Culling?

Culling generally means death to runts or miscolored of a litter. "We do not cull." statements are generally made by better breeders. "We do cull" tend to be from breeders who will let their animals free roam, and thus they will weed out the "bad seeds" from their herds. You may want to contact the "culling" breeders and see if they have any they are about to "cull" and if you can give them a good home, or if any will be having a litter soon and you can be called if they have any "unfavorable" animals.

"Culling" really depends on which breeder you talk to. In technical terms, it means to stop breeding an animal because it does not have the desired genetics. For example, most breeding info sites recommend culling rabbits with malocclusion as it is a genetic condition. I do and will never breed, but I do know breeders through other forums. Many of them cull by retiring the rabbit to be a pet (we're talking house pets here) or finding them pet-only homes, usually with spay/neuter contracts or even deposits that are returned when shown the vet bill for the spay/neuter. At the very least, breeders of popular pet breeds will give them away with warnings not to breed.

Granted, not all breeders do this, especially if they breed larger rabbits. It's a horrible thought, but sometimes the culling for these breeders means butchering.

Culling generally means to remove from the herd any animal that doesn't fit within the "breeders" program. wether that be for wrong color, over or undersized, or type that doesn't fit within the breed standards according to ARBA. It can but doesn't always mean that the culled animal will be put down, some are sold to other breeders as brood stock, some are sold as pets or given away. Most breeders will put down any with with Malclusion rather than sell/give as pets due to in part to the worry that the new "owner' may not or may grow tired of trimming teeth on a regular basis.

Naturestee said:

Granted, not all breeders do this, especially if they breed larger rabbits. It's a horrible thought, but sometimes the culling for these breeders means butchering.

Click to expand...

That is very sad. Those poor bunnies.:sorry:

Thanks for the information!

Yeah, it can very from breeder to breeder but generally culling is killing off any rabbit that turns out to be less than ideal. Only BYB's use this tactic. I personally hate it.

DaisyGP said:

Yeah, it can very from breeder to breeder but generally culling is killing off any rabbit that turns out to be less than ideal. Only BYB's use this tactic. I personally hate it.

Click to expand...

Large scale breeders use this tactic too. While they may not kill the young, health rabbits, since they can sell those to petshops no matter how they look, they do cull the older rabbits when their usefullness as a breeder is over with. They will cull any adolescent rabbits who are no longer small enough to sell and they will kill any rabbit born with a "defect" as they are in it for the money and caring for the results of their careless breeding would be both a financial and time drain.

Only BYB's use this tactic. I personally hate it.

Click to expand...

I don't think it is just the BYB's, don't some of the larger breeders actually construct death chambers for this purpose?

DaisyGP said:

Yeah, it can very from breeder to breeder but generally culling is killing off any rabbit that turns out to be less than ideal. Only BYB's use this tactic. I personally hate it.

Click to expand...

Most breeders BYB or otherwise typically put down their culls. Around here alot of culls end up at Livestock Auctions, were they end up sold for about fifty cents average and are butchered and sold.

VoodooJoint said:

Large scale breeders use this tactic too. While they may not kill the young, health rabbits, since they can sell those to petshops no matter how they look, they do cull the older rabbits when their usefullness as a breeder is over with. They will cull any adolescent rabbits who are no longer small enough to sell and they will kill any rabbit born with a "defect" as they are in it for the money and caring for the results of their careless breeding would be both a financial and time drain.

Click to expand...

What I meant was, only someone that is irresponsible, like a BYB, could use this. I didn't mean to imply that only BYB's do this even though I see why you thought that by my post. I should have explained it better, but my brain is definately running on slow mode today.