How to save gopher feet?

[MNBobcat]

Hi All,

We have a $2 bounty here on gophers. I usually just throw the gopher in the hole and bury it but I got to thinking I may as well save the feet and make some extra folding money. I've gotten 7 gophers in the last 2 days.

I've heard that generally people keep the feet frozen until they turn them in. I'm assuming most people just throw them in a baggie and freeze them. Not sure the wife is going to like that, though.

For those of you who save the gopher feet, how do you store them?

Thanks!

 

[txdon]

I can just see the look on your wife face when you put 7 dug up gopher feet in the freezer. You will probably get $20 worth of grief.:laughing:

Once you get the use of the freezer past your wife you will then have to watch out for gopher feet thieves.
Mother, Son Accused Of Stealing Frozen Gopher Feet << WCCO | CBS Minnesota

 

[arpt209]

I used to have an outlet for porcupine feet. Jewelry makers used the claws. $5 each for the feet. That was 35 years ago. Lots of money back then. I just put them in a plastic sandwich bag & dropped them in the freezer until we could ship them. My wife knew that they were just another form of money & never worried about it.
She did yell at me one time when she took a Kielbasa out of the freezer to thaw because it was such a big sausage & unwrapped it & found a whole rattlesnake. Eventually we got a freezer just for my projects. At the time I was doing custom skinning & fleshing for taxidermists.

 

[MNBobcat]

LOL! Yeah...I bet she didn't like the snake!

I half thought about salting the gopher feet but I think freezing them is probably the most practical.

I used to have an outlet for porcupine feet. Jewelry makers used the claws. $5 each for the feet. That was 35 years ago. Lots of money back then. I just put them in a plastic sandwich bag & dropped them in the freezer until we could ship them. My wife knew that they were just another form of money & never worried about it.
She did yell at me one time when she took a Kielbasa out of the freezer to thaw because it was such a big sausage & unwrapped it & found a whole rattlesnake. Eventually we got a freezer just for my projects. At the time I was doing custom skinning & fleshing for taxidermists.

 

[arpt209]

Another thought that just crossed my small mind; Who's paying the bounty? I answered an ad one time for a guy wanting to buy Jack Rabbits. He said he'd pay $5 each for them if the head & cape were intact. He wanted them for Jackalopes. He was a taxidermist. We agreed he'd come pick mine up every time I had 100 or more to sell. I never saw him nor could not get him to return my phone calls after I reached my first hundred mark. I ended up using them for trapping bait.

Having kept score, the score being just shy of 2,000 in one day for me & zero for the gophers; I'm kind of curious where there's a bounty on gophers?

 

[MNBobcat]

Our township pays the bounty.

Another thought that just crossed my small mind; Who's paying the bounty? I answered an ad one time for a guy wanting to buy Jack Rabbits. He said he'd pay $5 each for them if the head & cape were intact. He wanted them for Jackalopes. He was a taxidermist. We agreed he'd come pick mine up every time I had 100 or more to sell. I never saw him nor could not get him to return my phone calls after I reached my first hundred mark. I ended up using them for trapping bait.

Having kept score, the score being just shy of 2,000 in one day for me & zero for the gophers; I'm kind of curious where there's a bounty on gophers?

 

[k0ua]

I suppose you could put those gopher tootsies in your dehydrator. They are cheap enough you could buy one just for that purpose. There is the cost of electricity to dry them out though. And I would suggest doing it outside. I am not sure what the smell factor would be..

 

[oosik]

Back in the day, when I was a kid - we would get 5 cents for a pair of magpie feet. Can you believe - it was so very long ago, our family did not have a freezer.

An old bucket - 10 pounds of rock salt & one package of baking soda. Tie the feet together and put in the bucket. Drew any moisture out of the feet and the baking soda eliminated any odor. When Dad went into town - get all the pairs out of the bucket and go with him to cash in.