Newfoundland - Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative

56 - DECKS AWASH
balance things out. I've had to
shovel 75 tons of lime on my
fields. Farming is definitely not
a lazy man 's job ! I've invested in
boron and molybdenum to increase
my yield and it seems to
have worked over the years.
furs
" I have my own beehives becau
se I don' t feel there are
enough pollinating insects here
for growing crops. There is a n unnatural
occurrence of (Jowers for
the normal amount of insects.
Tbe field next to the beehives had
Shirley M cE ntegart, f ox farmer
S
hirley and Jimmy McEntegart
have three German
shepherd dogs and 400 faxes. We
meet the dogs as we drive onto
the McEnlegart property near
Whitboume. Cautiously, we lower
our windows as three long
nosesspeculatively sniff the car 's
interior. No growls, no raised
hackles . So far so good . Perhaps
they can smell the scent of our
I own dogs. Carefully , we open
the door, but the dogs push in, one
climbing into the back seat while
another sits on the passenger seat
and stares at us. We abandon ship
clutching cam eras and notebook
and head off 10 find Shirley
McEntegarl.
Kathleen Crane (l)and Shiriey McEntegart (A). Clean ing ~ after evening feeding
the highest yield. It might be
coincidence, but I'm not moving
the beehives . There are native
bees four times the size of mine
and they'H visit three times as
ns
many (Jowers, but there aren't
enough of them ."
Shirley and her friend Kathleen
Crane are feeding faxes . Shirley
lugs a five-gal lon plastic pail
filled with feed, spooning dollops
of it into each cage. The cage
looks empty , but on a high shelf
at the back lurks a silver fox. As
Shirley leaves , it darts forward
and grabs the food . Three
smaller heads peer from a doorway,
they 're the fox's hungry
pups.
"Faxes are more like cats than
~ ," says Shirley. "We brought
in 25 females and 8 males from
Nova Scotia in 1981. Now we are
up to tOO breeding females . They
breed once a yea r, between
February and April, and the
gestation period is 52days . They
are picky about who they will
breed with, that's why we have 33
males."
"There is a danger period after
the young are born. Ifthe female
is frightened she may eat her
young, so you can 't go ham mering
or anything aro und the cages.
"They a re skittish animals,
hard to raise, and ma ny breeders
have low production. The Canadian
average is only about 2.8
pups per fox. Ours is four. We
send the furs to the Hudson's Bay
Company for their auction each
February. The average Canadian
price last year was $156 a fur ,
ours was $218. The highest price
paid was $300.
Shirley raises aU silver faxes,
but there are variations in color:
light, medium, and dark . Last
year light was popular . The three
qualities a good fur must possess
are color, silkiness , and density .
A lot of planning goes into the
production of good furs, from the
select ion of breeding partners to
specialized diet. Food may be a
mixture of liver, chicken, horse
flesh, beef, eggs ,cereal, and fish
together with some highly concentrated
additives made from
molasses , beer malts, and sea ­
weed.
" Diets change with the sea-