Smaller the litter, Greater chance of caesarian??? - Page 2

molly and Bob-O thanks for the comments. But I would like you to please express your views about the issue of food I referred to. It is really serious for me to decide to continue or to swotch to natural food. I have read book on BARF diet and the same point is mentioned in the book that dry food affects the fertility of both male and female. Please please give your opinions.

The cost of x-ray is much less than putting a female at risk. Unless u have delivered many litters urself and know how to get a puppy out if stuck, theirs nothing u can do it the female starts labor and stops for many hours because of a breech or a crosswise pup or a dead pup in small litter , as no contractions after pup gets in the canal, u have a dead pup.....also Purina dog food has corn as first ingredient, and food does have a bearing on the breeding and health of a female;, phosphorus, potassium and calcium levels must be addressed with good food, and purina wont get it done.......I recently spoke with a breeder of von vollkomon and we discussed the necessity of dog food filled with proper ingredients for german shepherds not house dogs....she is the owner of VHam v Urbecke.Sch111, KK1a

Thanks yellowrose of Texas. What did breeder tell you? Which dog food is adviced for GSD?

I am stunned to read the comments. Why is everybody dragging the pregnant bitch to the vet for ultrasound? Do we really need to be that curious? All this activity projects onto the bitch. No wonder these bitches cannot whelp naturally anymore. If you have whelped a few litters you should be able to tell when your bitch is nearing the last puppy during whelping. There is also Oxitocin if you really want to make sure. I don't like using it, but have on occasion. Rule of thumb, large litters arrive on time, on the 63rd day. If mated only once, a bitch may even start delivering the first puppy on the hour. You are allowed 2 extra days, I assume everybody knows this. But, you can safely add 2 more days to a total of 4 days past the 63 days providing you have no discharge. Regarding time between puppies. No, you do NOT take a bitch to the vet after 1 hour for a C-section. Rule of thumb is 2 hours, but, an experienced breeder will not panic. I have waited 4 hours on some occasions and still whelped the whole litter naturally. If you have a small litter, like 4 puppies and you expect them to be big, or you encounter a delay, may be just a tail appearing on and off for two hours, then you take your diapers, towel and artery forceps and go for a short walk outside with your whelping bitch. ( Just so that you know, your vet will have a fit if he reads this!) This will move the puppies inside into position. I have whelped this way in the snow. Calcium syrup offered to the bitch is a must between puppies, it eases the labour pain. Small litters like 4 puppies don't seem to adhere to the time schedule, but if there is no discharge, no burst water bag, then wait and please don't make any fuss over this bitch. Go about your business and run your day. You cannot hide your nervousness but at least you can pretend.

Uvar, These are the words of experienced breeder. Yes no one should get panicked if no discharge, or burst waterbag is there. But still I think if you are a person who gets anxiety very easily should get ultrasound or x-ray done. So that you exactly know how many puppies are there. So at least you will be at peace.

as for food - I feed a kibble diet to all of my dogs, including breeding females and stud dog. Stud dog is collected often for semen evaluation and freezing - and has maintained good levels. Females rarely miss a breeding. Small litters - yes sometimes, my normal litters are 3-6 puppies - but I believe that has to do with the female - how many eggs she produces. I also think it has something to do with how "masculine" the female is and how fit she is, and her age (that can be another topic altogether). I don't think it has to do with diet, except of course if she is obese or malnourished. That said, I do feed a no-corn and no-wheat kibble with high meat content. No Purina (lots of corn and byproducts). And I have no problems with raw diet, just not for me personally. And for litter size - Friends whose females routinely produce 11-12 puppy litters are also feeding good-quality kibble diets. And as someone already said - the backyard breeders whose females produce 12 puppies every litter in their doghouse in the dirt, feed their dogs Ol Roy. Go figure. molly

She told me to make sure no corn or wheat and she uses Exceed Lamb and Rice from Sams......she soaks the kibbles in goats milk for the babies and then as they reach three weeks they start to nibble on it dryer each week.....I add later after the 8th week , cottage cheese & yougurt....and Uvar is entiredly correct with what he tells u, but u are not an experienced whelper,so I wouldnt tell u to do Oxy which I keep handy and Ive whelped every litter myself for 18 years and only had one c section with my one bitch who only had 4 pups and one was dead inbetween the 1st and third and labor stopped for 3 hours and the vet said bring her to the office, and this was at 1;00 am after midnight and he sliced her open and threw me a pup and then proceeded to remove the dead one and threw me another and we were on the way to home to get her to nurse them and of course , we rubbed some of her milk on the pups , as she was groggy and it was her first litter, and she took to them and no other problem.....I have one of those pups, Pepsii and she has raised 3 fine litter with no problems,,,,has them born almost before I can help her.......I stay with my mom and babies for three days, and sleep in the birthing room , at all times, to keep her from rolling on one, and making sure they all eat and are ok.....

I owned a bitch that had 3 litters for a total of 7 puppies - 3,3,1. She herself was on the small side, the puppies weighed from 12 to 16 oz each and she whelped every one naturally without any help.

for my litters, 12 to 16 oz is normal-sized, for larger litters. The smaller litters I've had (1-3 puppies, the puppies are twice that sized, and so can be very difficult to be whelped naturally. I can say that in my normal-sized litters, pups are normally 14-18 oz, it is rare to have a pup smaller than 12 oz. So I can see that if the pups were that normal size, the female could whelp naturally. In my experience however, in 1-3 pup litters the pups are MUCH larger. molly

Molly, to be honest one of these puppies did weigh just under 2 lbs at birth, but I hesitated to say that here since I didn't think anyone would ever believe a puppy that large. In fact, all 7 of these puppies were considerably larger than I have stated. I wanted to keep it real and not get blasted. I also had a bitch that whelped litters of 9 and 11 and those puppies were considerably smaller, 10, 12 ounces each. Never a dead puppy from either of these bitches or my third brood bitch. When I started to breed we rarely heard of bitches of any breed needing sections, now it is almost common place. When I worked as a tech we may have seen 4 sections a year, mostly on bullmastiffs, bulldogs which never whelp naturally, or toy breeds. I don't think anyone lost anymore puppies that they do today either. I understand why some routinely schedule sections on bitches with small litters and I certainly don't want anyone to take this as a critisicm of their breeding practices, but I think most of these girls would probably get the job done on their own if given the opportunity. Of course no one want to take the chance to find out. Frankly, my concern is that routine sections could allow some bitches to produce daughters that will also not be able to whelp freely. Ignoring survival characteristic or masking them in dogs may not be the greatest idea for the future of the breed. Again, not a condemnation of anyone reading this, so please let's not even go there. It is merely a personal opinion based on my own limited observations of how things are changing in the dog world over the last 40 years and some of these changes can affect the overall health of all breeds in a negative way.