Re: Labrador breeding - should you breed from your bitch We had thought to breed from 'Kes' our older bitch, she is a fantastic working retriever and would have loved a pup from her? She has a wheat allegy, so we decided that it would not be fair to pass that on. So last year she was spayed and she is happy doing her thing. So we bought a half sister to her, 'Indie'. Same father different Mother.
Re: Labrador breeding - should you breed from your bitch We bred form our bitch. We had fantastic litter of 6, of which we decided to keep 1. Obviously our girl was health tested & so was the father of the litter.
What are the pros and cons (if any) of breeding my Chocolate with a Black lab? Thanks in advance for any and all advice. -Scott
Welcome to the forum Scott Have you read the article linked in the top post? The pros and cons of breeding run across all the colour combinations. Or did you have a particular aspect of breeding in mind? Are you interested in finding out the potential colour of the puppies? If so, you might find this article interesting: Labrador Colour Inheritance There are charts for all the different colour combinations. Maybe you could tell us what you are hoping for from this breeding, and what kind of lines your dogs come from
Thanks Pippa for the welcome. I read over the article and found it quite interesting. I don't have a particular preference as to the make up (color) of the litter and I don't have any particular aspect of breeding in mind. Charlie, is our family pet, she's not used for hunting or field trials or anything of the sort, although she has trained beautifully on the basics. She is incredibly smart and retrieves in the water as well as she does on dry ground. My main purpose for breeding her is to keep a pup (or all of them) so that I can keep her lineage alive. She is still young, but I know time marches on and the inevitable is, well, inevitable. I didn't know if breeding her with a different colored lab would decrease the quality of her line, both of her parents are chocolate. I just don't want to do anything to adversely affect her or her line. Thanks in advance Scott
Hi Scott, it isn't really the color of the male that indicates how appropriate he is as a stud dog, but rather his other qualities. Most Labradors are bred with either the show ring or the shooting field in mind, and lines are chosen to reflect the quality of the dog's ancestors in this respect. If the puppies are simply to be pets then his temperament is the most important attribute to consider once all the health tests have been carried out. If your bitch is from field lines, then it probably makes sense to mate her to a field bred dog so that those qualities are passed on. If from show lines, then a show dog might make more sense. You might want to consider that mixing the two could make the puppies less appealing to many prospective buyers. Have you had any health checks carried out on your girl yet?
Ok, thanks. Yes she has been checked out and is in great health. Thanks for the information. You have been extremely helpful and I have enjoyed the sight and perusing the forums.
Hi Scott, just to butt in, when you say she's been checked and is in great health, that's fab, but has she had any specific health tests for breeding purposes? Elbow/hip scores? Testing for eye diseases? EIC tests etc etc? Without these tests (and, obviously, favourable results) from both the sire and the dam, the puppies won't be particularly marketable as they will be more susceptible to life-changing (and potentially very expensive) health issues. Here is some more information: http://www.thelabradorsite.com/health-screening-for-labrador-diseases/
Not forgetting that any stud dog must have all the relevant health tests and x-rays as well to give puppies the best chance of being healthy. Why would you think that mating her with a black dog would de-value her lineage?
Unless you only wanted only chocolate offspring which a chocolate/chocolate breeding would give the important factors are the quality of both the stud and the dam. So if the concern is predominantly on lineage quality you would be looking for a stud with field champions and have been successful himself that at least matches your girl or surpasses her breeding.
Ok thanks. That's what I was unsure about. I wasn't sure if pups (of any color) were more desirable if both parents were the same color. Thanks again!
Two and a half years ago we bought a yellow labrafor retriever for our family. Within a few months my husband and I started discussing the possibility of breeding her. It has been a back and forth discussion about health risks and so on if we chose to breed her verus choosing not to breed her. She came with full registration. If she had not, it may have never been a discussion She's a heavy boned, almost overly loving girl with an insane retrieving instinct. She's incredibly intelligent with an immense will to please. She is incredibly athletic and very healthy. Her father is an English lab, and her mother is an American lab. She takes after her father. We have ordered genetic tests from the DDC website, and tomorrow she's going to get x-rays from our vet which he'll then send to the OFA to see how her health is on her hips and elbows. If she passes those tests we'll then have to take her to another vet who does the CERF eye exam. We've already bought a fox red male puppy who won't be born until November in a different state from a highly reputable breeder. My husband and I would like to use a fox red stud for our girl to keep one of her puppies to breed back to the male we are waiting on...thus we would be a small hobby breeder with no more than 2 intact females (once the future female puppy is old enough to be bred!), and one male. We plan on showing our boy in the conformation ring as well as in obedience trials, ect. I am also a stay at home mom with one child who is not in school, and so am available at all times for my girl and future pups . The one thing I'm uncertain about with our girl is if her clearances all come back clear, would a breeder approve her since she is a dudley, and therefore disqualified in the confirmation ring? I've done some research, and it appears if she is bred to a yellow she'll not throw any dudleys herself. What do the experienced breeders think? She has great genetics to pass to her pups (that is of course not including the hereditary diseases we are going to ve testing for...just personality, ect.).
@Jo Laurens has written an extremely comprehensive reply to a previous post you have already written genetic-clearences-through-parentage
Mmmmm........ If a yellow was eeBb, and your girl eebb then half the pups would be eebb (yellow with chocolate pigment). From memory, I haven't checked. Sorry if it's wrong but probably worth another check at least.
Your Dudley girl is actually a chocolate lab with a yellow coat. Her yellow coat is her phenotype(what you can see) while her genotype(what you can't see) is bbee ("b" is chocolate and "e" is yellow). Breeding her to a yellow (Fox Red) may or may not produce another Dudley. It all depends on what his genotype is.... We know that he is "ee" because Fox Red = Yellow. If he has a black nose, lips and eye-rims and pads, the he is either a BB or a Bb (the upper case B cancels out the lower case b in the phenotype(what you can see). See that lower case "b"? He can pass that on to a puppy with your girl who is bbee. She can only pass on "b" but he can pass on either the "B" or the "b". As you've seen with your girl, what you'd get then is a chocolate dog with a yellow coat or bbee - another Dudley. You don't say whether or not the Fox Red is a proven Stud; if he was, you'd have an idea as to whether or not he carried the chocolate gene. But, IF you want to be certain that you would get no Dudley's from such a breeding, the Stud owner could genetically test for coat color and make certain that he is BB and not Bb.
