need some of yall's input

If you breed your best strike dog to your best catch dog, here are a few things to consider. When you cross find/bay dogs with bulldogs, you don't get consistent traits in the pups. Some of the pups are likely to be too catchy, while some have more bay. The problem is if you make the breeding, you really don't know which pups are going to receive the correct genetic make-up from the parents that gives you that perfect blend of nose, hunt, bay, roughness. You would really need to keep the whole litter and then cull the ones that are too catchy, too loose baying, etc. At least that is my experience with crossing bulldogs with cur breeds . . . No Consistency. Now you've got we'll say 6 puppies from the litter to raise, get started, train, cull, etc. A decent bag of dog food now cost $30.00. It takes a minimum of 6 bags of food to raise a puppy to just one year old. Could be 7 bags. So you're looking at say 10 bags of food MINIMUM to get the pup to 18 months old. That's $300 per pup at 6 pups, which comes to $1,800 to get a litter of pups that you bred up, old enough to pick the keepers. Now we can say that there is a couple of pups that just aren't going to suit you, and you can identify those pups early, maybe around a year old. Even so, you're looking at a minimum of probably $1,200 (just in feed) to get 3 or 4 pups that MIGHT turn out to be what you're looking for. Not to mention the fact that you've got to keep them in the woods to get them going properly, all the time it takes to get them seasoned, wormer, shots, etc. etc. So for the next 2 years, you're still gonna be chasing hogs while you're waiting for the results.

For $1,200 - $1,500 you should be able to find (two) pretty decent rough cur dogs with speed and stopping power. You could just drop them with your best find dog and solve your problem immediately without having to wait 18 months for the breeding project to materialize. You're gonna spend the same money in the long run anyway? I always used a "calculator" as part of my breeding program.