Breeding Kennels: Timing a Litter Without Losing a Cycle

Quick Answer — Progesterone testing is a cost against a much larger cost: a missed cycle, a wasted stud fee, a season gone. The economic case is strongest for kennels breeding multiple bitches, and the clinical case is strongest for bitches with irregular or previously unsuccessful cycles. What makes it work is not the assay — it is the schedule: fixed interval sampling, started from the first sign of oestrus, interpreted as a curve rather than a single number.

Quick Answer

One test tells you where you are. A series tells you where you are going. Breeding decisions need the second.

The economics, stated plainly

Cost item	Notes
Missed cycle	Full season lost; next opportunity months away
Stud fee and travel	Often non-refundable once booked
Boarding and handling	Accrues while waiting for a decision
Repeat ultrasound/visits	Adds up if timing is uncertain
Progesterone series	Pending per test × Pending tests per cycle

Data pending. This section reports measured values from internal validation studies. They are published once the supporting study is complete; the current report is available from technical support on request.

The comparison that matters is not “test cost versus no test cost” but test cost versus the probability-weighted cost of losing a cycle. A kennel that breeds six bitches a year and loses one cycle to mistimed insemination has already paid for a lot of testing.

The schedule that survives real kennel logistics

1. Start at first detection of oestrus — behaviour, vulvar change, or cytology. Not day 7 by convention.
2. Sample every 48 hours, consistently. Same time of day where possible.
3. Continue until the ovulatory threshold is bracketed — one value below, one above, same platform, same bitch.
4. Time insemination from the bracket, per the reproduction guidance the veterinarian uses.
5. Stop once well past ovulation. The luteal plateau is not interpretable for timing and generates cost without information.

A kennel-specific complication: samples are often drawn by staff who are not veterinarians, and transported. That makes three things critical — a written collection protocol, a fixed transport time, and a documented storage temperature. A curve built from inconsistent handling is worse than no curve, because it looks authoritative.

Data pending. This section reports measured values from internal validation studies. They are published once the supporting study is complete; the current report is available from technical support on request.

Where relaxin fits

Relaxin answers a different question and comes later:

Question	Test	Timing
When should we breed?	Progesterone series	Periovulatory
Is she pregnant?	Relaxin	After the validated detection day
How many, and are they viable?	Ultrasound	Later in gestation

A kennel that buys relaxin and uses it to time breeding has bought the wrong test for the question, and will conclude the product is unreliable.

Record keeping that pays for itself

For each bitch and cycle: first day of oestrus, every progesterone value with date and time, the insemination dates, the pregnancy outcome, and litter size. Two or three seasons of this data turn a breeding programme from habit into a managed process — and it is the difference between “she didn’t take” and “we know why”.

Data pending. This section reports measured values from internal validation studies. They are published once the supporting study is complete; the current report is available from technical support on request.

Six traps

1. Starting the series too late. The most common cause of a missed window.
2. Irregular sampling intervals. Slope interpretation collapses.
3. Changing platform mid-cycle. A bias shift looks like a stall or a rise.
4. Treating one value as sufficient. It is a curve, not a threshold.
5. Using relaxin to time breeding. Wrong hormone, wrong question.
6. No records. Repeats the same failure next season.

The Author’s Take

Position. The product here is not a progesterone cartridge — it is a breeding protocol that a kennel can follow without a veterinarian present at every step.

Reasoning. Progesterone assays are commodity items; every POCT vendor has one. What a kennel cannot easily buy is consistency: the same schedule, the same interpretation rule, the same record format, across staff and across seasons. A vendor that supplies a protocol, a record template and a worked example curve converts a commodity into an operating system, and it creates repeat testing that is predictable rather than opportunistic. It also reduces the vendor’s support burden, because most “your test was wrong” complaints in this segment are actually schedule complaints.

Disclosure. This page is operational and economic guidance, not a performance claim. Values marked indicate where platform pricing, protocol thresholds and templates must be inserted.

Sources

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