Cleft palates - Page 1

I recently had a puppy litter of eight.  Two were born dead and the four had short/kinked tails and also had cleft palates.  The two dead pups and one other have milder kinks in the tail.  One puppy is perfectly normal.  The one with a milder kink that is still alive is doing well at 2 weeks of age.

On another forum, people had posted that they had problems with clefts and other mid-line defects when feeding TOTW.  I do know of cleft palate in a close relative of my bitch since the litter was born, and 3 umbilical hernias plus a pup with a small intestine that was "undeveloped" and he died at 5 weeks from an SIBO.

Has anyone had problems with bitches having these kinds of problems if they are feeding TOTW?

Nancy

That's not a food problem.

I know it's not completely a food problem, but it is striking to me that so many people posted that they felt that grain free foods contributed to the problems that they had.  There is information on the web about excess or low Vitamin A and low folic acid contributing to mid-line issues.

Nancy

What a mess,
and no food has nothing to do with it, it is bad genetics period.
I would not repeat such a breeding and would sterilize any survivors.

Sorry,
Moons.

P.S.
an after thought, there are environmental things that could cause all kinds of birth defects, but a major brand dog food is not one of them.
Toxins would be something I would wonder about.

That sucks!!!!!!!!!!

I've been where you are now... 9 yrs ago I lost a litter to Cleft palates - I went over everything with a fine tooth comb, what she ate, how she'd been wormed.  In the end it came down to the breeding, I knew that really but I wanted to find another explanation.

My bitch was fed on BARF for all 3 of her litters, she was fed exactly the same each time.  She only threw clefts in her first litter, the breeding was a close linebreeding on her dams litter, her full sister had thrown clefts to the same dog.  You may well ask why did I do the same breeding... because we wanted to know if it was just a quirk.  We know now it wasn't it was genetic, and it was in the lines.  The bitches both had subsequent litters with different males and neither threw them again.  The male never produced any with other bitches that he bred.  

It taught me one thing, never go back on my bottom bitchline, I've been breeding away from it ever since.

When I was feeding TOTW, I had 2 repeat litters 1 GSD, 1 Labrador Retriever pups.
2 of the Shepherds had an over bite, and one of the labs, at 8 weeks had a considerable overbite,
so much so that I discounted him.
  They never threw pups with problems before on other diets, I stopped using TOTW after that.
  I always wondered if it could have been due to nutritional needs during the developmental stages.

In my last litter I had a male with a very short tail ( 2 vertabrae ) the tail was also kinked. He developed as normal, he was the biggest in the litter but by the time all the rest of the litter were well and truely mobile all he could do was bunny hop, he was able to stand but when he tried to walk he always fell to one side, he was put to sleep at 3 weeks. He most likely had a spinal problem.

I hope your short tail puppies are all ok.