My bitch has had mild diarrhea twice since the early hours. She is fine in herself and continues to nurse happily. Up til now I have been feeding her chicken, white fish, goats milk with egg yolks and soaked puppy kibble (but to be honest she's not too impressed with the puppy food!) If this happened in the normal course of events I'd usually feed her chicken/fish mixed with rice and natural youghrt and some mashed sweet potato (the potato seems to really sooth the tummy) for a couple of days. I've been giving her glucose powder in her water which I'll continue to do. Do you think that it would be OK to do this for a day or two? I'm concerned about the lack of calcium in the diet. She was with the vet yesterday and was checked over and given a clean bill of health, spoke to him this morning and this is what he also recommended. Will call in to him and get pro-kolin this afternoon which he assures me to fine for nursing bitches.

I would guess if she has only recently given birth the diarrhea is as a result of eating the placentas and cleaning up after the puppies, I wouldn't be too worried at the moment

just feed her what she will eat and what will soothe her tummy

Thanks Reddog, will do that - am loath to stop the milk as she likes it and I want to keep her well hydrated.

when you say milk? are you giving her ordinary milk? because goats milk would be better but water is the best thing to give her to make her milk for pups

Like others have said eating the placenta can cause looser stools.

Mine post whelping are not keen on puppy kibble[ happy to eat it for 3 weeks pre whelping] if there are other things on offer so don't worry about that, the yoghurt contains calcium.

If you can get butternut squash or pumpkin, steam it and give a desert spoonfull at a time this will firm up the stools, freeze any excess in ice cube tray as it can be given frozen one cube each time.

Too much sugar in the diet can cause stools to be softer than normal so try leaving off the glucose in the water.

Hopefully she will settle down soon.

Sorry - I did mean goats milk (was putting an egg yolk in too, but will leave that out until things settle). Will drop the glucose and try the squash (don't think I have much chance of finding a pumpkin at the moment!!) She was on the puppy food during pregnancy, but went off it a few days before the birth (Might try Naturesmenu when the stools firm up - she's been on Burns til now). Really appreciate the advice - lack of sleep seems to have made me unable to think properly. She's happily lapping up some nice fresh chicken stock so hopefully it'll be better soon.

Yes getting Pumpkin at other times of the year from Haloween is hard, I buy one then, steam, mash and freeze it and keep on standby at the bottom of the freezer, been told that Butternut squash works just as well but you don't get as much so may need more than one.

Keep us posted on how she gets on

So funny - did all that kind of thing for my kids, were they were babies - glad I kept all those ice cube trays, think they're going to come in handy! Will report back with good news soon I hope!

I would lay off the egg if she has loose stools ,and just stick to bland food ie white fish and potato just until her tummy settles as long as she is getting plenty of fluids for the milk production, she will be a bit fussy at this stage, if she is normally fine with chicken then keep feeding it (just that my dogs can only have a tiny amount of chicken before it upsets them where others can eat it with no probs) then gradually add a little more variation.If she absolutely refuses to eat the puppy you can give adult and add more protein to compensate .. i had to do this with one of mine and the puppies were fine when they were weaned...

Ella is 100% improved today. Took out the glucose and the egg, soaked the puppy food in chicken stock and mixed in the youghrt and the squash, added some chicken too to fool her into eating it and she ate well. Thanks so much for the advice, it was much appreciated.

Glad to hear that things are on the mend.

good news