Red Fever
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Aug 2006
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 1096 |
I'll try to keep it short. Aubrey's been raising, training, and coon hunting hounds for 27 years. There has been a lot of trial and error over the years. His passion truly is harvesting coon in the fall, but he is not a social hunter, he has always hunted mostly by himself, even as a kid. Aubrey is always working on a young dog, so if you get too many dogs in there, things can get out of control. In the last 12 years he has taken up comp hunting, field trialing, water racing, etc. There has been some trial and error there too, but we have found how we like to train, and what we like to breed to keep us competitive in those avenues as well.
We don't do too much with drags anymore. Aubrey has on occasion in the past, but he really just doesn't have time for it anymore. A little bit is fine as long as you do it correctly, and never overdo it. It will tell you a few things about the pup/pups, or it tells us a few things anyway. He will show the young dog (no younger than 6 months) a cage coon or 2 before he takes them to the woods at night. I won't elaborate how he does this on here, but I will tell you he DOES NOT hang it in a tree. We never work a dog on the tree, if they have the tree it will come out naturally. The reason he shows it a coon or 2 beforehand is to #1, let us know that it is mentally mature enough for the woods, and #2 we're looking for a few specific traits in our dogs, and this tends to show us that. When we feel they're ready for the woods at night, we take them with the older, trash free dogs. Aubrey doesn't single them out until they've had at least 1 kill season on them, sometimes it's not until a month or 2 before he's ready to comp hunt them. Not saying that it wouldn't be better to do it earlier, maybe it would, but with our terrain, and the amount of time he has necessitates it to be this way. We've never had a problem with them wanting to hunt on their own, or being able to split tree and hold pressure. In fact, quite a few of them split tree very early on.....in our experience, independence is bred in them, it doesn't have to be trained that way. Rip for example was extremely independent, split treed consistently from the older dogs since he was 9 months old. Tater started split treeing at 6 months. Taterchips was split treeing at 10 months. Natural.
Aubrey and I have always said, what a dog shows you the first handful of nights to the woods, is what they will reproduce. Hunt drive, track speed, tree power. We agree that people should be focused on keeping the early, natural ones in their breeding program. Right now, we have 9 dogs out here that went hunting, ran track, and locked down treed in the 1st or 2nd night to the woods anywhere from 5 1/2- 11 months old. Everyone has their own criteria for their breeding programs....some go for titles, some for pedigree, some for big hunt winners, and on it goes. We breed for traits. Our motto is BREED NATURALS, HUNT NATURALS, REPRODUCE NATURALS.
We agree with Elvis " in my opinion it really don't matter how you start a pup. its just a matter of what works for you. a natural is gonna be easy and make you look good either way. "
Aubrey sold hides last week. These were his main dogs for season. All 5 of these females ran and treed their 1st or 2nd night to the woods, at 11 months old or younger.

left to right: GRNITECH GRFCH GRWCH GRCH Red Fever Gangsters Pair A Dice (Clyde x Bonnie), GRCH Red Fever Let Er Rip Taterchip (Tater x Dice), WCH FCH GRCH Red Fever Baby Likes To Rock (Rock x Star), NITECH GRCH FCH Red Fever Full of Mischief (Ox x Trouble), NITECH GRFCH GRCH WCH Red Fever Ain't Going Down (Ox x Shiloh)
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Red Fever Redbones
Aubrey and Ann Butler
VISIT: http://redfeverredbones.tripod.com/
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GRNITCH GRFCH GRWCH GRCH PR Jack Pine Duke (only current living Quad Grand)
GRNITECH GRFCH GRWCH GRCH PR Red Fever Hot Iron Ox (October 2017 #6 Current Reproducer)
GRNITECH GRFCH GRWCH GRCH PR Red Fever Gangsters Pair A Dice
GRNITECH GRFCH GRCH PR Red Ryders Red Fever Tater (2013 ARCA Overall Hunt Winner)
NITECH GRCH PR' Two Worlds Collide (2 wins towards GRNITE, pts toward FCH WCH, Former #1 Reproducer)
NITECH GRWCH GRFCH GRCH PR Red Fever Razor's Rip N Tear
NITECH GRFCH GRCH WCH Red Fever Ain't Going Down
NITECH GRCH PR Tree Rizin' Razor's Lil' Ghost
NITECH GRFCH GRCH PR Red Fever Full of Mischief
NITECH GRFCH PR Red Fever Phantom By Moonlight
NITECH FCH GRCH PR Goza's Sing Along Country Girl
NITECH GRCH PR Red Fever Let Er Rip Taterchip
NITECH WCH GRCH GRFCH PR Red Fever Baby Likes To Rock
FCH CH PR Red Fever Rip Tearn' Beast Mode (wins toward NITECH, WCH)
WCH CH PR Red Fever Beware The Ricochet (wins toward FCH, NITECH)
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Last edited by Red Fever on 02-19-2016 at 04:15 AM
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