EAST TEXAS HOG DOGGERS FORUM

So when do yall think the best time to cull is age wise and when do yall think the best time to breed a young gyp is ?

When the gyp has proven herself worthy of being bred, I would say after shes two years old that you already know what she is capable of and even then that is still a young age IMO

We have kept dogs until they were 4 years old only to find out they were never going to be as good as we wanted, but I would say if a dog has not started (to hunt) by 18 months old then it needs to be culled. IME a dog should start to bark at a pig from an early age, if he gets to an age where hes ready to hunt and doesnt, well than it doesnt matter if he barks at a pig if he has no hunt then he should be culled.

 i hav a gyp that took a yr to turn on and iv heard of dogs takin 18mths to 2yrs b4 they turn on, it all depends on ur patience. well i found out breedin early to mid summer aint good ono the pups. i just had a litter last sat and sun rolled around and it lookt like the pups were gonna hav a heat stroke and wouldnt stop whining and wouldnt eat either. i built a nursing box and brought them inside and they r doin great now. its easier to keep them warm even outside during the winter vs. tryn to keep them cool durin the summer. JMO.

I got and 8 month old bmc gyp that is almost 9 months now and will run with my big dogs track for track and be at the bay when you get there she was on the cull list but recently saved herself when she is two i do plan on breeding her but i figured i'd see what other men and women had to see about this whole ordeal

 OOPS misunderstood ur breeding time ?. at 18mth-2yr if they r goin in the direction u want them and r passin the goals u set in front of them and u want to breed then as long as he/she is goin ur direction then try a litter out n c what they do.

At my house cullen starts the day they are born up to the day they have their first litter.From 2 years of age on when I like to breed for the first time. And if she is not a good mother, she will be fixed and only hunted or woked.

thats kinda what i figured too i was just gunna wait till she was about 2 years old and then let my brindle dog slip her some love and hope i get some yella brindle dogs out the deal

how do you figure out which ones your going to cull? how do you wean out the weak to get the strong?

Looks to me like she is on track to be a decent dog. The big question is will she run a track by herself? I would give her untill she was 1.5 years to decide if she needs culling from the breeding end of it. If she takes a track by herself at a year old and sticks and she meets your other requirements then she probably is good for breeding.

I wouldn't keep any dog that takes more than 1.5 years because that dog has a high chance of reproducing itself.

You and me both some of the guys i grew up with think im crazy i cull hard to get what i've got today and i personally have never thought about taken her out by her self yet she is just now runnin with my big dogs but when she is around 11 months old she'll be turned our first on a track and we'll see if she makes the cut or not i raised her from 5 weeks old so i really think she'll make a dog  i have pictures of her at 8 weeks outside a cage on a like 6lber trying to play with it lol she come from rough dogs but i run her with loose baying dogs so she isn't rough YET lol i hope she turns out i'd love to have pups out of her

 Id wait to cull til the age of 2. Breeding age is determined to me after the gyp proves herself to track stop and hold a hog till caught. At 8 months old sounds like your pup is doing great.

Ya man i wouldn't say great but she is slowly on her way im pretty happy with her at the moment but there is always those times i think about cullin but  on the other hand like you said for the age she isn't doing bad at all i took her out tonight with a few more young dogs and they just couldn't get it done she kept haulin ass ahead like she was lookin for my big dog she has been raised around but im not gunna hold this hunt against her

If by 6 months of age I can't take a pup to the woods by itself and "catch" a hog with it, it's a cull in my yard. As for breeding, if there still alive by age 2, they've earned the right to be bred.

Do you ever put them in a  bay pen or anything? i dont put my dogs in bay pens i put them in the woods my pup is still tryin to figure out exactly what shes doin .. she knows what a cut collar and a dog box being messed with means i always load her last just so she is so excited when i  turn her loose off that chain she'll run as fast as she can to the back of the truck and load up

I'll work them a little in a pen early on, but mostly woods training for me

I used to think exactly like you but at 1.5 years earned the right to breed if they were smart enough to live that long. :)

Later I realized that some real good pups don't hunt as good until about 9-12 months of age. However, they needed to be on track with a mental point system, a line of progression from 8 weeks old until it was decided to cull or keep. A dog can be a keeper but might not meet the requirement to breed. If it doesn't make the breeding requirments that dog has a chance of being replaced at some point in time.

I also took into consideration the amount of training time and exposure to a training pen and woods time. Sometimes it is not the pups fault for inexperience from lack of training/exposure. Then there is the good pup that is being trained by an in-experienced dog handler. That is another story.

All these things come in to play when training and evaluating the pup/dog.

Rueben that is exactly right!!!