08/15/2021
WHY ARE FRENCHIES SO EXPENSIVE?
If your first concern is the price… maybe this is not the breed you should be looking into….
Quality French Bulldogs from healthy lines are NOT CHEAP!
There is a great deal of time, research, effort and expense involved in raising a French Bulldog litter. It can cost around $5,000- $9,000 to breed, deliver, and raise a litter.
If you consider the initial investment for the breeder to buy a quality well-bred female; this on average is anywhere from $5,000-$15,000!
Then you have the cost of raising that female on a quality diet, vet care, showing expenses, and supplies which in an average year that can add $2,000-$3,000.
When the female finally reaches breeding age you begin your search for the right stud. This can consume countless hours researching pedigrees and healthy lines.
Once you find the right stud you pay another $2,000-$10,000 for a stud fee!
In MOST cases the stud is in another state or country. You then have to pay to have the semen shipped to you. If this is a state to state shipment the average cost is about $200 per collection and overnight shipment, and we always do two inseminations. If the semen is coming from another country it has to come cryogenically frozen and shipped in a cryo container which means you have to pay for the return shipping of that container, as well. Overnight cryo shipments from Europe are $1,000! If you are using frozen semen you have to have it surgically implanted in the female, that is another $400-$500!
When the female finally comes into heat you have to begin progesterone testing to determine when she will ovulate and can be bred. These tests run $80 each and they should be done every other day until peak levels are reached, that’s another $300-$400. Once she is ready and you have your semen shipped to you, the artificial insemination is another $150 per artificial insemination!
Then you wait four weeks to do an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy, that’s another $90.
Now you have to purchase your supplies to prepare for your litter!
Puppy Incubators are $500 and up, you will need towels, bottles, heating pads, blankets (lots of them, it will be messy) medical supplies, milk replacement, puppy weight scale and the list goes on…
(you can add at least another $1,000 in supplies and food.)
Then comes the c-section, another $1,500 if it’s scheduled during business hours. If your female needs a late night or weekend emergency C-Section you can double that!
MOST French Bulldogs do not deliver naturally and after all the time and money invested it is safer to not risk the life of the mother or her litter to “see if she can.” Bulldogs always need assistance from humans during labor as they have short flat faces and can have trouble tearing the sacks by themselves, not to mention puppies getting stuck! C-sections are the safest way to deliver for mom and her babies.
Some females will not have anything to do with the puppies once they are born, some are inexperienced in the matter and don’t understand what to do with the pups, thus, countless hours are spent in assisting in raising the puppies.
You have to constantly watch the mother so she doesn’t accidentally lay on one of her pups and suffocate it not even realizing it. The puppies need to be fed every 2 hours around the clock for the 1st couple weeks of their lives. This means you can kiss sleep goodbye for at least 2-3 weeks! If mom’s milk doesn’t come in or she isn’t producing enough milk you will be hand feeding a litter of pups every 2 hours!
The average size of a French Bulldog litter is only 2-4 puppies! So, after the breeder chooses who they are keeping there may only be a few pups available for sale. If you do the math on what it cost to get that litter into the world and compare that to the amount of selling a few puppies you will see who is taking the bigger loss and why bulldogs are so expensive!
At the end of the day, the amount of time and money that is invested in PROPERLY raising and breeding bulldogs is astronomical compared to the cost of buying a QUALITY puppy from a reputable breeder!
