Puppy Diarrhea - Page 1

I have a litter of 3 day old pups and I have been having to supplement feed them because their mother isn't producing enough milk.  I have been giving them Esbilac but ran out and had to give them powdered goats milk.  I gave them the milk at 10:30pm. 2:30am, and 6:30am.  I've never had a pup with diarrhea before.  I have white imitation sheep skin in the bottom of my whelping box, my question is if a pup has diarrhea will I find a spot on the sheepskin that will look like diarrhea?  Will they loose weight?  I know that it can dehydrate them very quickly and kill them so are there any other tests to see if they are dehydrated other them pinching the skin on the pups back and neck to see if it comes unpinched?   Will their gums lighten in color?  They all gained weight over the night, I found no spots on the sheepskin, and they all seemed hydrated to me from the pinch test.  Thanks in advance.

Mysti

I have also just started giving the goats milk to the dam to try and increase her milk production.

If they are continuing to gain,  No spots on the sheepskin,  and returning from the pinch test quickly,  it would be a safe bet they are not dehydrating...  I would say your MOST accurate for knowing about dehydration would be your weight gain... if they get diahrhea and begin to dehydrate you WILL know by the weight if you are monitoring it daily...  Good Luck !!!

3 day old puppies are not going to have firm stool, it is very soft.  Shouldn't be "liquid" but will be pretty soft stool.  You will need to stimulate them to pee/poop every time they eat, if their mother isn't doing that.

molly

Mysti,

If you want to see good milk production give the dam raw chicken, start off with
2 chicken legs with the thigh attached, feeding her milk with probably give her
diarrhea.

Also, give her plenty of water, it should be available at all times.
My girl had a litter of 13 pups, and had no problem with milk, I
really do think that raw chicken gives milk production a boost.
Some lady told me that years ago, back in the early "80's"
She never feed her dogs "Dog food" they had raw chicken, turkey,
carrots, peanut butter, oatmeal, eggs, bread, they were very healthy.

Keep putting pups on the mom & help them nurse, that also stimulates
her milk, they only make milk if pups are nursing, and if you take some
away and feed them yourself, then the dam's body thinks it has less pups
to nurse, and milk supply goes down.

Sometimes in the beginning it looks like the mom doesn't have enough
milk, and sometimes it takes acouple of days of nursing pups to jump start
production.

Even though I have been tube feeding them they still nurse on the dam 24/7.  Right now I am working on making her lay on her right side because she always seems to lay on her left side so one side has more milk then the other.  I have a bowl of water in the whelping room with her but it seems like she doesn't want to go to it and leave the puppies so I have been taking it up to her in the whelping box several times a day and when she does drink she will drink the whole bowl but a lot of the time she just won't drink anything.   She is finally starting to eat good again.  For the first day or so she didn't want to eat anything which might be one of the reasons she wasn't producing that much milk.  I am trying to do what I can to increase her milk so that the pups will be able to nurse off the dam all the time and not have to be tubed but I have two small pups I am having to watch pretty closely right now.  She loves the goats milk though and any time I give her that she drinks it all right away.