hi all, my lil girl will be 5 weeks pregnant at the end of this week, i was just wondering how many pups to expect from her first litter?

Nobody would be able to tell you how many, why dont you get her scanned by the vet to see? Though its not that accurate on numbers. You will just have to wait and see.

ive had a litter of 3....4....8 so you never know! but ive got lots of friends with same breed that have had upto 13 lol

good luck the wait is a killer isnt it :( LOL x

doesnt matter if its her 1st or last, the number can be anything from 1 - 14.....average for your breed is around 7-8 i think.

They are all different, one of my girls had a litter of 2 and then a litter of 12...so you never know

I have a breed that averages 1-3 pups.

One of my girls had 2 litters before being spayed.  First time, just the one pup.  2nd litter was 6 pups! 

Hi my girls is now 5 weeks this is her first litter and I have just had her scanned, but the vet could not be exact on numbers, she said more that 1 could be 2-3?? We will just have to wait and see, that's the hard part.

depends on what breed you have, also each bitch is different within that breed. It is the bitch that decides on how many pups as it is her that produces the eggs, it is the male that determines the sex of the pups. If caught later on in ovulation there is more chance of male puppies being born as male sperm swim faster and vice versa. Hope that helps with your answer :-) This is the worst time just waiting around.

Don't trust scans too much as they are only as good as the person who read them. :) For my first litter I was told just 3 or 4 pups, the bitch had ten. For one litter two years ago the vet went one better and said one, maybe two pups -that bitch also had ten. I've only ever ONCE come across a vet that was spot on and said 5 or 6 which turned out to be 6. Even when I went to a sheep scanner she didn't get the numbers right.

Mmm it's also cos the female sperm are hardier - if your bitch is mated early then the sperm have to hang around, so more bitch pups are born, if later then the male sperm are still strong.  It didn't work for me though as my first litter (GSDs) produced 6 boys and 1 girl even though she was mated very early...

Good luck with however many arrive, my girl just had 12 on her first litter, keeping me on my toes they are now at 7 weeks !

thankyou all for your comments...i'm so excited i can't wait....xx

We had our girl mated on day 8, one mating tied for 20 mins. She had 7 beautiful healthy bubba's :o) My sister in law's bitch had 8 first litter  and her other bitch had 5 first litter.

All the best with your litter! I was like a cat on hot tiles!

My young lad recently sired his first litter, to a maiden bitch. I didn't think she looked very big at 6 weeks and thought she'd had 5 or 6. She had 9!

The first litter that I bred, from one tie, was 15 puppies. That was a bit of a shock for us all :)

LOL - with my bitch's first litter I thought perhaps a maximum of 5 by week 6, then she got HUGE and out popped 7!

We didnt think our girl was too big and she is a small bitch but she carried 15 bigger than average pups.  we lost 4 due to the time it took and the size of them.

my girl is quite huge she's just over 5 weeks gone and her teats are huge to....could this mean she could be excpeting a big litter? x

I wouldn't even expect a bitch to look pregnant at just 5 weeks!

like has already been said all bitches are different so I wouldn't guarantee a bitch looking large in pregnancy with a large litter and vice versa. it is really a waiting game and like Marianne has said my bitch (large breed) also was only just starting to show at 5 weeks!

I have had bitches barely look pregnant and whelp 8 pups, and look quite large and have four. 

Depends on the fitness of the bitch, the size of her and the pups and the amount of fluid carried.

in reply to MarianneB my girl does look pregnant an is alot bigger than wot she was as people have already said all bitches are different.......to brainless thnx for your comment my bitch is quite large for her age but her dad was also very big she's also very fit x