Hello,

Me and my bitch had our first litter, 6 born naturally, 7 via c-section - oh my goodness what a long night, not a great 1st time experience of whelping! I was very worried about my bitch but she seems to be doing fine, she's a great mum too. I've given some nutri-drops to two of the weaker pups in the litter and also some whelpi, my question is with it being a large litter should I supplement them all with whelpi to help mum? She seems to be expressing plenty of milk and they're all feeding well apart from one little guy.

Thanks.

i have had a litter of 12 and 13, all puppies done just fine with no supplementation at all except puppy stim given to a very small boy twice a day for the first 2 weeks.

the important thing is to rotate puppies on the teats, i feed half of the litter then the other half to ensure everyone gets their fill, it is VERY tiring for those first few weeks to make sure they are constantly suckling as by the time the first lot of puppies have fed and fallen to sleep, you swap the other half and then its time to start again, no break so hope you have some help at hand, but the best for them is their mums milk.

Good luck with your litter :)

Agree, monitor weights and make sure the smallest get most time on best teats.

First few days basically they should be feeding non stop in shifts, so that Mum produces enough.

Once eyes are open and if the rate of weight gain levels off then you can start weaning foods, and certainly by 3 weeks.

If you have to supplement then supplement the larger pups giving the smaller ones more of Mum.

Thanks for your replies.

I've been swapping them over and I've tried to encourage the little guy to suckle more, he seems to have gotten stronger, lets hope he continues to and puts some weight on. I can't believe how demanding it is looking after a litter! I'm exhausted, mum must be even more so.