new puppies, problems and advice?. - Page 1

I have a female who gave birth to 9 puppies on weds night/ thursday morning.  All but the last which was stuck in the birth canal quite a while seemed strong and healthy at first.  The last one we massaged for about 2 hours to get him breathing properly, then as he seemed dehydrated I gave him a little water with sugar, putting a bit at a time on his tongue, then I went to get some puppy formula milk.  I did not hold out much hope at first but after a while he did start to revive and  feed from the mother and looked OK for a while.  Until last night when he would no longer feed, either from the mother or the bottle.  He was just crying but not feeding.  I got up several times in the night expecting to find him dead, but he is still breathing though definitely on the way out.  Well, that did not surprise me that much but yesterday night another puppy that had seemed fine also stopped feeding, again I tried with the formula, she would suck but did not seem to take much.  i would also put her on the teat when the others were asleep but every time I looked she seemed weaker, lying apart from the other puppies and cold.  I basically gave up on these two early this morning though they are actually still hanging on.  The others seem to be feeding strongly but only 2 have put on weight since yesterday and some have lost weight, most of them weigh less than 500g.  They seem to suck for quite a while and not get full.  When I squeeze the teats there seems to be milk available, though not loads -  the mother has had a really bad appetite in the last couple of weeks of pregnancy and still does not want to eat much, which in my experience is very unusual after the birth they are usually ravenous.  We have to keep tempting her with chicken etc.   Her temperature is normal and she is caring for the puppies normally..

The vet has prescribed something for the female that should stimulate milk production but in the meantime I am not sure whether just to keep making sure they all feed and keep weighing them, whether to give them a little bottle milk each (though I am nervous about milk going into the lungs or them swallowing too much air..).  I really do not want to get into tube feeding, only tried it on one litter years ago, with no success.  The other possibility is that I have another female with puppies, she only has 4 and they are big and fat, but 12 days old so much bigger than the others.  Should I try letting the little ones feed from her?  I have never tried this before and have no idea if she would accept them or how to do this (away from her own puppies or together, one at a time or all at once?).  Or would her milk be the wrong composition fro younger puppies?  Just wondering if anyone has experience with this sort of situation and/ or any advice?  I should maybe point out that the female with the small puppies has had litters before but not with me.  

I had similar issue......only with a singleton.

Mama dried up after a just few days.

You have to be VERY careful when bottle feeding such young puppies, especially if they're hungry, the can easily aspirate and come down with pneumonia and die. Tube feeding also very difficult.

One issue I had was that Goat's milk caused constipation - She just groaned and cried all night it was horrible -it basically curdled all the way through her. The vet cleaned her out the best he could front and back. Formula worked OK. Mama dog continued to nurse her pup and kept her clean and took very good care of her until she was ready to wean.

I would sneak some of the puppies out to the other female as often as you can. Keep the puppies on the mama and hopefully she will start producing milk very soon and all will recover.

try taking 4 pups and also take the 4 pups from the other mother. put them all together for 30 nin. then take all 8 to the mother with the oldest pups
make sure they crawl on to ,underneath eascvh other while together.
 my friend did this and she took them as her own.
temperment is the key to this .

Thanks for the advice,  I was a bit nervous but I tried this, actually i put 3 small pups with the other mother and she accepted them no problem (maybe she knows they are her grandkids!!) In fact she was not keen on me taking them away again so I had to distract her.... I could not do more than three as the bigger pups would push them out of the way, luckily the big ones went to sleep after a while!  Later I did another 3, not sure how frequently i will have to do this though.  

This is only the second time in nearly 10 years that I have two litters at the same time so lucky really - also the first time I have had a mother who does not produce enough milk......any ideas on how to help get the milk production going in the other mother??  I am worried that she has such a poor appetite which seems to me unusual for a new mother, her temp is still normal but she seems a little lethargic....

hi there,perhaps you could try feeding an electrolyte mixture to the bitch instead of her usual water supply?i always do it(old farming trick) and i have found it helps.i usually add a little more sugar/glucose than stated, to help bring in the milk.you can make homemade elects quite easy,with salt,sugar,baking powder and water.just google and you'll find the recipe.as for swapping the pups,its a bit of a catch 22.the less the pups suckle,the less milk she'll produce.if she's an older bitch,the pups might be too small to stimulate her,and while she may be "showing" milk,she may not actually be "letting down" milk.try watching her...when she is "letting down" all the pups will suck vigourously,for 30 seconds or so,and will whimper excitedly,after which they will usually fall asleep.you could also try taking her away from the pups for a little while...to make her anxious for them,or even try the bigger pups on her,to see if they can stimulate her a little better.i'd try anything,rather than start bottle-feeding! best of luck!!

"i'd try anything,rather than start bottle-feeding!"

I agree.....!
Bottle feeding is the last choice, next to tube feeding.

Well now the surviving 6 puppies are 2 weeks old I thought i would give an update and maybe ask for a little more advice.  Things did not go well at all in the first week, I started rotating the puppies giving some at a time to the other female, but it soon became obvious that the puppies were not gaining weight and the mother was not well, she was caring for the puppies but would hardly eat anything and seemed depressed.  The vet came to see her and prescribed antibiotics as he felt she may have some retained placentas even though we gave oxytocin and she did not have a high temperature.  In retrospect I think it was an infection in her milk glands as she did not like me touching her teats and they were hard and lumpy.  The puppies were not gaining weight although they were feeding, we though maybe the milk was toxic.  Of the 9 puppies we lost three, the two I mentioned earlier and one other.  Then two more started to show the same symptoms, I was very depressed and thought I was going to lose all of them one by one.  On the vets advice I put all of the remaining puppies with Lila, the female with the older puppies. I had to supervise every feed including through the night as if the big ones were feeding the little ones did not get a look in.  But finally most of them did start putting on weight, though there is one small one who for a long time every day seemed to weigh the same - only 489g, I thought he would not make it but he is still with us and now weighs just under 800g.   The ones that looked as though they were fading did recover.  They all opened their eyes a little late at 12 days and now developmentally seem fine, though they are small - between 800 and 1100g approx.  I did not weigh them at birth as it was a long stressful night at the vets, but I estimate they weighed between 400-500g.  Some of them then went on to lose weight, so instead of doubling their weight in the first week they have finally done so in the first two weeks.  I realize also that a mother with 12 day old puppies her milk has less protein than for newborns so this may have also affected their growth rate, but it was the only thing i could do under the circumstances.  Its been hard work and I still am not sure if they will make it and grow normally, but they do seem strong and active now.  I am not sure if i should supplement their feeds with a bottle (are they now old enough to do this without risk of inhaling the milk?) or give them back to the mother as she is fine now (though probably her milk has dried up).  Lila has been good as an adoptive mother, but probably because her own puppies are older she does not spend as much time in the whelping box now and does not seem to be so careful about cleaning the small puppies - several times I have found them wet, something I have not experienced before.  Also I cannot now put the big ones in the whelping box as they are getting too rough and boisterous they want to play fight with the little ones and might hurt them....anyway they usually climb out.   .well thats the update if anyone has any suggestions of how I should proceed I would be grateful....

We had the same type of problem, our bitch had no fever and was a little depressed.  Her milk was brown and had chunks of pus in it.  It was infected.  We had to take the puppies off of her at three weeks.  Thankfully they were willing to eat out of little bowls.  Thankfully we weighed the puppies daily, so we knew there was a problem.  The puppies are now five weeks & gaining steadily.  We fed them formula and third stage baby food.  We fed them every three-four hours at first.  We are now up to every six hours.  They loved the baby food and they did well on it.  We are now slowly switching to puppy food.  The puppies are behind but catching up every day.  It has been a very difficult litter, but worth every second.  I consider these puppies my most precious litter.