Without this becoming a American vs. English discussion...please lets not waste time, I'm just using generalities.

Back years ago when I was a BYB starting out, I had some more field lab type labs, longer coupled, taller, larger than the ones I have had for the past,oh, 10 years? Anyway. I use to have litters back then of 10-14 pups.
With these shorter, stockier, shorter coupled labs, I get 6-8 if I'm real lucky. Sometimes 1-3. Small litters. Can pinpoint it to a certain bitch, or a male's sperm quality or anything, just in general overall. Am I making a proper observation or am I all washed up??
Of course, the farmer next road over, labs (pet) whelp out in barn, 10 pups, never loses a one. Never does one progesterone test. OOps, she's prego, oh gee!

Me. Ha! Progesterone testing, AI, whelping in my kitchen, watching over them like hawks, no such luck. Small litters, not many lost, maybe one at most in some litters.
But am I crazy or is something going on?

Nope, you're not crazy in this thinking.
It's always that way. Have seen it over and over.
The poor quality, BYB or PM puppies are ALWAYS larger litters and of course never lose any, need sections or need progesterone testing, clearances, etc.
Just think of it this way, better things come in small packages (smaller litters).
It's quality not quantity anyway, isn't it???

I have had litters numbering 1 to 12 puppies out of closely related bitches. The girl who had three litters of 10, 11 and 12 puppies was sired by a multiple specialty winner. She just had good sized litters. But she missed once, and her only daughter to be bred so far had a litter of three. I had another girl from whom I got only one puppy total despite breeding her four times to three different stud dogs. Her daughter had three litters of 5, 7, and 8. Both were champions. I think it is more that we are doing artificial breedings instead of natural, like the BYB people, and in my case- maybe not yours- I am waiting until the girls are older to breed. Of course, the mother of the litter of 12 was 6.5 years old, so there goes that idea! I had a surgical done on the advice of my repro vet because of her age. She did need a C-section for that litter, so I guess that removes me from the puppy mill camp.

Yeah but as my husabnd recently pointed out to me when he went over my hobby taxes, he said do you realize that you paid each family $1300.00 to adopt their puppy. We only had a 3 puppy litter but being the mathemetical thinker he is, he figured out the cost of the AIs involved..yadayadayada. My point is, it does help if breeder's girls whelp 9 or 10 puppies to help compensate for the cost to get our sweet bundles of joy out the door in good health.
My mother makes fun of me for hovering over my girls when they whelp a litter. She reminds me of the time their labrador girl accidently got pregnant by her then boyfriend's yellow boy. Her girl went on to whelp 10 yellow puppies and were raied down in their basement while she worked full time. She said she never even thought about their girl Sheba accidently laying on her puppies or all the what ifs that first few weeks after whelping. They never even thought of worming or giving first vaccinations and sold each puppy for $50.00. They were beautiful puppies I must say but it makes me think how how hard we all stress getting our girl's pregnant and keeping the pups from getting squished, not to mention no matter how much we try sometimes our pups die in the end. Parvo strikes when you least expect it and here these puppy millers are out baking litters of puppies like it's as common as thowing together the ingredients for a batch of sugar cookies. They don't seem to have a worry in the world where their puppies and breeding stock go. Must be nice

That is kinda funny. I was just saying that the other day. I had very pretty healthy labs when I started breeding. They had no real pedigree and all puppies went to great pet homes. My first couple of litters- girl was in heat, male bred her. She had 12 puppies in a large dog house. Did not lose a single puppy.
As I learned more and got into show lines and now show. I have some really nice lines with clearences. Girls need AI because my awesome male does not breed on his own Puppies and all the mess are born in my bedroom. I have had c-sections, small litters, puppies with CP, moms lay on puppies even with their nice whelping box and pig rails.

Oh also never had hot spots or allergies or even a sick dog back then!

I think we all get our share of big & small litters. I also think, since at some point each one of us had the "first" litter, if we are still at it depends on that litter. If you had 10 puppies & they all survived, like I did, you are probably still at it. The little litters and misses came along later. The people who had the horror story the first time around are long gone.

I must say, I still have 8 to 12 pups and thank goodness very good luck. The only time I had one or two was with my older line. I really don't like having over 8 or 9 pups. You can enjoy a few so much better. Think they end up more alike in size. Not several large ones and a few small ones. Most of mine are AI's and chill so not sure where the little litters are coming from but I sure hear alot of breeders talking about it. Alot of C-section also. And think you are right about alot falling by the way side. There have been some horror storys with whelping. Costly and not for the faint at heart.

About 16 years ago I had a bitch out of an excellent field-show labrador. For those of you who go back far enough, you might remember the dog Super Cheif,FC, AFC and also show Champion. Her father was Super chief and her Mom was a specialty. SHe had litters between 9-13 with no progesterone, just the good old fashion way. Her daughter also had litters of 12-14.My other labs that have no field bred in them and are all english lines have only 6 puppies-if we are lucky.

I've always had healthy litters, at least 8 actually.

There are some who chronically have small litters. Wonder if maybe stress on the mother, poor timing, etc. Lots of things are attributed to this. Definitely not Field or show ;)

Do you think that the larger litters can be correlated to the length of the bitch? The modern show stock is shorter coupled and do not have to room to carry a large litter. I would think the body would compensate by reabsorbing puppies to make room. (only my theory) Also linebreeding can produce smaller litters??

Super Chief was NOT a conformation champion!

I don't know. I have 2 sisters that are line bred. Each sister has had one litter. One sister had 5 pups, my smallest litter, and the other sister had 7 pups. Their mother who is not line bred on anyone, has 8-10 pups.

Interesting, very interesting.

I'm not sure I could clump fertility in this manner. More 'like begets like'. How much does fertility factor into the selection of brood bitches or potential ventures into new lines? Are conformation geared fanciers concerned with this when looking? I have noticed, personally and with some friends lines, the tighter in they go on a line, bitch line particularly, that produce 'smallish litter sizes', they seem to get reduced numbers of puppies. I'm not talking watching one or two generations, I'm talking people who have 5 plus generations over say a 10 plus year period.
Its odd, as when you read books where breeders would cull down to a managable number for a bitch(6 or so) to raise-and the numbers would be bitch heavy. These breeders were not concerned with 'pet buying market'(thus numbers of puppies per litter) but finding a good puppy, particularly a bitch one, to carry on with. I guess also that BYB are far more interested in # of puppies per litter than say 'quality' pup to pup so therefore, they have chosen 'fertility' over 'quality'.

"Super Cheif,FC, AFC and also show Champion. Her father was Super chief and her Mom was a specialty"

First, Super Chief was NOT a Ch and second what in the world is "a specialty"??? LOL

An interesting theory Kim. But it still seems that line breeding and so on mentioned in this thread may be a common factor in producing smaller litters. I dont think BYB care one way or the other if the dogs produce big litters. They just put 2 dogs together and produce a litter with out much thought to the whole process.

The dogma does seem to be that as mammals become more homozygous, which would be promoted by line breeding, their reproductive rate also declines. For instance, cheetahs, which have a very small amount of genetic diversity, are having reproductive problems, and zoos world-wide manage captive-bred mammals to maintain as much genetic diversity as possible. I have never really taken litter size into account as a criterion I breed for, and the point that I was trying to make in an earlier post is that, in my own breedings, I haven't seen much consistency from one generation to the next (or in some cases from litter to the next!) in litter size. I have seen, with one exception, a reduction in size of litter in older bitches- I think that is widespread. I consider myself a fairly loose line breeder, which may be why I, personally, haven't seen a consistent reduction in litter size. It would be interesting to hear from people who have done tight linebreeding, as well as mostly outcrosses. I understand that field people tend to do less linebreeding than show people do; if there really is a difference in litter size, maybe that has something to do with it. Also they tend to do more natural breedings (as do BYBs of course), which could be a factor.

If you are talking about a b**** bred from Super Chief who was by Paha Sapa Chief - I knew both dogs -and the owner of Paha Sapa Chief and neither was "show", but boy, were they nice and great Field Trial dogs. My dad was a great friend/fellow breeder competitor with the breeders/owners of these dogs and it is great to hear their names again. We often had large litters and I like smaller litters now. I cannot attribute it to any one quality, frankly.
A

And Soupy sired a dual champion, Shamrock Acres Super Drive.