Culling Animals

[Megan.]

To keep a herd "up to par" how many animals should you ideally cull and replace a year? Can you keep your herd quality up, and not cull?

When you cull an animal, Do you normally replace it with an offspring? If so- wouldn't you need to cull the other parent as well? Or would you breed daughter(for instance) back to it's father? Or would you put it in a run of totally unrelated animals?

[Chingal]

Good Question Megan and for the longest time I was constantly reorganizing and switching my chins up selling and buying..This year I am not on the buy and sell rollercaoster as I am happy with what my herd is producing and how well the offspring have done that have been shown from my groups.
However, with my small line of sapphires I have to continuously cull ( I hate that word) as with sapphires it is not about getting rid of less than the best it is about having so many related and working out the health issues. I try to replace at least one male a year with a different one I purchase as that seems to work for me in strengthening the lines and keep the out cross in there as well.

[FurryFriends]

3 years or so ago I did a fairly large cull. Last year I culled a few, and this year I have one that will be replaced with higher quality. Overall, I am happy with the way my herd is right now and the quality of kits they are producing. I do keep some offspring though.

[CHINCHILDREN]

i don't know that there is a 'number' of culls one should shoot for. it is an important tool to improve a herd but can be over done or not done wisely.
i think you want to try a chin with more than one mate before you know what it seems to pass on to its kits.
i bought a chin once from a breeder who is known to cull A LOT. was told to get a couple of kits out of her and then cull her. when i saw her in person i was surprised at this advice since she is a very nice chin. now that i have shown some of her kits out of different sire's i can only think that this breeder did not wait long enough to see what she throws. she throws awesome kits that do very very well in shows.

[Hobbes]

what does cull mean? And how can this be good or bad to a herd?

[Mongoose]

what does cull mean? And how can this be good or bad to a herd?

Isn't it something to do with strengthening the offspring's genes?

[halonoir]

I believe it means choosing which animals you want to get rid of in order to stay focused on your breeding goals and/or replace them with higher quality.

what does cull mean? And how can this be good or bad to a herd?

[chinkeep]

Culling is the process of removing animals from your breeding lines which are not producing or are not producing the quality to fit your breeding standards; or the offspring because they are not of the quality to put into breeding for your breeding standards. Some of the ranchers that I have talked to will cull 50% to 75% of their offspring in a year. Of those animals, some will be sold as breeding stock to other breeders or pet owners or wholesalers, and the remainder will be pelted. When replacing breeding animals it can range from 10% to 25% depending upon age, breeding and offspring quality, and size of the herd. The benefit is too keep up the quality of the herd and offspring being produced, and hopefully make the quality better. Of particular need for ranchers are females, so finding females is difficult at best.

As to where you place the younger animals, or new animals, in the lines depends a great deal upon what the lines throw and what you want to keep consistent, or if you are wanting to start new lines. Many ranchers use a combination of outcrossing and line breeding (usually half brother/half sister, or 1st cousins), I don't know of anyone that uses father/daughter or mother/son breeding, it's just too close. I have known a couple of people that used grandmother/grandson, or grandfather/granddaughter to set certain traits. Line breeding though should only be used by those who are experienced breeders and know what their lines throw and their consistency. There are times though when line breeding is almost a must due to a smaller gene pool, ie. sapphires.

[cows-n-chins]

Megan, the first part of your question has many answers depending on your goals. In theory, your best genetics should be in your youngest generation. This question also needs to be addressed differently based on the criteria for your culls vs. someone elses culls. If you are selecting your culls based on only 1 criteria and I select based on 5 criteria, we will have a different cull rate. Those interested in keeping their production numbers high may cull at a heavier rate than those that are willing to take one kit per year from their favorite female. Is there a magic number that can be stated? I dont think so, there are too many opinions and differences between breeders to make a blanket statement.

You can keep your herd quality up without culling if you stop breeding your older animals and buy all new breeders. As I stated before, the best genetics should be in your youngest generation. Through proper selection of the cream of the crop from your newest generation and proper selection in pairing those animals together, you should continue to increase the quality of your herd.

When replacing a culled animal replacement can come from within herd or from another herd. For the small breeders it becomes hard to replace within herd over time and not inbreed or linebreed. I think this choice is totally up to the breeder however. If I can produce an animal of similar quality to that I would buy why purchase? Of course, if the plan was to mate back to the father then you would have to buy if you dont want to inbreed. If you have other males though and are culling females from that run as well, why not put the offspring from one run into a separate run.

I think that maintaining the quality of our animals should not be as important as improving over the animals we have. Cull those offspring that aren't better than the parents and only keep those that are. If you must purchase animals, purchase those that will be better than what is already in your herd. The animals that fit this description will vary for every herd out there, what may work in your herd may not work in mine. If over time you dont have a high enough cull rate, your animals will slow down in production due to age and you will not have enough offspring of high quality to replace the parents with. I believe I remember JAGS stating the number of offspring they had over a 3 year period decreased dramatically due to a lack of culling either poor producers or those animals that were getting up in age.