well we are at the end of the first week of our new litter. This litter has probably been the most stressful in terms of anticipation as we are keeping a bitch to keep the line going ( hopefully)
My girl has had a couple of less than stress free litters before ( oxytocin needed and puppy deaths in the first few days) so as you can appreciate I've been on tenterhooks this week.
It could just be coincidence but I used caullophylum tablets this time and we had a completely natural and stress free labour ( although I did have to catch two puppies in a towel outside by torchlight in the middle of the night!)
Out of 7 we have lost two which leads me to my question.
The two that didn't make it were considerably smaller than the rest of the litter and despite extra formula ( to supplement not in place of mum) and nutri-drops at regular intervals faded within the first 36 hours. How does everyone deal with this? Do people seek veterinary assistance with smaller/ less viable puppies or is it a case of nature playing it's hand? Other than size everything else was normal but they just didn't seem to be coping...we would see a short burst of liveliness but then a massive drop and signs of dehydration very quickly ( almost as if what was going in wasn't getting to where it needed to go). I can't help but wonder if there was something internally that meant these two were destined to not make it.
on the plus side we do have 5 beautiful chunks who are getting bigger by the day and a calm and contented mother
would be interesting to hear what extremes other breeders go to with smaller pups or whether by intervening too much you are potentially prolonging a problem

In the first few days apart from ensuing all pups especially smaller ones get enough milkbar time and stay warm, make no herculean efforts to save unviable pups, as inevitably something is found to be wrong as the pups develop (or in their case fail to). 

If they have made it to the time the bitch starts staying out of the whelping box, any small ones may get the odd extra feed on theit own or a top up, but prefer to avoid the latter.