For years, we’ve been exposing the fate of the majority of hunting hounds that are either too old, unfit or disobedient to be useful anymore – premature death at the end of a gun barrel wielded by hunt staff.
However, another aspect of their treatment of hounds in their care that often goes under the radar – how are foxhounds bred and selected for addition to a pack at the other end of their short lifetimes? It’s seldom considered or mentioned publicly, even in bloodsports discourse, but it came into sharp focus last week when Weymouth Animal Rights shared a shocking expose.
It would be only right for us at this point to issue a trigger warning for readers, before continuing to read on, because the reality is truly sickening.
The murder of an adult Camarthenshire Hunt foxhound deemed to be no longer ‘useful’ as reported by us in 2022
When we consider, logically, how many puppies are born into the litters of foxhound bitches, the size of the average pack and the annual ‘turnover’ in ‘useful’ animals – it leads us to the uncomfortable question ‘What happens to the other puppies that they don’t want to join the pack?’. The cold, hard facts it would appear are that many, many more new born puppies are killed on the breeding production line for a hunting pack than are dispatched at the other end of their exploitation.
WAR’s source is someone from within the hunting community who clearly has seen the process typically employed by hunts. They have revealed that in most cases, up to 5 bitches will be bred based on how many adult hounds have just been eliminated or their estimate of how many will be replaced at the end of the next season. Each will produce on average between 7 and 15 puppies in a litter and it’s clear that the hunt staff will want to select only the number of new additions that they require and meet their initial requirements.
The source reveals that the hunt would typically look for 65% of new additions to a pack to be bitches to facilitate future breeding requirements and the remainder would be dogs. They will be wanting to maintain a homogeneity of looks based on the given hunts’ traditional hound size, form and markings. The review of litters will be undertaken by hunt staff when the pups are just one day old.
As we all know, the size and makeup of a dog litter is a genetic lottery and the example provided in WAR’s post illustrates just how many hapless newborn puppies could be deemed surplus to requirements:
‘Therefore, if a hunt needs 10 replacement hounds for the new season and they breed 3 bitches, who all have a large litter of 12 puppies, you’ll have 26 surplus puppies.’
Now this is where things turn very dark. Hunts will not be willing or able to raise and re-home large numbers of newborn puppies nor take them to a vet to be euthanised – almost certainly not due to ethics as we know there are many pro-hunt vets – but due to the cost of doing so. The next issue for them is that the little ones are simply too small to be shot which is typically how the unwanted adults are disposed of. Thus, hunts have developed a brutal but cheap method to overcome these problems.
The informant has recounted how it will be most often down to the Whipper-In or a kennelman to kill them by swinging and smashing their heads against a hard surface – typically a wall and then to ensure death, they are all immediately thrown into a 3 gallon barrel half filled with water and weighted down. For some reason unknown, it would appear these barrels or buckets are always yellow – perhaps to indicate to others around the kennels the gruesome contents within. After around an hour of immersion the dead puppies are then thrown into offal bins in the kennels’ flesh house.
We can only speculate about just how many innocent, young lives are taken nationally every year in this disgusting manner but it is clear that it continues unabated regardless of ineffective legislation – be it hunting or animal welfare related – that has been passed to date. We should also not overlook the fact that this abhorrent practice is almost certainly found across all packs in the UK and so young beagles, bassets and others will also face such cruel ends to their short lives.
A spokesperson for Weymouth Animal Rights added:
“We were absolutely horrified when we were told about the killing of these innocent puppies. Like many others, we were aware that a high number of adult hunt hounds are killed by the hunts yearly. But it’d never occurred to us that this was going on… all those innocent little lives taken away, and in such a brutal, barbaric way. How can the hunts say that hounds will suffer when the Hunting Act is strengthened, when they’re doing this! It’s a harrowing thing to read about, but people need to know what really goes on in the sadistic world of hunting.“
Rowan Hughes from the Hunt Saboteurs Association said:
“This shocking revelation proves, once again, that those actively involved in hunting – or those that lobby for its continuation – who suggest that the hounds in their care are loved and treated compassionately are gaslighting the British public at every turn on the true nature of their barbaric pastime. It is time for all this cruelty to be consigned to the history books and has no place in the UK of the 21st century.”
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