# Culling?



## YourSoJelly (Apr 22, 2013)

I'm not sure if this is where I should put this, if it, feel free to move it.My question is about culling. Im not a big fan of it, but i guess if they are ill and theres 18 in a litter but i dont typically appreciate that. What is your guys' opinion on it? For those of you who don't know, culling is when you euthanize an animal. Many times with mice and rats, they do it when they are pinkies, but they do euthanize them when they are adults for snake food and such.


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## JudeWriley (Aug 1, 2007)

I've only heard of culling in regards to purposely and intentionally thinning a litter of newborns so that the mother has a better time taking care of all the babies. It that respect, having a breeder or rat owner cull a litter is unnecessary because the mom rat will do that on her own if she feels instinctively that she needs to. Most of the times for large litters, a good mom will just split the little ones into two piles and feed each alternately. All an owner really needs to do is to keep mom feed properly, interact with the babies every day and try to let mom have some playtime and exercise away from the litter sometimes.


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## Jaguar (Nov 15, 2009)

Culling does NOT necessarily mean kill. It just means to remove from a breeding program. It is done by professional breeders of a lot of animals to remove animals with undesirable traits from their lines. It could be as simple as just not breeding them when they mature. Most culls get placed in family homes. I think it is completely unnecessary to kill/euthanize rats in this way. Even though they may not be up to quality standards, they will still make excellent pets. Culling by death is mostly done in big commercial breeding facilities where they are only concerned with maximizing their profit. For example, large industrial farms will kill most male chicks since they cannot lay eggs. It is certainly not something you do to reduce litter size. As said above, mom's instincts will take over and she will either separate the group for feedings, or the smallest and weakest of the litter will simply fail to thrive.


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## Daize (Jun 8, 2013)

If the problem is too many babies and some are smaller than others. It's as easy as removing the larger ones and allowing the smaller ones to eat. Just do that for a few hours a day, until the smaller ones catch up in size. They might never catch up completely, while nursing, but they will catch up enough to survive. Once weaned and eating on their own. The smaller ones will do just as well as the larger ones. 
So, in this scenario culling isn't needed.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Culling has some benefits and serious drawbacks depending on who is doing it and for what reason, but it really is a commercial breeding question so I'm not going there here.


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## Poisoned (Nov 17, 2012)

Culling is almost always done for rats who just aren't what they're looking for, or are carrying temperament or health issues. There is nothing wrong with culling, and it doesn't mean kill, it just means removing them from the breeding. All good animal breeders do it, otherwise breeders would breed anything that they produced. 

Now, some people do use killing as a method of culling - like if you watch "Pedigree dogs exposed" some witch breeding Ridgebacks kills the pups without ridges, even if they are perfectly healthy mentally and physically - just because they don't have that deformity that gives them the 'ridge'. 
That I do not agree with. Spay/neuter would suffice.


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## Isamurat (Jul 27, 2012)

I would say there are two types of cling, removing from the being pool, which is fully acceptable, and the euthanisia of unwanted animals which to me is not. The first is something every breeder does, in fact every owner in a way, it's not generally what "no cull" breeders are talking about. The second some breeders do for a variety of reasons. I know some breeders here that do. Some do it too keep litter size managible, both in terms of the doe and for them, though I have seen does handle large litters extremely well with the right support and nutrition. This seems more common in breeders that bed on a larger scale or for varieties that are quite hard to achieve. It's not something I think is right unless a mum is badly struggling with her litter size, there are no potential foster mums around and extra support isn't helping (thankfully noy a situation that's ever happened in my team yet). Really I don't think it's possible to properly breed for temperament and health and regularly cull, ignoring the ethics you lose all that data, you could have major health issues in the rats you culled and no way of knowing. 

What I seriously hate is where an adult has reached the end of there "useful" life and is culled (euthanasia type), it just shows a complete lack of respect and love for the animal who deserves a long happy retirement being fully spoiled. I can see that there are is some possible argument with kittens in the rats favour (though I disagree in most cases that it is actually beneficial to the rats) but for an adult to be culled is all about convieniance and had no benefit for the rat, especially as often people will happily rehome older being rats (though personally I could never pay with mine, they are my pets first).


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## Lauren L (Jul 9, 2013)

Jaguar is correct culling doesnt necessarily mean kill for instance my dogs brother was "culled" from the show line by being fixed and pet homed due to a mess up in his bite.
i think culling as in killing is acceptable in SOME circumstances such as a deformity that greatly reduces quality of life, incurable disease that would eventually lead to slow painful death OR circumstances that would lead to a slow death. other than that i find simply altering and pet homing easier..i have met some that breed and when they get a rat that does not have a temperament that they like (aggressive ect) they will cull it and sell as snake food same with any other undesirable traits that they didnt want in their lines. that doesnt mean that they didnt pet home cull it just means the ones they didnt want out their connected to them and their lines were eliminated while the ones that were eveything they wanted in the line but still maybe not as nice as some others were pet homed


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