation. Iv'e always had medium to large dogs but my last Boykin passed of old age a going on 2 years ago. I wasn't going to get another dog but last fall my wife said "you need a dog" so I got this Rat Terrier. He could definitely out run a coyote but I believe he would stand his ground and be eaten. Our cat is 14 and woods smart.
 
I live on 33ish acres of family farmland In South Louisiana. Crops are rotated between sugarcane and soybeans. That creates a huge difference in vegetation height. I’ll never forget walking down my long driveway from bringing my trash can to the end by the roadway and catching something out the corner of my eye. About 20 yards away was a coyote trotting through the foot tall soybeans. It hadn’t noticed me and I let out a holler. That got it’s attention and luckily it sped up and shot off in the opposite direction. After that experience I don’t look at trash night the same way. I always leave the house with my Surefire light and my 9mm.
 
From what I gather from Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, we will likely not, by hunting and trapping methods, get ahead of their reproductive rate. Aside from threat to pets and maybe even humans, I rarely see a rabbit or even a groundhog like I used to. Mitch, I bet that rat terrier could give a little back though.Sorry bout your other dog.
 
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