i have just been speaking to a lady about her stud dog & she was telling me about her experience of breeding. she said she always lets her bitches have the permitted 6 litters in 8 years, as long as all goes well the previous time. i decided on 2 litters , max ,for my girls & i wondered what everyone else thinks.
caron

I would never have more than 2 litters from one bitch but that is just my personal opinion.    I cannot see the point of repeatedly breeding from bitches if they just provide mediocre/average litters even to different stud dogs.

hi 6 litters in 8 years that is just plain unfair on the bitch. they need time to rest and recover just like we do. like you I think alot less. three at max and the latest age of 6 or 7 years.

The age thing also varies.  In ssome breeds a bitch would be ain her prime at 6 or 7 (as in my breed) and in some already elderly.

Our breed club allows for four litters from a bitch in her lifetime as this is a medium size breed with average of around 6 pups a litter.

My bitches would have towo or three litters in their lives.  Of the 3 spayed bitches one had 8 pups, and the other two had 17 pups in their breeding life.

I can understand breeding a litter or two more from bitches that only ahve litters of ones and twos (where this is normal for the breed).

this lady was reffering to KC regulations of 6 litters in 8 years, i didnt realise breed clubs had different rules or guidelines . its amazing you really do learn something new every day. i must find out , out of interest , what the guidelines/rules are for mini dachsies, or if anyone knows, please tell me. thanks
caron

The Kennel club asked breed clubs to draw up codes of ethics covering breed specific matter.  As you might guess what is appropriate for one breed would not be for another so the Kennel clubs rules ahve to be catch all.

I would be horrified if someone bred a litter from a year old bitch in my breed even if it would be within KC rules.  The same if they ahd six litters, as four gives more than enough scope even if soem of the litters were all wrong sex, small numbers etc.

Mysstyko.  The KC does not have ANY regulations on how many litters can be bred from any one bitch.  They only state that they will "register" 6 litters from a bitch between the ages of 1 year and 8 years old. This actually means you could have 6 registered litters in 7 years from one bitch :(  That of course does not take into account the 'unregistered' litters in between :(

It is the Breed Clubs you should be looking to for guidance and advice :) NOT the KC

OUr breed club says 3 litters.  I would never have 6 litters although my breed are extremely fit and still young at 8 years of age, ask Lydia my almost 12 year old and she'll show you how fit she is :d

I was quite shocked to find that with beagles you can breed 6 litters and the permitted starting age is 16 months. 

In dallies we are allowed 4 litters and quite a lot of people do breed up to that.  I think it depends on how the bitches cope.  I saw a bitch win a ticket recently who had had 4 litters and looked stunning.

Just looked at the Cavalier club guidelines, it says no bitch to be allowed more than 6 litters, and not to be mated so as to rear a litter after her eighth birthday or before 16 months old. Personally I'm not going to breed my bitch until she's between 18 months and 2 years at the earliest, and she will only have 2 litters, 3 at the most, if all goes well. That's assuming the OH lets me!!

I would not let a bitch have more than 2 litters.....

Slightly off the topic but it has always concerned me that so many people breed more than once or twice from a bitch, six litters in some breeds that would amount to 36 plus puppies extra in the world.

Why do people feel that they need to breed so much from a Bitch?
I can totally understand that they want to keep their line going and they would keep a puppy to bring on the show, but 6 litters?

I would think twice before I bought a puppy from a breeder that A. had a litter from a bitch at 16 months old and B. would have 6 litters from the one bitch.

I don't see the point, it just adds more dogs to the world and with so many in rescue centres and unwanted why add more to it?

they do it for £££££

I dont agree.  I know many people who breed their bitches 4 times simply because they have gone to a great deal of trouble to make them into champions or they are producing top quality puppies.  I personally think 6 is definately too many the grandmother to my bitches had 4 litters and was still able to win her class at crufts.  She was totally adored by her owners and looked superb.  If the breed clubs did not think it was acceptable for the breed to bred that amount of times they would not permit it.

I think that if a bitch is worth breeding then she could justify three or four litters. However, most dont warrant one litter.

How many future Champions would you expect to get from one litter?

Also why don't they breed less from the mother ( say twice ) and keep one or two of the daughters and breed from them when they have possibly been made up to a Champion? ( does that make sense ).

I appreciate Breeders do go to alot of trouble campaiging their dogs to make them up the Champions and I know the love and care for dogs too.

I think we will all have our own opinions.... I personally would not have more than 2 litters from my bitch, she is not a puppy machine, if she did have four litters that could work out at 40+ puppies..... poor girly, I couldnt do it too her, then again I am a small breeder who only breeds when I want something to keep. JMHO :-)

Because they haven't the room to keep too many dogs?  Breeding more than once from a bitch will allow me to be more certain which traits in the pups (good points to keep and bad points to avoid) are passed on by Mum. 

This then lets me know what I need in a stud dog for the daughter I do keep from ONE of her litters. 

Pups from her other litters may also be used on future genrations or their offspring may gie suitable studs to use on furture generatiosn. 

So developing ones breeding line is about more than just the dogs one keeps, which in my case have to be strictly limited to one from each generation, well spaced at 3 to 4 years apart as they are a long lived breed. 

At the moment I won 5 generations of bitches age from 2 years to 13 1/2 years.  I won't be keeping another until the oldest dies, but will be breeding from the two year old on ehr next season in order to prove her and see what she produces, as I might not be able to keep a puppy for another 3 years.

If all goes well for my bitch , I will breed up to three times, because I have a breed that  requires c-sections, and only gives me very small litter size , the last two litters each produced singleton puppies. In order to get what I am hoping for from my girls sometimes it takes three goes. That being said, my vet knows that if her uterous is not looking at all healthy , he has my pre-permission to spay while he is doing a section, for any reason.
Lucy

Liisa, totally we do have our own personal opinions and if I did ever decide to breed I would be with you on only having two litters. :)

Brainless, I understand your system ( sorry best word I could think off ) and you are been very sensible in the way you breed and how many dogs you keep etc. :)

I wish all breeders were as sensible, unfortunatley there are always a small percentage that aren't.

In reply to your question about how many champions in one litter.  If you are lucky one if you are incredibly lucky two or I would say that is the case in dalmatians.  Unfortunately I did a repeat mating of both parents and have managed to get a champion out of the first out of the 2nd although I do have a lovely bitch I am afraid she is not a patch on the first and is unlikely to be made into a champion.  From the 3rd litter I kept nothing because nothing was good enough and even though the dad was a much better speciman then his father he did not produce the best puppies.

I have this year bred my champion bitch and my other bitch and neither have produced the dog I am looking for.  The more you breed the more fussy you become. 

I am going to be breeding again next year and I can only hope that I will get a correct speciman.  I now have four dallies and cant afford to keep a mistake as there is a limit to how many you can keep and I never move anything on which makes the decision more crucial.  If I dont get the puppy I want out of Tigger then yes I will be letting Purdy have her 4th and final litter.  I think that if my breed club felt that there was anything unethical in this and remember the restrictions on breeding were made by people with the breed in mind then I will do so.  She is a very fit and healthy much loved dog who has easy whelpings with full hearing healthy puppies.  All her children are with loving homes where they went as puppies.

I have 2 bitches that I have bred from.   My first had a litter of 14 pups of which I kept a bitch, in turn, this bitch has had 2 litters herself both with 14 pups in each litter, imagine if I'd opted for 6 litters from her!   After 2 she's has a great deal of back trouble because she is a short coupled small bitch and just doesn't have the space for all those pups.   That is why I would never have more than 2 litters from one bitch.

Champion bitches don't always give you the goods.  Neither of those 2 bitches I've written about are titled yet both have produced  Sh.Ch.'s & RCC winners each.

Perhaps your breed is one that suffers from problems mine doesnt.  Purdy is as lively as a puppy and the only problem she has ever suffered from was a cruicate ligement injury pre breeding.  

As for champion bitches not always producing the goods couldnt agree more.  My one which has given me a champion and another two top winning dogs is a pet through and through.  I have found the ideal combination with the stud dog I use who is also not a champion but the thing is behind both dogs is quality dogs in fact Purdy is the daughter of the dog CC record holder for the breed.  Wondeful in both shape and conformation but not in markings.  Both of my other girls produced lovely puppies but the champions litter was too long caste for my personal taste and the other litter too heavily marked.  Both girls have puppies going into the ring who I am sure will have excellent show careers.

I will repeat the point which I keep making which is why do the breed clubs allow the amount of litters they do if it is not good for them although I do still personally feel that six is too many and even though I could breed my beagie six times I wouldnt.

With your breed I suspect that even if you get conformation just right you still ahve the vagaires of the amrkings to cope with and the chances of getting a pups with both even with the large litters you ahve is not that good??

Absolutely right, Brainless.

I am glad we are one colour and no markings as I have always had small litters :-) Mind you coat texture is vital .

I am right in thinking that is dalmations the markings are really important also as I heared a guy at the ring craft asking someone which side did the markings look the best :-) :-)

It must be a nightmare getting the markings colour right on some of the breeds ( boxers being one that comes to mind) and the construction wrong or construction right and colours etc wrong.  Just have to keep trying I guess.

Construction is more important than decoration, but incorrect decoration really detracts from the overall picture. Spotting which is too heavy, too light, or unbalanced (large blank areas etc) turn a possibly outstanding dog into an ordinary one.

To my cost I realise the importance of decoration.  If Tigger was not quite so heavily marked I think she would have been a champion a lot sooner and I think her markings are the reason she always does very well under all rounders who can see through the spots.  As someone who has always owned heavily marked dogs I tend to not like them too lightly marked and I personally think judges who have imaculately marked dogs would probably look at her and not see past the spots.  Molly does better under breed judges as she has better markings.  :) 

I always said I would never go into another breed with markings and what do I do get a beagle where markings although not quite so important obviously do count.  :)

It's good that the standard doesn't specify the ideal density of spotting, just requiring the spots to be evenly distributed. So both heavily-spotted and light-spotted are within the standard, and it's down to personal preference from then on. :) As the rest of the standard calls for moderation in everything, I tend to include spotting density in this as well. :)

Personally I've found my heavier-spotted girl did better under breed judges (who could see past the heavy spotting) and the lighter ones did better with the all-rounders! :D

Perhaps your breed is one that suffers from problems mine doesnt.

Is this for me?

Have you looked at Munsters recently, they aren't the most exaggerated dogs in the world infact the complete opposite.   I stated that if I had taken the 6 litter ruling for Miranda, she could have been responsible for 84 puppies going by her litter production.     Looking at her, I think it would've killed her!

You didnt actually mention your breed or how many litters you were allowed to have. 

The point I was making was that just because you have had problems breeding with your bitch it does not make those of us who do breed more than twice wrong.  If I had some fundamental problem with any of my bitches being it physical or mental they would not be bred from and I personally would not need any code of ethics to enforce this.

Miranda did not start with a 'fundamental ' problem prior to whelping, rather 2 huge litters have caused problems in her back as she is a small short coupled bitch.   I cannot see the point of 3, 4, 5 litters if a bitch cannot give you anything decent in 2, what's going to change?   Some bitches can produce better than themselves and some cannot. 

But then I have only bred 3 litters in 17 years within my breed because I only breed when I can keep something myself.

If you click on my name, it is straightforward enough to see what breed I have!

You may not know which of two studs you want your next pup to be sired by and use them both wait and see how the pups turned out and then use the prefered stud again, that would give you 3 litters and one well thought out pup to keep?

I accept the points you are making, but if I'm correct you have a breed with a limited gene pool? My breed has a limited gene pool too and so I'd sooner see single litters from less than stunning bitches than multiple litters from top show winners. (I am assuming that ALL bitches bred from should be sound, typical, genetically & physically healthy and without major deviations from `the Breed Standard.) That may not be the best way to produce show winners but imho its healthier for the breed. Granted the 'popular sire syndrome' has far more potential to restrict gene pools, but I think we need to consider it in bitches too, especially in breeds with big litters. Interested in your opinion on this.

In reply to the OP I've always worked on the principle that I would not take more than 3 litters from a bitch, and in practice have never taken more than 2.

That said, I very much doubt that having even annual litters from physical & mental maturity to the onset of ageing (both of which vary enormously with breed) does any harm to a bitch as long as she is physically fit, well fed and cared for, and is a maternal bitch who enjoys her pups. So I'd not automatically condemn somone for having 6 litters per bitch, but unless it was a breed with tiny litters I'd want a very good reason as to why they are doing it.

Edited to say: I've just read your previous posts properly, and see that you only breed a bitch two or three times. I replied in the mistaken assumption that you were argiung for your Breed Club's maximum 4 litters in a lifetime - Sorry.

Wise words jas.  Limiting number of litters shouldn't just be about protecting the bitch but the breed as well.  I also have a rare breed and we don't (yet :-) have any restriction on number of litters in our breed club.  As you say, one bitch having large litters can have an enormous impact on a small gene pool and a similar impact on the breed if you had an over enthusiastic breeders churning out litters from closely related bloodlines.

Julie

Thanks Julie. :) Limited gene pools is a bit of a hobby horse of mine. Seems to me that in the past the Grand Old Ladies churned out a lot of pups and let their sires cover any half decent bitch. When I started out I used to think they were breeding far too much and looked down my inexperienced nose at their practices.  But these GOLs were both profoundly unsentimental and steeped in stockmanship (or should that be stockwomanship :D ? ) They also had the money, space and time to have a lot of dogs and so they didn't tend to breed many litters from a single bitch and had several good sires on the go at any one time. And for the same reasons the GOLs often had quite diverse blood lines going at the same time, because they could afford to keep enough dogs to experiment, and had no conscience about being tough when the trial didn't work out. Yes, there are certainly dogs from that era (no bitches) that appear in just about every pedigree today, but because the GOLs knew their breeds inside out and were so unsentimental there are none that you'd say "Eeek - must try to avoid too much Ch. Bigwinner 1950" about.

It seems to me that there are a few people today churning out almost as many pups as the GOLs but from fewer and more closely related dogs, and without the toughness and almost visceral knowledge of the breed that the GOLs had - which probably came from owning & breeding so many different dogs.

Or of course, maybe I'm just getting old ......... :D

Golly jas, your description of 'Grand Old Ladies' I remember well!! ;)  I think that was the way it was in most breeds just after the last war and soon after.  Even in my childhood, ordinary families had mongrels and only breeders (usually moneyed people with large houses and grounds) and a very few lucky people had pedigree dogs.  It's only in the last 40? years or so that more families have had a pedigree dog as a house pet, and even more recently that pedigree dogs have been bred in homes and not kennels.
The latest development is that the world and his wife think that breeding dogs is just about putting a bitch with a pedigree to a dog with a pedigree, and if they have a bitch then why shouldn't they do it? :(  I just wonder what the next step in the progression will be?

Well if the latter become the majority ro things are made more difficult for those who breed with breed improvemetn in mind the breeds will cease to be and become mongrels again :D  The process can a;lready be seen among the most popular and exploted breeds where a vast majority of the pet owned ones bare barely passing resemblance to their breed :(

LOL, the GOLs were great in more ways than one weren't they Val! :D

"The latest development is that the world and his wife think that breeding dogs is just about putting a bitch with a pedigree to a dog with a pedigree, and if they have a bitch then why shouldn't they do it?   I just wonder what the next step in the progression will be?

Agree that we could do without those, but imho some of the winning show folks do churn out too many pups from too narrow a gene pool, and in some ways they worry me more that the once off 'pet' breeders.

Hi jas.  I have no problem with a knowledgable breeder using a 'not quite show quality' bitch/dog who has virtues that would be useful in improving the overall quality of a breed.  My concerns are about pet owners, using dogs who sometimes bear little resemblance to the breed standard, using their mate's dog down the road, and producing pups who are bearly recognisable.  And these tend to be not one off litters.

I spoke to a lady this week with a sweet little bitch.  Brownie/grey colour, floppy ears, long tail, woolly coat clipped off, long legs, about the size of a Border Terrier.  We chatted as our dogs played and she told me that she was a 'full pedigree Yorkie' and was pregnant (running around in the park with my Rough Collies!) by her brother's 'full pedigree Yorkie' but she was a bit worried because the brother's dog was quite a bit bigger than her bitch :( and she hoped that 'she would have them OK!'  She had 6 homes waiting at £300 each and three of their owners wanted bitches so that they could breed because they all thought that the money was a good investment.  She was banking on the money to take her family to Florida and had booked the holiday on the strength of the money coming in.  That's just one example.  In the grooming parlour, I was struggling more and more to trim to the breed standard because you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ears!! ;)

>>I have no problem with a knowledgable breeder using a 'not quite show quality' bitch/dog who has virtues that would be useful in improving the overall quality of a breed.

I agree, people shouldn't just use the 2 or 3 current winning dogs. A friend of mine had an accidental mating with one of her dogs who she doesn't show as he has a really weird topknot although the rest of him is lovely - the resulting puppies were so gorgeous she nearly kept the whole litter, and the ones she has kept are doing very well in the ring. Obviously you shouldn't breed from a really poor quality animal, say with major health or temperament problems, but if you know what you are doing it should surely be ok for something like a mismarked dog?

I don't see why the bitches should be limited any more than they already are (4 litters, and few have more than two or 3 unless the litters were small) and the males used ad nauseum as is more often the case.

Also without at least two litters from a bitch to studs of different lines you don't know what your bitch is passing onto the next generation with any certainty.

In my own breed if the breeders didn't breed a couple of litters per bitch we would quickly not have a breed left as there are so few active breeders.  There are only around 20 litters bred a year, around 120 pups.

As it is when trying to find a sire I find thoise available are already half brothers of my own bitches due to so few stud dogs being available.

Certainly take your point and think it is very valid when you only have 20 litters p/a - thought it was more.

Have to admit this is really hard!  In my breed Club bitches are only allowed 3 litters, I would of liked 4 but agreed to the 3.  We also are a rare breed, so also have very few stud dogs to use.  One of my girls I've had 2 litters off and hopefully will be having her 3rd shortly.  In her first litter she had 4 but with only 2 surviving, her second litter she had 5.  More than likely in her next litter she will have 5 at the most.  There are other dogs out there in my breed that are having 9's and 10's, that have been or more than likely will have at least 3 and more than likely 4 litters in their lifetime, bringing their pups in their lifetime to nearly 40, my girl will have about 15 at the most.

Each time I have used a different dog.  The pups although varied have all been within the breed standard and there are definitely 3 out of the 7 that are really nice pups and I feel could have much to offer to the breed.  Unfortunately it looks as though none of their owners will be breeding from them, one who was going to is scared in case anything happened to her baby.  So this means that very quickly the lines that I used and my lines which I felt would go well together won't be used, which is such a shame especially as most of my litters have been male dominated :d

My girl is extremely fit, has clear eyes and hopefully, still awaiting the scores but has good hips too.  But as I follow the breed club guidelines her next litter will be the last.  90% of my new puppy owners are pet people so more than likely as and when I do have another litter with her the lines may not be carried on.

I have to say I don't believe in people who have loads of litters and I am happy about having 3 but there are a number of sides to the story and it's not always black and white.

This is where the breeding regualtions do sometimes fall down.  My younger bitches have nearly half the amount of puppies that their mums do.  I am assuming that is why some of the smaller breeds do allow 6 litters.  I cant see any reason why a larger dog needs to have 6 litters but judging by my own bitches I would say that 4 is not a unaccpetable amount.

i agree with you Caron thats exactly what i do, they are then spayed

out of interest i have been trying to find out how many litters / max litters ,are recommended for  mini dachshunds. i have looked on breed club web sites etc , but found nothing about this. i have emailed some of them but havnt recieved a reply as yet, anyone know ???
caron