Question
 

Here's the scenerio:

Female has 4 pups (4 females) and normally has 4-5 pups per litter.

One of the pups from this bitch has had her 1st litter and had 6 Pups and is just shy of 5 lbs!

Can this be genetics? Could the other 3 girls have this many pups?

Just curious.

Yes and no. I had one female that always had one or two pups, her daughter always had one or two pups. I had another female that always had 5 or 6 pups and one of her daughers always had 5 or 6 pups but another daugher aways had two pups. So your never know.

wow 6 puppies shy of 5 lbs. that is a lot!!! litters are always different. i have studied genetics for a while now and i have never read that a litter amount is past down to the bitches offspring. i could be wrong but i don't think so. it is all in timing and the amount of fertilize eggs attach themselves to the wall of the uterus .

again, i could be wrong

Ya isn't that crazy! I guess the smallest was just under 2oz and all made it fine.

I can't remember where in my research I was told this but I was told to boy from a bitch who has large litters and free whelps.

But as we all know.....our yorkies don't read the books, so they are going to do whatever they want! LOL

My Kandy weighed a good solid, broad four and a half pounds when I got her. She had already had two litters. Each litter have five puppies. I bred her twice before she was spayed and each one of my litters had five. Her sister, Frankie (5lbs) had also been bred twice and had five puppies each time. I have bred her once and she had five for me. Now she is pregnant again and I am expecting five altho the ultrasound didn't show that many. neither did Kandy's but out popped five. Their sister which I don't have also has five each time. The breeder I bought these girls from told me that yes it is in the genetics. She had been to seminars about it and studied it over the years being a show breeder. How ever many littermates your girl has is likely to be how many will be in her litters. it has worked each time for me. Also if the mama and other female relatives are free whelpers, they will be too. This last time, I had to have a section due to the size of a turned sideways puppy. So when you are looking to buy a female to add to your breeding program, ask if mama and relatives are free whelpers and what is the average litter size,

[QUOTEBut as we all know.....our yorkies don't read the books, so they are going to do whatever they want! LOL[/QUOTE]
:yelrotflm

Wow, that's fascinating. But now that I think about it...

Boy, you just never know... my girl that came from a litter of 6 ( her mom's first litter and had no trouble delivering) ended up having alot of trouble and ended up with a c-section .. my vet thought it better to get her spayed. ( she had one tiny puppy and one huge puppy over a week early)
My female that came from a litter of 2 ( her brother didn't make it and her mom always had small litters) gave birth to 6 healthy puppies... 5 girls and 1 boy in her last litter. ( 3 in her privious litters)

this was written by Dr. Carmen L. Battaglia.....i only copied part of the article.


Most of the small breeds, notably the toys and terriers usually produce very small litters. This is in part because of their very small size, which limits their capacity to carry large litters. But in the larger breeds there are wide variations in litter size ranging from 1 to 21 and in a some instances they have been larger. Breeders have for years unsuccessfully tired to make improvements in litter size via breeding and selection techniques with little success. While many traits have high heritability, litter size is not one of them. It has a low heritability, around 10 -15 % which means that one can not count on the genes to increase the number of pups born. What can be expected will largely be determined by the non-additive factors of dominance. For example, wither height has a heritability estimate of 40-65%, which is reasonably high. Therefore, it is relatively easy for the breeders of the German Shepherd Dog to produce offspring with high withers. However, when it comes to litter size selecting parents who come from large litters will not improve the number of pups born. However, the physical condition of the dam at the time she is bred however has been shown to increase or decrease litter size. For example, obese bitches tend to have smaller litters than those that are fit and trim. Nutrition is still another factor that was suspected to affect litter size. Some thought it would vary between and within breeds. The fact that there are large variations in litter size attracted the attention

here is the link to this article and many more
www.breedingbetterdogs.com/articles

No one is disputing you. I just gave my experience on what has happened with my girls and my breeders girls and those of other breeders I have known. As you said before, we know they don't always go by the book. I hae seen so much junk written and in true expereince, about half of it is right and is what actually happens.

i never once thought anyone was disputing me. like i said above, i have never seen it or heard of it. so i looked it up. it is very fastinating to me....genetics i mean.

i know you weren't. yes genetics is fascinating. Usually, if I have a question, I ask hubby.;) he has studied dog genetics for years and years. We are old:p

I don't think it is genetic. It would be nice if they followed in their moms foot steps, but they always seem to do what they want reguardless,lol!

Thanks for the imformation Lisa... very interesting....