How Many Puppies Do Bichon Frises Have?

If your bichon frise is expecting, don't worry that your small, fluffy white friend will have a huge number of puppies. The average bichon frise litter consists of three to five pups, with a range of one to six. That's not an overwhelming amount of babies for you or your bichon frise.

At maturity, bichon frises range between 8 and 15 pounds, so a large bichon is nearly twice the weight of the smallest. That wide variance plays a factor in litter size. A smaller female bichon is likely to have fewer puppies in her litter than a larger member of her breed. That doesn't mean a little bichon can't deliver six puppies, but it's uncommon. Expect smaller bichons to carry between one and three puppies, medium-sized bichons to give birth to between three and five offspring, and those at the higher end of the scale to deliver between four and six. Of course, those numbers aren't written in stone. The only way to know the actual number prior to the delivery is by having your veterinarian perform an X-ray of the expectant mother's abdomen sometime after the 45th day of her approximately 63 day pregnancy. At that point, the puppies' skeletons will appear on the radiograph.