Picking out your keepers

[upstatenybeagler]

Whats all of your method to picking out which pup to keep and which ones to sell? My new plan is to let my 2 year old pick but curious how you all do it. Also, how do you figure which ones to keep based on size? I picked the biggest male out of the last litter of all males and the other 2 are now bigger than him

[BCBeagles]

My kids pick mine. I personally like to give the best looking ones to the folks buying them.

Looks(markings) aren't all that important if they are structurally sound to me. I look at bone size as a decent judge to overall full grown size, but a tall rangy pup may still be bigger than a heavy built pup. I have seen that several times.

[Mightymite45]

Good luck getting that answer from the top producers of rabbit dogs and trialers,seems to be a closely guarded secret among most of them!!!!! LOL

[mn_beagleboy]

I breed for my personal preference and wanted the best from the litter. This is my first year experiment n so far so good. I have a two acre breeding/starting pen where i raised pups in there also. by 3 month old, i could tell which one im keeping. I have seen pups solo at 4 month old. it will be hard to pick a pup at 6 wks old.

Sao

[steveh]

My last litter I had 1 female and 9 males. I knew from the start I was keeping the female as she is our furture line. As long as she turned out, which I might say I am more than pleased with. My buddy was keeping a male and when they were 3 days old I knew 1 male that he was going to take or I was. Big and open marked. He did take that one and I ended up with 1 male that I didnt sell so I kept him, his name is bargin puppy bobo.

It is kind of a crap shoot picking out a puppy at 6 weeks old but I like to go for the ones with confidence more than markings. In past litters I have held off showing them till they were 7 or 8 weeks old just so we could pull the best puppy for ourselves. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesnt. Alot of it has to do with the time you spend getting that pup in the brush. Good luck

[porkchop65]

Most of the time I keep them all but if I am going to keep just one and sell the rest I will pull them away from the mom while they are nursing keep in mind they still have their eyes closed pull them away see who makes it back first I do this every day for a 7 or 8 days I keep the one that gets back to mom first on a consistent basis.

[Casey Harner]

Most aggressive ones is what I want. Ones who get to the feed bowl the quickest. Ones who don't take no crap. Would rather bite your head off rather than look at you!!!

[hskennels69]

I look for the ones who go off by themselves and are the most curious....It has always worked for me, don't know if it's been luck or not but if a dog isn't willing to go off by themselves and find a rabbit they will never be anything more than average...

[PREACHERS KENNEL]

i look for the ones that do things first,,and they have alot of energy.. hyper pup usually make good hunters. but the main thing is to make a good cross to begin with and it really doesnt matter a whole lot who you keep.

[TerryLee]

I look for a friendly pup not shy in anyway that is bold acting with a lot of energy. I would not pick shy ones. I have seen to many with behavior problems.

[steveh]

Casey, its funny you said that about pups being aggressive going to eat. My little female was the one of the smallest pups in the litter and the only female. but when it came time to eat or play, she was going to be on top no matter what. Today, she is a house dog, will burn a rabbit and puts my lab thru hell playing with her.

[rabbit chaser]

I bought the last and "ugliest" pup of the the litter (although my wife thinks he's cute). He's doing an excellent job so I guess I found my new way of picking

[mooredog]

She Picked Me ! And I Said "YEA BABY "

[johns03272008]

Mooredog, that is a really good looking female there!!

[Mightymite45]

Mooredog,that's the kind of dog I'm talking about!She is beautiful !!!!