It never rains but it pours...

All fall and winter I’ve been saying that we hoped to have one or maybe two litters this spring, depending on the timing of the girls’ heat cycles. We needed to have breeding done no later than the end of March, so a heat cycle started by no later than about March 20, to be able to breed the dam so as to get puppies sent home before our summer holidays. At the same time, I was also hoping to have a good 3–4 weeks between litters so as not to have double puppies the whole time or have them all the same age and ready to go home the same time.

 Galena was due to come into heat between mid-February and mid-March.

Topaz was due to come into heat sometime in March.
Phoenix was due to come into heat anwhere between mid-March and mid-May. (She usually around 6.5 months, but her last heat cycle was 8 months, so I wasn’t at all sure.)

Galena’s heat started on February 28 and we bred her on March 10 (see previous post).

The day we sent her home, we discovered that Phoenix’s heat cycle had started!! That was the evening of March 10.
The very next morning, I get an e-mail from Topaz’s guardians: Topaz has come into heat! That was March 11, but her cycle started on March 10 as well. 

Topaz

Galena



Phoenix

YIKES!!!

We are not set up to have three litters at once, and that is pretty much what it would be if we bred both Topaz and Phoenix – three litters arriving within a 10 to 14-day period!! Generally we have one at a time separated by several months; last year was the first time we had overlap and the first litter, born March 17, went home when the second litter, born May 8, was just two weeks old, which meant the second were still confined to the litter box while the first were being mobile and active. I can just see it – three litters, each with six (or more!!) puppies, running rampant all over the house. Eighteen puppies!!! No way.

 But I think we can handle two litters. We’ll put one in the puppy corner, as usual, and the second will go into the space in the living room where our guinea pig used to live (she died on March 5 at the ripe old age of 6½, which is pretty old for a guinea pig). Once they’re old enough and mostly weaned, we can stick them into the puppy corner all together.

So we will breed Topaz this spring and save Phoenix for fall (and by that time, we hope the girls will have shifted their cycles and we’ll have a bit more space between heats. After all, last winter Phoenix’s heat was in January, Galena’s in February and Topaz’s in March.)

Depending how quickly her heat progresses, Topaz will most likely be bred sometime next week. Stay tuned for details!