This page will outline the cost of a typical breeding.  Understand that each litter is different and cost vary from State to State.  If you are interested in becoming a breeder, GREAT!  We need more breeders, but read this carefully so you can understand it is NOT a good way to make money. 

Purchase Price of your Foundation Bitch from healthy bloodlines=  This can range anywhere from 1500.00-3000 as of 2006.  

Health testing on your female = 1200-1700 depending on your location.

Shipping Cost for breeding = 1200-1500 round trip.  This could be plane flight or driving with gas and hotel.  It generally works about to be about the same

Stud Fee = 1000-2000

Pre-breeding Blood work and Worming - 100.00

This doesn't include show/training cost, the cost of simply owning the dog (yearly vet fees, etc) and at this point you don't even know if you have a pregnant girl.

Cost of raising the litter ~ 300.00 a puppy on average.  This is tail and dewclaw docking/removal, shots, worming, food, bedding, toys, etc.  This does NOT include any illness or if your girl has any trouble having the litter and needs a C-section or other medical care.

A litter of Standard Poodle puppies is generally 5-8 pups.   For this example lets say you have 6 puppies x 300.00s =1800.00 Dollars

1800.00
1500.00
1000.00
1200.00
1000.00
0100.00
6600.00 TOTAL cost for litter Low
 

Total cost of your litter will be ~ 6600.00 as the LOW estimate.  You plan on keeping at least one puppy from the litter.  That leaves you 5 puppies to place in good homes.  You must sell your pups for a minimum of 1300 dollars to simply break even.  This doesn't give you anything for the hours you spent taking care of those pups or screening the homes they go to.  It does not cover the cost of advertisement of those puppies either which runs me around 500.00s a year simply to maintain this website whether I have any puppies that year or not (we had no litters in 2006 as an example).  I do my own website maintenance which many people do not have the knowledge to do.  You can see why breeders must charge the amount they do for their pups.  It isn't to make a profit.  It is simply to break even so they can continue to produce pups for you and your family.  A breeder might make a small profit on one litter, and go totally in the red on the next because the mom needed a C-section, etc.  If you are able to simply break even from breeding/showing your dogs you are doing good.  Most breeders do not.

A Variation on this is to purchase a stud - 1500-3000 dollars and then health test that Stud - 1000-1500  HOWEVER.... Owning a stud is often not the best option since it is very unlikely that the male you purchase will be suitable for breeding with all your girls.  The way to truly progress in your program is to hold off buying a stud.  But then you might end up in a situation like I was in with Sadie.  Sadie refused outside breeding to other boys.  I tried 2 times, spend money on two stud fees (with proven boys who sired litters before and after the attempted breeding with Sadie) only to have no puppies show up do to Sadie's stress and dislike of the entire situation.  So I ended up breeding Sadie to Major once, then Merlot, even though I didn't feel those boys were ideal prospects for Sadie.  I now keep 2-3 studs that are bred a few times then retired.  It reduces the stress on my girls BUT it seriously increases the cost of each of my litters.  It allows me to know the dogs I am breeding my girls, but it does increase the cost of my pups.  It is a trade off that each breeder must decide on.

Now, occasionally there will be a litter where you look at the resulting pups and say "There is nothing here that is a progression for my program so I am gonna place all these pups".  This is actually a good thing, since it means you are not becoming kennel blind and have developed an eye for what you want in your pups.  All the pups might be shy wall flowers and your looking for a pushy obnoxious girl to be your next Agility star.  In any case, those are very good reasons to NOT keep a puppy from a litter.  Never feel you must keep something just because.  On the other hand, sometimes you produce a litter that is simply outstanding and want to repeat the litter for people who simply must have one of those pups!  That is an excellent reason to repeat a litter.  Just remember, there are only so many litters a girl should have, so breeding two litters in a row from the same stud might limit your gene pool in the long run.

The number one reason to breed dogs is because you LOVE IT.  I literally spend hours researching pedigrees and deciding my goals.  I will talk dogs all day and never get tired of it.  :) 

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