hi all you might or might not know i bred my large breed bitch she gave birth on sunday 12th at about 1am she gave birth to 6 puppies that were all healthy and then another 3 came through out the next 48hrs that were all still borns then on the wednesday she gave birth to another still born so decided to take her to the vets to be on the safe side, they xrayed her and there was no more pups inside, she was given a vitimin jab and had an ifection so she was giving tablets for the infection and she was checked over, they also checked the pups over who were all ok, thankfully

since having the pups she has lost loads of weight and the breeder whos dog i used has been very helpfull and he got me 2 bags of eukanuba perfomance food to help her gain some weight, he told me to worm the pups now as they are 2 weeks old with panacure paste so ive ordered that

the pups have started to try and walk and there eyes have just started to open properly now but they are still dark in colour there heads are fawn or red but there bodys are still dark at what age will they start to lighten up

is there any other advice anybody wants to give me feel free
thanks

This breed pups are born very dark and will still have dark hair  on their body apart from the heads at 2 weeks old.They will gradually lighten over the next few weeks. By about 4 weeks you will be able to see fawn or red all over. Some pups still have a black tinge on their backs and tail until 6- 8 weeks which will go as they get older. This breed does tend to drop a bit of weight when they are feeding pups , you need to be feeding her 3 - 4 good size meals  a day. How old is the mum?

she is 6 and is being fed 5 or 6 times a day on that food that i got with 1 small tin of food as she wont eat dry food on its own

WOW what a whelping, it is a miracle Mum is still with you

I would feed her anything high calorie you can get into her,cream cheese or cheddar mixed with her kibble, raw minced lamb as it has higher fat content than beef and anything else you can think of to get her weight back on again

I hope you are supplementing her calcium intake to avoid eclampsia developing

6 years old!!!!!!! she should never of been bred from at that age. This breed has an average
life span of 9-10 years so she is well passed middle age...Your very lucky she has survived at all.I have never bred any of my bitches over the age of 4..

Yes I agree you were lucky she and the pups are still alive :(, well as said she needs lots of calories Sophie was a right madam food wise with the litter, so we put some of the powdered puppy milk you can buy from the most pet shops in her water bowl for the calories and calcium, a natural yogurt will also help with calories and high fat meats or puppy food. Weening at 2 weeks is young but I suppose as your girl is quite old its probably for the best as she really was too old to breed from this probably attributed to some of the problems you had.

I missed the bit about her being 6yrs old, an earlier post mentioned 4-5yrs old and questioned that age to be bred from,surprised the stud owner agreed,maybe he was in the dark re her true age

Whats done is done and you now have beautiful bundles of fun (and mess) and mum to take care of. It sounds like I may have the same breed as you and once they loose weight during lactation it can be extremely difficult to get it back on them. Your focus now is to get some food (and lots of it) into mum. Anything high calories. Mix her dried with anything tasty. My girls favourites are cheese, pilchards, tuna, tinned tomatoes, chappie, pasta. My girl had her second litter of 13 on Xmas eve and virtually disappeared over 3 weeks and to make matters worse went extremely fussy with her food. My vet recommended melting a little beef dripping on the hob in her bowl and then adding her food into it to increase the calories. It worked really quickly.

>is being fed 5 or 6 times a day on that food that i got with 1 small tin of food

I'm not surprised that she isn't enamoured of the dry food.  Poor bitch will have such a very sore mouth  from cleaning pups.  She needs goats milk, scrambled egg, chicken, steak mince etc.  I buy bags of economy white fish portions from Tesco or Sainsbury's and poach them in half milk, half water. 

She has lost a lot of weight because you need to replace everything that she is giving to her pups.  I would get a load of protein down her, and blow it if she doesn't want dry. 

for a start no body was kept in the dark about anything so why say that you know nothing about what went on so why speculate
before i bred her i took her the vets he said she was a good example of the breed and perfectly healthy to breed,
the person who owns the stud dog wouldnt have put the dogs together if he thought there was going to be a problem he even to me this on the phone and he had her pedergree before we put them together,

all is going well pups are getting very big very fast, although the mum is panting quiet a bit over the past day or 2 is this normal i have kept a close eye on her and she seems ok

I agree entirely with JeanSW about the dry food, not a good idea at all.

Soak the food in warm water until it fills out and is nice and soft, (not hot as it will kill all the vits, minerals etc) IMO a bitch which has just whelped should be treated like a Queen and have all the very best of foods you can afford, they need variety to keep the appetite up and to give their bodies what they need. They soon lose weight as they are giving everything they have to their milk.

I give pasturised goats milk with an egg yolk slightly warmed morning and evening, this gives a calcium and liquid boost,

Then mix these alternatives with soaked dry food:
Srambled egg made with goats milk, fresh chicken, mince meat, white fish
Above can also be mixed with rice for one of her meals,

She will soon put the weight on again after she stops feeding her pups, plenty of protein and calcium foods are needed in-between. :-)

She should also be on Puppy food, of whatever dry complete you use, this contains all the extras that she needs. :-)

i was told not to give her puppy food and to give her this eukabana high peformance dry food or how ever you spell it witch cost £45 a bag mixed with tinned food raw meat and cheese

Did you worm her when you wormed the pups?

wormed them all 2 day including the mum

Why were you told not to put her on puppy food? She is panting either because she is uncomfortable i.e. her womb is contracting back or she is probably too hot so a fan pointed just at her and a few bottles filled with cold water sat around her but not the pups should keep her cool. The Panting is normal but you need to keep an eye on the pups we are about to go into a hot spell so be careful mum and pups don't overheat.

Without getting a puppy tin out to look at I have a feeling that puppy food has higher levels of calcium and with it being more pasty its easier for her to eat. If you want to feed the dry id mix a high quality dried food with the puppy food. To be honest a lot of bitches look awful after a litter and can take time to get back into condition especially if they are raising a large litter.

With regards to the raw meat unless you have fed her this diet before it could turn her tummy or at least that's what I have found but have successfully reared a litter of the same breed on raw mince, natural yogurt, goats milk, and eggs. The Bitch ended up on cooked chicken, and yummy leftovers from our dinner as she really went off food big style when she first had the litter but again its because she was uncomfortable.

Are you adding lots of water to the food, this will help with both food and water intake needed to produce milk, and keep her own bodyweight up.  Cleaning pups can make mouths sore so eating dry food is uncomfortable.

Basically at this stage the bitch is queen and you need to give her as much good food as she will eat, even if ti means pandering to her.

Just wondering , is your vet an expert in the breed to be able to quantify that she is a good example of the breed ? Also when the vet said she was healthy did this include doing all the relevant health checks that are recommended for the breed ?

Also did the stud also have all of the health checks and did you see all the paperwork to back this up ?

i was told not to give her puppy food

I think that perhaps because you have been taking advice from the stud dog owner who may not have had a bitch in whelp they do not realise that your bitch really should have had puppy food in the last weeks prior to whelping and during rearing the pups, often many of us continue a little after to help bring our bitches to full health again. They are obviously giving you advice just for a normal adult dog, not one in whelp and lactating. :-)

Puppy food gives everything extra that your bitch needs, it is also why you do not need to give calcium tablets (unless a problem) post whelping as the puppy food gives all the extra calcium, vits, proteins, minerals needed.

So pop her on large breed puppy complete food, and keep the high performance food for afterwards. :-)

To be fair the 'High Performance' foods are often made/recomended for lactation, but we breeders find it a lot more conventient to feed puppy food to both Mum and pups.

Apologies I didn't realise, I guess it is fine whilst lactating then. :-)