Caring for a Large Litter - Page 1

Our female Shepherd had 11 pups that are now 10 days old.  Mom (who is getting 9 cups of TOTW Wild Prairie a day) is basically nursing around the clock but I'm not sure if that is enough.  I am taking daily weights using a food scale.  Birth weights ranged from 455 to 630 grams, and now 10 days later they are 710 to 940 grams (with 2 outliers at 610 and 620).  None of the pups have double their birth weight yet, most are still 200 grams short.  There are two little pups, born #10 and #11, that for what ever reason didn't nurse or take a bottle for the first 48 hours and lost considerable amount of weight in that time.  I didnt think they were going to make it, but they are now slowing catching up and gaining weight.

I waited to see how things would pan out the first week and did not bottle feed.  But now I'm wondering if I should have started more aggressive supplementation.  This weekend, I purchase fresh raw goats milk from a local farm and have been playing around with supplementation formulas.  I tried both the Leerburg formula with goat milk, and goat milk with egg yolk; but both clogged the nipple up and had to be unclogged every 10 seconds. Puppies did not like that.  When I fed plain goat milk, bottle feeding went much much smoother and no decloging was needed.  The smallest pups are doing well with fighting for a good nipple.  I made sure to bottle feed the smallest pups if they couldnt get on a good nipple during the first wave (since only 6-8 pups can nurse at a time, and they all seem to descend at once), and anyone that left the milk bar hungry and then would go nipple hopping.

Now I need advise!
1) Who should I supplement? Is everyone lagging behind in the weight department from what they should be?  Or should I focus on the littlest pups?
2) What formula for supplementation should I use?  Is plain goat milk okay?  Or does it need additives?  Most formulas I see are for orphaned puppies, not large litters where a pup needs a bottle feeding once or twice a day.  I also tried a commercial puppy milk replacers and was not happy with how gritty it was.  The puppies didnt like it either and almost all refused it.

Thanks in advance!

Go to a veterinarian reproduction specialist and learn how to tube feed. Then follow their directions.

I've some 10 puppy litters, and for the first few days I took the bitch away and tube fed the pups with Esbilac once a day, after which the bitches seemed to be able to keep up. I tube fed once a day again when the puppies were 18 days because they seemed they seemed to be always hungry. Pups were given the opportunity to lap up formula starting at 24 days. Some caught one quickly, others took longer. The bitches started to wean the pups at 30 days. All pups survived and were healthy, and bitches were back to normal weights within 28 days of weaning.

Evaluate each puppy several times a day. You cannot go by "average weights" because this is not an average litter, the puppies will be a bit smaller. Instead, look at each puppy. Is it strong, is it active, is it bobbing it's head, is it lathargic....etc. If you need too, make notes in a composition notebook.

Worm your bitch and puppies at 14 days and again at 28 days. For the bitch, not just the stuff for heart worms, but for all worms including tapes. For the puppies, ask your veterinarian to give you puppy wormer. 

Add some high fat hamburger to her kibble. This will provide extra calories that she needs to produce enough milk for her puppies.

Big litters will gain slower unless the mom is a total milk cow.  lol

My litters are usually 10-12...I monitor weights daily and keep canned milk replacer on hand.  The powdered stuff never seems to mix up right and clogs the bottle.  I use human baby bottles with a low flow nipple when they are tiny and then moving up to medium and high as they get bigger.  Another trick I've learned is that puppies like the formula a lot warmer than you would think.  Mine won't take a bottle if it's body temp.




 

ARe you rotating the puppies to give each one a chance to nurse? It's very important to give the smaller ones a chance at the nipple without having to compete with the others.

Be careful about overheating the formula. When I was training for the wildlife rehab volunteer job, we were told the bottle should feel like a nice hot cup of coffee, BUT if we got it too hot, we'd destroy the nutritional value.

I'm the odd one out, it seems. I've never weighed a puppy, so I can't help with weight charts.  I've never supplemented, and I don't ever rotate pups to give certain ones a "leg up." Their mother is perfectly capable of caring for them, and Mother Nature knows far better than any of us who should die and who should live. I am vehemently against any kind of supplemental feeding for any puppy whose dam is alive and able to nurse. If you must feed these weak pups, please, please, keep good track of who they are so that they are not sold as breeding prospects. I firmly believe this babying of dogs is partly why we see such prevalent weakness in body and mind. I know you didn't ask for my feelings on it, but I put them in here to explain why I'm saying that, as it sounds "mean". Having said that,  if you're doing all you should for their dam to be able to care for them naturally, let's take a closer look at what the problem could be (if there's even a problem and you're not just being a worrywart!).

The first issue I see is the 9 cups of kibble. Are you aware of how much water is necessary to process high protein kibble? Kibble, especially lower-end grain frees, are extremely demanding as far as water between the protein and the salt content. Feeding a lactating bitch 9 cups of salty, high protein kibble seems like a self-defeating action. (Granted, there is an increased need for sodium at this time, but there is plenty in kibble for most situations...) I don't see how she could possibly produce enough milk for 11 puppies without nursing around the clock, little bits at a time.  She needs natural, high-moisture content foods. Real food, real meat, lots of water, maybe add chicken broth (not salty!) to a better kibble (incidentally, I'd really watch ANY TOTW formula w/puppies...way too much synthetic, added vitamins and calcium for normal skeletal growth). She needs access to a ton of fresh water at all times, and really watch the sodium. Good foods to add are fresh green tripe, perfect ratios and high moisture, as well as the ultimate "superfood" for growing pups, you can add fatty ground beef to her food...all kinds of things. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not have breeding experience with many bitches; I have breeding experience with a few, only one is a  GSD. I'll tell you my experience with large litters with one GSD bitch. She has never nursed "around the clock" even with a litter of 9 or 10 huge pups (the Caleb pups were ginormous and the Ron pups were not small...). She nursed every several hours, as any mother nurses a newborn. No pup she's ever had took longer than a few minutes to nurse-they nurse before they're even dry, so if you have pups not nursing, that's something to note as a sign there is or might be a problem. I'm not saying they're going to die, or that mine are superior in some way, I'm just saying to earmark them in some way so you can take note of it later in case of problems. Since that is my "normal" I'd be very concerned about pups who aren't nursing well for 2 days. You don't seem to have a lot of breeding experience, so maybe you don't have a "normal" yet, so it's something to think about. You'd be surprised how many people talk about problems down the road and then remember they were weak puppies that were supplemented through it and lived...not a great idea unless you're already planning on culling (selling as pets, not killing them). A good friend of mine had kidney problems in a few litters of weak puppies that they supplemented, only to have them seem to be doing great and die between 6mos-1yr. So...always listen to what Mother Nature is trying to tell you. 

Basically, besides the 2 weak pups, I'm not sure you even have a problem except with feeding your bitch. I think you should start with the basics. Change her diet to something  conducive to lactation and go from there. Let's not overthink this, or worry needlessly. Please mark the pups who you've been helping and be aware at placement time of how vigorous they were at birth- many think I'm crazy of that it doesn't matter but I really think it does...   Besides that, just WATCH for a day and don't help. Your bitch, if she's a good mother, will rotate them on her own. She should know who needs to eat, who needs to be stimulated to potty, who has eaten enough and needs to be kicked off that nipple, etc. I think taking a step back since they're stable now is a good idea for you to really gauge where you are in terms of if you even have a problem, and is it a problem with the pups, a problem with the bitch, or simply a learning curve issue. 

Best of luck and congrats on the pups!

MY largest litter was 11 too. I allowed the dam to self-feed while she was nursing the pups and that worked out well for her. I started to wean the pups a little earlier than I normally would have . All thrived and the dam did well too. 

Jenn
Great post!!! In all of the dogs I bred I rarely help them. Weak, little no will to fight for food = a less quality animal, and in  my experience better left to make it or die. A bitch worthy to breed twice will be a good mother with no need of help. If they do not have the natural instinct I would spay her and put her to work in a non breeding program. 

I certainly wouldn't stand back watching puppies die if they weren't getting adequate nutrition for whatever reason. I would supplement them either by bottle or tube feeding as long as I needed to.

I've seen too many cases where heroic efforts were made to save puppies who ended up living miserable,unhealthy lives and whose end owners were faced with horrible, heartwrenching decisions. I think it's far kinder for everyone involved to let nature take its course early on. 

If you have a bad mother, who for no reason other than being wired wrong isn't taking care of her pups, then fine, feed them. But DON'T BREED THEM! That's the last thing we need. If you have a bitch who died for some reason, by all means, give those pups a fighting chance. But if she died due to whelping complications that could be heritable, don't breed them, either. If you have a proven bitch who is an excellent mother and isn't taking care of certain pups, hard as it may be for some (myself included!) it's best to let her decide and heed her judgment. 

These are general statements, and don't apply to the OP's bitch...conversation sort of went off track. 

I agree with Sunsilver's advice to rotate the pups, either place the smaller pups on the teats when mom returns from her breaks or take mom outside the whelping box for some supervised time alone with the smaller pups. I would reserve tube feeding for more extreme cases unless you know what you are doing. Mom should have been on puppy food or supplements weeks ago. I likewise believe there is a correlation between pups that need extra help to survive and later health problems including HD. There is a lot to breeding dogs properly, it's not just throw them in the back yard and watch the money roll in.