Stud Service

English Bulldog are one of the most expensive and difficult breeds to whelp. 


You need to be prepared to take your dog in for progesterone testing daily when she’s in heat to make sure you don’t miss her ovulation window. Most places will charge you $90/per visit.


After she is successfully inseminated, their gestation period is 63 days. You will schedule a cesarean for that time because English Bulldogs cannot give birth naturally. It will kill the mother and subsequently the babies. At about 58 days gestation you have to start going in daily for progesterone testing again this time to make sure that you don’t miss her labor. They will be able to tell if she’s going to be going into labor within 24 hours based on her progesterone levels. Most places want the level under 2 to do the surgery. 


You can expect to pay around $2500 for the surgical delivery in a clinic and $8000 at the emergency veterinary hospital if she goes into labor outside of clinic hours or on the days your veterinarian is unavailable. Most places are closed on the weekends, and a lot of the reproductive places we work with only have veterinary surgeons on staff a few days a week. It makes this period of time incredibly stressful. And even in the best of circumstances, breeding is very difficult on the mom and there is a chance she is going to die. You need to be prepared to be able to tube feed the puppies in case of this emergency.


When the puppies come, they have to be in an incubator for the first 3 weeks or so (once they open their eyes, they will be too old to be in the incubator anymore). The incubator is to maintain body temperature, proper humility levels and deliver oxygen. Oxygen isn’t a requirement, but it will give you the best chance of having your puppies survive. 


The first two weeks you have to provide around the clock care in two hour intervals. Every two hours you have to take the puppies out of the incubator, you have to stimulate elimination of the bowels and bladder, then you have to assist them feeding on mom, stimulate elimination again and then put them back in the incubator. You won’t be able to do this on your own. You will need assistance because if they go two hours without sustenance, they will die. If the cold breeze hits them, they will die. They can’t regulate their body temperature until four weeks old. This is the reason why the mortality rate is 30 to 40%.


The puppies also cannot be on a hard surface, so you need to put down egg crates in the incubator, and make sure that there is plenty of padding when they’re feeding on Mom. If they are on flat surfaces because of their potbellies and shapes, their chests will flatten causing their guts to get pushed up into their chest cavities and then they will starve and suffocate to death. 


In the beginning, you need to develop a mentorship with another breeder who has experience specifically with English Bulldogs (Frenchies are very similar but English are still different enough that you need an EB breeder) because you will have a lot of questions and you will need guidance more than what you’re going to get on Google.


It is an exhausting, laborious, heartbreaking, expensive venture. And this is just the beginning.


It is for all these reasons that we only partner with experienced breeders.


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