Now a lot of people think dog breeders make a lot of easy money. I would say yes, and that is if they are not doing everything that they should be doing. In this blogpost, I'm going to try to list down what goes into an ethical breeding programme. I will split the processes into 4 parts; preparation and planning, preparation before mating, whelping, before the pups go to their new homes.
The fastest way to become a millionaire is to first be a billionaire,
then go into ethical dog breeding
Preparation and Planning
In previous blogposts, I've talked heavily on what it means to be an ethical breeder. Generally what we need to be doing are appropriate health testing, proving the dogs, and bettering the breed. So before I proceed to breed the female I have, I'll have to do the first two things mentioned concurrently.
Health testing for Labradors are briefly split into 4 parts;
Full DNA health panel - $350
Hips and Elbow X-ray + evaluation - $800
Eyes clearance and certification - $250 Echocardiogram for heart clearance - $300
Then we move onto proving the dogs in a competitive arena. I'll only talk about conformation shows as that is the one I'm most familiar with.
On average there are about 18 shows a year here in Singapore.
Show fees - $990
Grooming before shows - $475
Show essentials and accessories - $500
So a year of showing plus health tests would have set me back around $3600+ and that is excluding transport fees, meals, and other stuff.
Another important part about breeding is learning pedigrees. You don't just put two good dogs together and hope for the best. To increase your chances of producing good dogs, you'll have to study pedigrees and how the stud dog's lineage can compliment your bitch line. What I do is I look at how a stud dog looks like and its development growing up, then look at the development of the dogs behind that stud. Sometimes I will have to enquire about the temprament of the dogs by contacting the breeders. All of these takes a lot of time and effort. Now if you have a great mentor, you'll save a lot of time and effort as their experience can help you greatly. Locally here in Singapore, there aren't any professional Labrador breeders so all of my knowledge comes from my mentor in Australia. I travel there at least twice a year to attend shows and learn about this breed but I'm not going to include the costs here.
Next we look at the cost of preparation. There are so many essential items that one needs to have to prepare for the whelping of the puppies.
Whelping pen - $1500
Puppy play pen and toys - $500
Miscellanous such as logbooks, thermometers, puppy mats, milk formula etc. - $1000
If I include other essentials such as puppy appropriate food and high calorie kibbles for the nursing mother, this part would have cost me close to $4000.
Now what about the stud dog? In other countries where there are many breeders of the same breed, you could pay a stud fee to the dog's owner where it typically costs anywhere from $1500-$3000, more so if you decide to ship fresh/frozen semen. As mentioned above, we do not have any good Labrador breeders here in Singapore so the cheaper option for me is to import semen, where the cost is a ballpark figure of around $5000. The other option is to import a male, but it can go wrong in a lot of ways. For example if I import a puppy, he may not develop nicely as he ages, and the cost will go up very high if I import a proven adult male (which breeders may not sell anyway). And ethical breeders do not breed the same pair more than once, unless that pairing has produced exceptional quality dogs. This is to allow a wider genetic diversity flowing around Labrador's lines.
So in the Preparation and Planning phase, I would need conservatively around $9000 to pull this off.
Ch. Dickendall Arnold, one of my all time favourite dogs. Top producer of Champions in USA in 1996, 1997 and 1998. Picture taken from Dickendall Labrador Retrievers.
Preparation before mating
Let's fast forward to the part where my female is now in heat and everything is slowly falling into place. We will need to go for at least 2 progesterone tests to mark the optimum period of ovulation to increase the chances of a successful mating. This part is troublesome as we will need to visit the vet to get this done. Then we will have to prepare the frozen semen and get it ready for an artificial insemination. Now I have a very close friend who is a vet and he is able to help me with this so my costs is lowered but I estimate I will have to spend around $1000 to get this done. Now there is a chance where the fertilisation does not happen and if that happens, all these money will be gone just like that, and we will have to wait another 6-8 months for the female to come into heat again to restart the process.
Essentially how dog breeding feels like to me
Whelping Let's say the fertilisation is a success and now we have to wait around 60+ days for the puppies to arrive. Everything has been going on smoothly so far and puppies have been confirmed by X-ray or Ultrasound at the vets. Estimated cost $300.
When the puppies arrive, most breeders will need to sleep beside the whelping pen in order to provide assistance, and also record down the weight of the puppies among other things. For people who work full time, they will either have to utilise their leave, or hire someone to help. For people who work freelance, it will mean taking time off and not having any income during this period. Puppies will need constant supervision, and we need to keep an eye on the mother as well.
And pray that the mother do not meet with any complications during birth. Any emergency vet visits at this point will cost you north of $10000, so unless you have 10s of Gs chilling in your bank account, do not attempt to breed dogs.
At this age they may look cute but they are in fact the devil's spawn on earth
Before the pups go to their new homes Puppies can go to their new homes at around 8 weeks of age, but a lot of work has to be done before that. Firstly, the pups will need to be socialised properly and that includes taking them out in a controlled environment for them to take in the sights and sounds of the world and getting them exposed to different smells, environments, and scenarios, which all of these takes a great deal of time. Now if you're a freelancer, this would mean a loss of income for you. For breeders with a full time job, they will need to hire help. For me, my work schedule is flexible, but it also means that I may miss out on potential income.
The puppies will also need a dose of vaccination at around 6 weeks old, which will cost around $60 per pop.
Now, the dollars and cents part
Phase One: $9000
Phase Two: $1000 Phase Three: $300
Phase Four: $240 (based on 6 pups)
A successful breeding with no complication will cost me around $10500. If there are any complications, this cost can easily double.
For the sake of illustration, we price each puppy at $5000, I keep one female for the next generation and sold the other 5 (some breeders I know keep more than one). I will get $25000 from the sale of the puppies. Which means the gross profit is $14500.
Sounds like quite a sum right?
Now lets divide that amount based on 8 weeks of hard work and lack of sleep. If I get to sleep 7 hours a day (which I highly doubt it) and the rest of the time is devoted into caring for both the pups and the mother, my "hourly pay" will work out to be approximately $15 an hour.
All of these is without factoring many essential costs such as transport, time/effort/money raising the female for 2 years (if she does develop well), and complications, among many other things that may go wrong.
Here are some of the things that can go wrong throughout the whole process
Sperm quality from the stud dog is not ideal (although the semen is always tested for motility rate). In that case you'll probably have to bring in again.
Fertilisation of the female's eggs didn't happen. Even with progesterone testing, sometimes shit just happens.
Complications during birth which will result in an emergency caesarean section, or even worse, death of the female.
Washing the female out of the breeding programme due to failed health tests and/or temperament test.
Getting a low number of puppies.
Mortality of puppies.
Just any one of these happens and it will set the breeder back a few more thousands, or even tens of thousands.
Do you still think ethical breeders make a lot of money?
So please appreciate every puppy produced by ethical breeders, for every single one of them is brought onto this world with much love, care and effort, and with the grand goal of bettering our beloved breed.
Putting this picture here again to prove my point
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