CockersOnline Forum
Cocker Specific Discussion => Genetics & Breeding => Topic started by: lexi on March 08, 2012, 08:29:33 PM
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A reputable breeder's bitch (here in Switzerland) had 12 healthy puppies a few days ago. The same bitch gave birth to 13 puppies a year ago. (Unfortunately only 7 survived.)
Your thoughts on this please.:shades:
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my thoughts are basically.. crikey! :O
Poor mum with all those mouths to feed!
Is this something that can be influenced by particular breeding of dogs to bitches or is it purely fluke / chance? Intentionally breeding 2 dogs to ensure large litter numbers seems slightly irresponsible to me when mum only has 8 teats, and feeding 12 puppies is surely going to be a massive drain on her, and she'll need loads of additional nutrition, else she might not cope, or recover? :-\
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My girls had 11 pups each in their litters there was no intention to attempt to have large litters and Penny's own mother never had more than 4 in any of the litters she had. Penny was mated a second time, but I wasn't hoping for a repeat. That pregnancy ended with uterine torsion, all pups were lost and mother was lucky to live. I believe having a large litter may have contributed to the torsion but with so little writing on the matter (because it is extremely rare in dogs) I will never know for sure. However with just one mating her daughter Phoebe also went on to have 11 pups. She was unable to feed and hand rearing was a nightmare I would never wish to repeat, but I did not want to risk another mating particularly in view of what happened to Penny.
In these cases I assume that the dogs were mated at just the right time and that they were healthy enough to sustain all embryo until birth, I don't think anyone expects to have such large litters but as with everything sometimes it just happens that way.
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In these cases I assume that the dogs were mated at just the right time and that they were healthy enough to sustain all embryo until birth, I don't think anyone expects to have such large litters but as with everything sometimes it just happens that way.
That's what I thought but I just wondered if any other breeders had experienced such large litters. It certainly is a lot of work for both the mum and the breeder! :o
Thanks for sharing your experience with us Bluegirl. :D
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One of my girls mums (not owned by me) has had 2 litters one of 15 the other of 13, sadly they didn't all survive, but it does make me paranoid when my girl is having pups, thankfully her first litter was a normal litter of 7.