How the hell do you pick pups!!!!!

[Tracker06]

When is the best time to start thinning out your pups. Had litter of 11 will keep about 6. Are males more gritty or females more constant. I have a English coonhound on order from Ralph Diplock in South Africa. These pups are bluetick not pure!!!will be hunting bushpig which is pretty intense.

[FullCryHounds]

Short answer: The older they are, the better chance you have of seeing what they can do.

[Tracker06]

Sure thing most people say I should keep pups for at least six months. Have u hunted hogs with English coonhounds?

[pegleg]

I keep pups quite awhile myself. The English hounds I've raised matured early and by 6-8 months you should have a real good idea of how they'll turn out. The thing isn't so much their drive or ability as it is their chances of handling a bad encounter and coming out of it. That's one area I disagree with a lot of guys on. Sure they will hunt and look good doing it on certain game but some animals don't really fear puppies and have no problem hurting them badly. If you just have to work them use young pigs or domestics until they are old enough and strong enough it won't go bad. I don't know how many hounds you have but 11 pups isn't a huge number of dogs if your hunting a lot. If you only hunt for yourself its to many. But if this is a daily thing it only breaks down to two packs .

[Tracker06]

This will be my pack of 8dog since I have problem on my own farm with wild pig. Friend has another three pups which we will run together. Plus we will work with the main pack which is currently running every Sunday but since I started always wanted own pack. Training will be another mile stone as I been told to only to start running em at 1year.like that idea of starting them on domestic pigs. This pup I'm getting is ment to be a Rasputin grand daughter have u ever heard of him?

[JTG]

You will know if you keep the whole litter, long enough. Is brush pigs Warthogs? We now have them here in Texas.

[Cajun]

When very young, there is no way to pick ability so just pick the pup that appeals to you. The only way to pick the best pup of the litter is to keep the whole litter.
Just because your English pup is blue does not mean he is not pure. English hounds can come in any color. I have hog hunted with several really nice hog & bear dogs that were English.

[Tracker06]

No Bushpigs r bigger and more tasty. Warthogs r also a lot easier to shoot and hunt since they feed at day. I hunted pigs at night by walk n stalk but after I hunted them over hounds I was hooked. It's now every weekend pigs in morning and beer,braai after!

[JTG]

Thanks, I am guessing since it's such a large litter it was an outcross? The picture of the Warthogs was during the day. http://news4sanantonio.com/m/news/featu ... m3kh6RIg88

Welcome and I heard South Africa is a great place, much different than the Congo, were I worked.
Good luck with your hounds.

[scrubrunner]

Start the whole litter, then keep the best

[Tracker06]

SA is pretty decent, hunting is decent....well at least we have a small family farm with kudu,impala,bushbuck,Nyala,duiker,warthog and bushpig so hunting is fairly cheap for me. Like any country I guess we have a shit load of poaching,illegal dog hunting and snaring are the biggest two snags. There is a massive start up of armed poachers hunting at night with torches at present. Thanks for the luck but its not luck but time n effort that'll get em hounds running reliable scents.