I think that I understand how the process works in terms of DNA testing and registration for the individual puppies. What I don't get is why a breeder would want to produce a litter with multiple sires.

Can someone explain the rationale of multilple sire litters?

I have never heard of someone intentionally having a multiple sired litter. Have heard stories of "mistakes" that have happened though.

Breeding to multiple sires can work with frozen semen and surgical AI when one of the males is worth breeding (i.e. deceased FC/AFC Chesapeake with genes worth preserving) and has frozen semen available but with poor quality. Combine his semen with semen from another male with excellent motility and conception percentages increase dramatically. DNA testing is then performed on puppies following birth.

It is an interesting concept that I have considered (going back an old Peake field trial dog) and still may do in the future.

Keith

I'm not entirely sure why she chose this route, but Jane Pappler intentionally bred two stud dogs to one of her bitches. She did the DNA testing afterward.

I hadn't thought about the possibility of increasing conception rates if one male frozen semen is of poor quality. Thanks, Keith!

Claire

What about a small breeder who keeps dogs for his own breeding program and to hunt with. This gives him or her two "forks" so to speak pedigree wise. Seems like a great way to introduce diversity into a breeding program in half the time, also with half the risk that comes along with whelping. I realize that this also means twice the stud fees. However, most breeders who I have talked to, esecially small breeders, do not breed for the financial benefit, and often end up losing money. It also reduces the number of puppies that need to be placed that the breeder choses not to keep. I may be off-base here, and would like to hear the other side of the argument against multi-sired litters.

Great topic, would love to hear the opinions of some others on the board.

For the record, I have never bred a litter.

The people I know who used this route to increase frozen semen conception rates only got 1 or 2 from the male with the poor quality semen. Hey though that is better than none.

Another situation would be a co-owned female that that co-owner only wants to breed once; the age of the bitch-first litter at say 6 or 7 using two sires gives you more genetic diversity down the road.

I think a lab guy just did this and he is a vet. He bred his dog to two dogs I think both of the males were FC AFC. I dont know why he did it but if it is the last time he was planning on breeding his dog now he can keep two pups from his female sired by 2 different studs. Or if he does plan to breed his bitch again he might just breed it to the one dog because he likes his pups better.

Another scenario would be with a bitch who is not going to be bred again perhaps due to age, but you still wanted to breed her to two different sires. Because of her age, you use both dogs within the same breeding time frame, have the pups DNA tested, and registered them according to the appropriate sire.

Also, if your bitch accidentally got bred by a second dog who was also purebred of the same breed, you could use this to register the pups from the resultant litter. In the past, you were not supposed to register pups from this kind of breeding because of the questionable parentage.

AKC has recently allowed this with DNA testing and the appropriate paperwork.

Kathy Miller
Sandy Oak Chesapeakes

The breeder of my wifes toller did a multiple sire litter using my wifes male. The reasoning was that my wifes male was unproven even though the sperm samples looked excellant. The other male was a proven male. They did not want to take a chance of not getting puppies so did an AI from both males using the unproven male first and the proven male second. They got a litter of 5 puppies. Four from my wifes male and 1 from the proven male that was inserted second. They had DNA analysis on all the parents and then did the puppies.

quote:

Originally posted by PondHollow:
The people I know who used this route to increase frozen semen conception rates only got 1 or 2 from the male with the poor quality semen. Hey though that is better than none.

Another situation would be a co-owned female that that co-owner only wants to breed once; the age of the bitch-first litter at say 6 or 7 using two sires gives you more genetic diversity down the road.

Learned something new today...thanks Dyane and Kathy.

Thanks Keith....hedging your bets when dealing with an unknown quality makes perfect sense. Thank you sir.