# Breeders, how many litters per year is enough?



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Assuming you mean in total, rather than for each dog, I think it comes down to how many dogs can be really well looked after. And that, in turn, will depend upon how many adult humans there are in the household. A set up with two full time dedicated adults, and several grown up children/grandchildren etc living in is very different from a single handed breeder working out of the house to make a living!


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## Countryboy (May 16, 2011)

Tonka's breeder has four full-time adult family members and usually two or three staff on duty thru the working hours. 'Cept one of the part timers is a groomer. 

How many litters??? At a guess . . . probably three a month, on average. 

They could easily handle more.


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## Keithsomething (Oct 31, 2009)

I would say 2-3 litters...I know my opinion changes like the wind (or more like the weather since I live in Ohio ;D) but I just feel from everything I'm learning from breeders that have been breeding for a long time is that you shouldn't over produce

And thats from 2-3 different bitches (not the same one o.o) which are well maintained litters. I would just be curious to ask...Why would a breeder need more than that? I know you have explained to me as have several others that breeding is to improve what you have so keeping an animal out of a litter (While not mandatory) is the whole purpose of breeding it...

so if you're having more than 2 or 3 litters a year I guess that furthers the question into how many puppies are being kept, how are they being handled if there are litters being born as they're trying to go through their adolescent puppy phases, are they receiving the amount of care and attention that they would have if there weren't another litter on the grounds?

(oh I was talking about standards too, mini's and toys tend to have super small litters and I've heard of them being bred by the 2's and 3's at a time to produce the next puppy for a breeder)


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## peppersb (Jun 5, 2011)

Farleysd: Great question.

Country boy: 3 litters a month?!? Wow. So that would be 36 bitches if each one has one litter per year on average? Or do they do back-to-back breedings? How are all those momma dogs housed and cared for? Are their emotional needs as well as their physical needs met? Hard to imagine that this could be a good thing for the momma dogs.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

A kennel of 24 - 36 bitches each producing a litter year, plus those too young or too old to breed (the limits under the KC accredited breeder scheme is a maximum of 4 litters in a lifetime, with not more than one litter a year), plus stud dogs, definitely seems on the large side, CB, even with staff! By my reckoning that makes around 75 - 90 dogs and puppies on site at any given moment!


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## Countryboy (May 16, 2011)

Thirty-six bitches?? Could easily be, fjm.... 

I know of a dozen myself amongst the foster families who bring their dogs to our weekly Rally training sessions. Another dozen who don't come out so much but may show up at the ABIDS get-togethers. 

The breeders could easily have access to a dozen more that I've never come into contact with, including two or three in the big bungalow. I hang over the Dutch doors to the bedrooms and give them an ear-rub but I've long ago given up trying to remember all their names. 

There are certainly dogs in the kennels for different lengths of time. Mostly temporarily away from their foster homes. Spud is back there now undergoing health testing and training for his last leg of RN. Most of the others stay in home situations with foster families. 

Abt once a month there's some new dog that's just been picked up at the airport . . . comin' in from Texas, or Utah, or some breeder elsewhere. The dogs come and go. I can't keep track of all of them. 

Up to four puppy pens . . . that, full, would hold abt 40 or more puppies at once. And that doesn't count the juniors still in the whelping boxes. There's usually one or two litters in them.

So, on site, there could be as many as 75 dogs at once. All looked after by people who love dogs. One of the 'Poodle Maids' had tears in her eyes when I took Spud back . . . promised that she would take good care of him. I had no qualms . . . I knew she would!  

All puppies are raised in the home, with cooking, TV, vacumn cleaners, people coming and going . . . everything u would expect in a home. All socialized to cats by Gizmo . . . who wanders in and out amongst them.

My grandkids are part of a pack of young, human, puppy socializers . . . regular visitors to the kennels. *Usually their parents are fosterers.* Encouraged to spray their feet, sanitize their hands, and to sit down in the puppy pens and play with the little ones. 

Diane's next goal is to dig a pond, somewhere on the 30 acres, to socialize all the puppies to water.


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## outwest (May 1, 2011)

oh, my goodness...and I was thinking of having A litter and someone said I would then be a breeder. LOL

I would hope with all those puppies someone is smooching and playing with them regularly...


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## Sookster (Apr 11, 2011)

I guess it depends on what you are doing.... 

For example, the service dog school that I volunteer with produces around 400 puppies/year give or take a hundred or so. This is a huge number, of course. All breeding dogs are housed with "host" families with some being home whelps and others occurring in the kennel, depending on the level of comfort a particular host family has with the whelping process. Puppies are heavily socialized and introduced to a variety of different surfaces, textures, objects, people, sights, and sounds throughout their first 8 weeks and are then placed in puppy raiser homes until about 14-18 months old, at which time they return to the kennel for training. 

But for an average breeder, not breeding to meet a demand such as the one this service dog school is trying to meet, obviously 4-500 puppies/year is probably not acceptable. I don't think there is any "magic number". It is what are you, as a consumer, comfortable with? What are you looking for in a breeder? Are you willing to sacrifice on one thing (maybe number of litters per year) to get something that is more important to you, such as temperament or working ability? A good example is the breeder that my cherished Sonya was from. She has more litters/year than I am comfortable with and doesn't show her dogs in conformation shows. BUT Sonya had a stellar personality, a perfect fit for me, was a great size (22 inches), was incredibly athletic with tons of drive. Her breeder produces smaller spoos and titles her breeding stock in lots of competitive events (rally, agility, SAR, etc.). She has a lot of dogs, but most of them are also housed in "foster" or "host" homes. She also donates 10-15 pups to this service dog school each year, which is admirable. Would I budge on my beliefs that she has too many litters/year for another dog like Sonya? Probably so.


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## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

Ah - foster homes! I think that makes a difference! But to be raising 40 pups at a time in the home ... I assume they come in and out in relays?!


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