Good question, I personally have found it prudent to hold back one or 2 in case something happens and that dog you been counting on can't be bred and the parents are gone or can't be bred. It's easy to get into a corner that becomes hard to get out of with linebreeding.
I've seen some of yall say that when faced with a choice of either breeding to a great dog that's scatter bred or breeding to a good line bred dog that's not very good, yall had rather breed to the line bred dog that's not so good. I dont necessarily disagree with this. My question though is if you take this stance, why are you killing dogs now after having brought the line of dogs so far? Figured it would be a fairly interesting question to see yalls take on it from this angle.
I see the necessity in it with the scatter bred dog but given that I think most of you would choose the not so great but good line bred dog, why yall take a 22 to so many pups at this point with this stance on a "cull" line bred dog.
Joel...I have run into that same problem before as well in the past...I was already about 5 and 6 generation into my line of dogs and I was there without a female to breed...Luckily I had given a female pup away to a friend that she was awesome but a little on the small side and her color was not what I liked...so no harm I could have here replaced in a year so I thought...long story short I got her back and she produced some outstanding dogs and the female I kept out of her was the smallest in the litter but an excellent specimen in hunt size and conformation...
Black streak...I use the word cull quite a bit but cull to me is taking the pup or dog out of the breeding program or hunting program...there are other ways to cull besides putting a bullet in a dog...
I know that choosing wisely and testing pups will increase your chances of producing better dogs...shopping around for a good dog that is unrelated can lower your chances of producing a higher percentage of good dogs...you insinuate a high cull rate...if not done wisely we will wind up with a high percentage of culls...culls meaning they shouldn't be allowed to reproduce...
the first time I decided to breed a line of hunting dogs I spent a lot of time and money...I turned the females over very quickly to purify the bloodline...the males I held back more for hunting...females were proven to be of the right quality and set back for one breeding and then selected from those females pups...after a few generations I slowed the process down because I felt I had the dogs where I wanted and I had the bloodline fixed to what I wanted...so to continue breeding forward I was going to back myself into a corner where I would need outside blood...and that would produce a percentage of culls...so I wanted to stay away from that...
I gave up these dogs because I was getting out forever...
and 2 years later I realized my mistake...and getting back I have culled quite a bit of dogs...a total of 7 or 8 dogs in about 6 years...I now have 3 dogs I like and four 6.5 month old pups I have a good feeling about that I raised in my own back yard and six of the seven were bred and selected from my own back yard...the fifth pup I gave to a friend...the pup was super nice as well but his leg was slightly shorter than what I liked...does that make him a cull? no it doesn't...it just means he does not meet my standards...will the 7 dogs in my back yard make outstanding reproducers??? no because they are scatter bred...I call it like I see it when it comes to my dogs...no rose colored glasses here...do I like my dogs??? yes quite a bit...
