it has been quite common in the silver- fox industry, chiefly because 
the business is new and profitable. 
The production of silver foxes has proved to be most profitable 
when conscientiously and intelligently managed. A silver-fox pelt 
of high quality, taken in the wild, has always been and still is a very 
rare article. A number of raw-fur buyers claim that pelts produced 
on ranches are not popular with the fur trade because they are un- 
prime and lack the quality and finish of wild fur. That this is un- 
true is shown by the fact that approximately 90 per cent of the 
silver-fox pelts sold on the fur market to-day are from ranch-bred 
foxes. During February, 1922, 2.375 silver- fox pelts from ranches 
all over the United States and Canada were sold in London, and the 
pelt which brought the top price of the market. $631.68, was from a 
ranch-raised fox from the United States. 
Eaising silver foxes in captivity, unlike other live-stock enter- 
prises, is an industry of too recent development to be supported by 
extensive study and research. It is possible, however, to assist 
beginners, as well as established ra'nchers, with information on some 
of the various phases of the business, such as organizing the ranch, 
feeding, breeding, management, pelting, sanitation, and the control 
of diseases and parasites. Information in the following pages is 
based on a study of methods and practices which have been found 
to give the greatest satisfaction on ranches in the United States and 
Canada, supplemented by observations and investigations on the 
Biological Survey's experimental fur farm at Keeseville, X. Y. 
For other foxes raised on farms, such as the red, cross, and blue 
foxes, the general principles of ranch construction and management 
here set forth will be found applicable generally. 
WHAT IS A SILVER FOX? 
The name silver fox, as commonly used by furriers, includes the 
dark phases of the ordinary red fox, variously called silver, silver- 
gray, silver-black, or black (PI. I). The color of the red fox of 
the Northeastern States and of its allies of the colder parts of North 
America A'aries from red to black, and these extremes, with the 
gradations between them, form four more or less distinct phases, 
known, respectively, as red, cross or patch, silver, and black. 
The silver fox, therefore, is a color phase of the red fox. It is 
dark all over, with silver hairs intermixed, but no red, and the tip 
of the tail is generally, but not always, white. The guard hairs 
which give the silver appearance to the pelage are not entirely white, 
but are black with a white band, and some guard hairs are entirely 
black. Variation in guard hairs is shown in Figure 1. 
In the red phase the coat is entirely rich fulvous; that is, tawny 
or dull yellow with a mixture of gray and brown, excepting re- 
stricted black markings on the feet and ears, a white area at the 
end of the tail, and certain white-banded hairs on the back and 
rump. From this phase to the next the black increases in extent 
until in the typical cross fox the black predominates on the feet, 
legs, and underparts, while fulvous overlying black covers most of 
the head, shoulders, and back. A gradual increase of the black and 
elimination of the fulvous or its replacement by white brings 
the next phase, the silver fox, in which no fulvous appears, the entire 
