The American Beagler Forum

anybody have any luck with runts? i have one right now that is a hunting machine.

BADBEAGLE wrote:anybody have any luck with runts? i have one right now that is a hunting machine.

IMO, runts have as good a chance as any pup in the litter to be a very good hound. As has been said, by far and large, "a dog is what it will be on the day that it is born". (The dog's abilities and limitations are locked in, both good and bad traits, to include those that man can and cannot influence).

On the down side, Beaglers, myself included, will not keep one for several reasons; 1) Do not breed to or from it as defective genes may be passed along. 2) A runt, no matter how good a dog, detracts from a "level" pack. 3) The smaller the female, the greater risk of whelping problems. 4) A runt in a litter will often reflect poorly on the Sire and Dam. 5) Often, a runt will have poor body conformation.

On the up side, for a gunner, the size of the dog is on no importance, it is all about abilities and the heart of the hound to bring the bunny to the gun.

Years ago I raised Redbone, Bluetick, Trigg and July hounds as Coon dogs. I always kept the smallest pup in a litter because I felt like they were the ones with the most grit in a fight and the best at the tree.

In short, a runt is like it's litter mates, it can be a cull or the best of litter.

Me and my dad are gun hunters. Dad keeps the runts when we have litters and it works for us.

When I bred Rottweilers, I always kept the runt of the litters. I don't know if it was the genetics of the line of dogs I had, but the runts always made the best pets. The other reason I kept the runts was because they were always the biggest and had the best conformation out of the litter by the time they reached 2 - 2.5.

The guy that I bought my original stud male from turned me on to it when my pup (who was the pick of the litter) and his pup (the runt) were about 9 months old. My male was already 90 lbs and blowing up. His was about 60 and looked awful. By the time they turned 2, mine had started slowing down and his was growing slow and steady. I couldn't believe the difference when they were two years old.

Now, let me get on topic . . . I would imagine the same can happen with beagles. I've read several articles that stated the runt was smaller than it's littermates only because of it's physical location while developing. I don't know if that's true or not, but if it is, then anything is possible once they are separated from the litter.

That reminds me, the other thing the I learned from my rottweilers was; the sooner I got the runt away from the litter (about 6 - 8 weeks old) the better they developed. I don't know why, but it worked. None of them were shy, small, and they grew to be beautiful in conformation and spirit.

If both sire and dam were over 15 inches, yes i would pick the runt every time.

My dad always picked the runt of every litter, Always seemed to turn out for him. With the new rules maybe thats the way to fly.

Most of the time the runt dog ends up having more grit than any dog in the litter because being the smallest it has to fight harder for food .