Here’s some practical tips for better dog mating management to get the biggest litters that you possibly can and optimize the number of puppies.
I talk to a lot of breeders and I’ve been in the game for nearly 30 years myself: I’ve tried everything and I’ve heard everything, and I just want to let you know that a lot of you out there (and myself in the past), aren’t really optimizing your mating management to get the biggest possible litters.
For example, breeders often just put the bitch and the dog into a “honeymoon suite” and leave them to it. They are not really looking over the shoulder at what’s happening. Instead they just hope and assume that the mating will occur at the right time and leave it to the dog and the bitch to get on with it. At night and if you have to leave them to go to work, you’re better to keep them separated until you get home and then supervise the mating.
There’s a lot of potential problems with Honeymoon Suites:
- Did they even do the deed?
For a start, you don’t know whether they’ve actually mated or not, because you haven’t actually seen it happen. Sometimes they just can’t get it together. A lot of the times, the male and female aren’t really into each other, even if she’s actually ready. Some males to start like that particular female and some females might not like that particular male. So, they might not get it together at all. I think about one in three situations, it’s actually like that where they’re not attracted to each other. So that can happen.
2. High risk of injury.
The other thing that can happen is that the male can injure his penis. It certainly happened a lot of times that my male has withdrawn from the bitch and then ended up with the end of his penis caught outside the sheath. Hair can get caught and prevent the penis from retracting. When that happens the penis is exposed and can get hurt. If that occurs it will swell which makes it even harder for it to withdraw back into the sheath. The penis is not meant to be outside and it can get injured. An injured penis can put your male off or even stop him from being able to achieve a proper mating for quite some time.
3. Exhaustion of sperm supply.
Another thing that can go wrong is that the male can try repeatedly before she’s actually fertile. Matings at the wrong times will waste his sperm when the eggs are not even ready for fertilization yet. Or he won’t achieve a mating but will end up emptying himself onto the floor. In either scenario, when the optimum period arrives for fertilization to occur, the concentration of viable sperm in his semen will be sub-optimal.
Sperm is a finite resource. Your dog can’t just conjure up a nice big load of sperm at any old time. If your stud is getting used a lot, then the number of sperm per dose delivered goes down. To maximize litter size you need to maximize the number of sperm getting to the eggs that are available. That way every available egg has the best chance of getting fertilized.
To achieve that requires the optimum number of sperm. So it makes sense to ensure you get a mating at the right time and don’t use your stud at all when it is not the right time.
The way I learned that lesson myself was having a lot of bitches coming on heat at the same time. I’ve also had outside bitches happening to come on heat at the same time as my bitches, all ready to mate at the same time, and all wanting to use my boy. The way I used to handle it was to just alternate: each bitch would get mated every second day. If I had three bitches on the go, he would be used twice on some days. That’s definitely not advised. More than once a day is pushing semen quality down. Less often is better.
What usually happened in that situation was one of the bitches would fail to get pregnant. And who knows how many puppies we missed out on in those that did?
So you can easily overuse your sire, and that’s what I’m saying you shouldn’t be doing if you want to have big litters, or not miss out at all.
Dog Mating Management for Bigger Litters 
So what do I recommend?
Step 1 – Vaginal Cytology
What I do now is start off with vaginal cytology. Vaginal involves putting a moistened cotton bud into the bitch’s vagina. You rub it around the roof of the vagina of the bitch, and then you pull it out and you roll it onto a clean glass slide. Let it dry, spray it with fixative, and once it’s dry, you put it into a red dye and a blue dye. And then when it’s dry enough, you look at it under a microscope.
You can tell by looking at the cells, whether she’s still in early heat (proestrus) or whether she’s actually in true estrus. In true estrus, the cells change their appearance totally. Typically at that time, the bleeding will be starting to diminish as well, but that’s not a good enough indicator, so that’s why we do the vaginal cytology.
Once the cells change their appearance to what we call cornified, that is the beginning of estrus. The cells then stay like that for the five to seven days of estrus. So we can’t tell from vaginal cytology when the best time for mating is and we can’t tell when ovulation occurs.
However cornified vaginal cells is a great indicator of when we should start progesterone testing.
Step 2 – Progesterone Testing
If you do progesterone testing in the period before proper estrus, which is called pro estrus (when she’s just started bleeding and just come on heat, and been on heat for a few days, but not in proper estrus yet), you’re basically blowing your money or wasting your progesterone tests. That’s why it’s better to invest in having a vaginal cytology kit at home.
It’s going to save you a lot of money and the hassle of having to go to the vet, have the blood taken off her and pay for the progesterone test and then bring her home again. And then back you go again in a couple of days. Over and over again.
Better to save the progesterone testing for when it’s actually going to count, which is in true estrus.
So, okay. We’ve reached estrus. You’re starting to do your progesterone tests. I use a in-home one, which is a qualitative test. They’re called Target Ovulation Kits. I get them from the USA, and they give me a color indicator to let me know what stage she’s at. I find them really useful. Alternatively you can use a quantitative test, either at home or at the vets, but all of them need blood to work. So I do my progesterone tests and the tests will tell me when she’s ovulating.
Now, three days after ovulation is when the eggs are mature enough to actually be fertilized. So if I have a lot of bitches need mating at the same time, then I will wait until the eggs are two days post ovulation, and one day away from maturation.
Step 3 – Mating
That’s when I’ll do my AI or natural mating because it takes 12 hours for the sperm to wriggle their way to where the eggs are. The eggs will age and die very quickly after they are mature. So if you do the natural mating or AI with fresh sperm, it’s best done two days after ovulation, and that will actually get you the biggest possible litter.
If you don’t have a lot of bitches waiting in line, then I would do her twice. I would do her at ovulation, because the sperm can last at least three days in the vaginal tract and uterus. And then I would do it again at two days post ovulation when the egg cells were close to mature.
That way because he hasn’t been used except on those occasions we’re sparing him and optimizing semen quality for when it counts. When we do use him, we’re going to end up with a nice thick, creamy semen sample, full of lots and lots of sperm. And we know that there’s a really good chance that every egg that she releases is going to get fertilized.
I hope that you found this helpful, and that it actually helps you get a bigger litter next time and from here on in.
And if you want to achieve top prices and best homes for the puppies you do get, be sure to jump on our next Free Breeder Masterclass.
0 responses on "Dog Mating Management for Bigger Litters"