Yesterday my bitch seemed a bit down. Still eating and pooping normally. This morning it was more obvious but she ate two breakfast, two lots infact. Her temperature was a bit high and when she past up on lunch with chicken and liver added I went to the vets. She does have a bit of a lump in the teats and she isn't that keen to go in with the kids so obviously the concern about mastitis and that lump coming to a head is there!
Vet doesn't think any milk is coming out of the majority of the teats. Even though using the lansindoh has transformed what were horribly hard chapped teats they still have what looks like a scabby cap on them. Vet gave antibios and took some blood to look at her calcium level. Bitch was sick in the car on the way home but maybe it was just the stress.
Vet also suggested it might be better all round if the bitch is dried up now. When we got home mum checked her pups but wouldn't go in the box with them even though they were crying. I have been feeding them on Royal Canin baby puppy food fed as a sloppy mush for days now and they eat it well (wouldn't take the bottle). If I try to dry up mum are these pups going to get enough hydration from this food alone. Obviously I make it as wet as possible but up to now I don't think they're able to lap water or puppy milk. Puh!

What age are they now?

Three weeks old now. She seems a little happier and she wanted to go in with the pups. She stood and let them feed, it didn't go on for long as i'd just given them their mush. She ate a small meal and I have been applying hot compresses to her teats.

As soon as I start supplementing (at this age) I provide water, which they will drink if needed.

I have found the road refresher small bowl excellent for this as there is only a small amount available above the float plate, so reducing the risk of them falling into it etc.

I would allow Mum to come and go as she wants and feed pups four (or five times if they seem not to get enough) a day to appetite.

Thanks, i appreciate your advice. I am conflicted on letting her continue to feed them. I had wanted her to go on feeding but if she is getting mastitis because that milk is actually trapped in there then perhaps the vet is right. If I let her go on trying to feed her 6 pups out of her maybe two good teats the milk flow is going to keep going in with nowhere to go?

Well if she doesn't fed the milk will back up I the short term, if she slowly reduces feeds then less likely.

I wouldn't be making the same decision as you if I had 3 week old pups.  I allow a bitch total access with easy escape route for her to make the decision. 

Let your bitch decide.

The things is, the bitch appears to have mastitis now and that is on top of already having these horrendous cracked open teats. It's like she has suffered enough at this point. But I will try and wean over a few days. I don't like the idea of it myself but I don't know what else to do. Vet thinks it is over as there is hardly any milk coming out. She already seems quite ill to me and I dread what may happen next. I just think the sooner I can eliminate her using these poor teats the better. Certainly it is not a happy choice.

Having had a bitch with mastitis myself in the past, I have to say that I put the pups on teats to encourage milk production.  She continued to increase milk yield and fed the pups while I worked on the affected teat.  Pups were very clever, ignoring the cacky teat.

I know you may be listening to your vet, but I doubt that he is a breeder.  Breeders have years of experience in rearing litters.

At 3 weeks bitches are usually at their highest milk production, because pups need the milk.

Ditto, I had a bitch with raging mastitis when pups were 10 days old, she continued to feed, they ignored the bad teat, and I hand expressed what looked like tomato soup, then mushroom soup and finally milk back to normal.

Bitch continued to feed throughout and until pups left.

Leave your bitch to decide what she wants to do, otherwise you will just upset her on top of it all.

>Thanks, i appreciate your advice. I am conflicted on letting her continue to feed them. I had wanted her to go on feeding but if she is getting mastitis because that milk is actually trapped in there then perhaps the vet is right. If I let her go on trying to feed her 6 pups out of her maybe two good teats the milk flow is going to keep going in with nowhere to go?

From my experience of mastitis as a human mum, supply will come back with a vengeance once the infection is gone so it may be a good idea to keep letting her feed them just to keep the flow going.

In regards to not much milk coming out now, there may be blocked milk ducts which can feel like small lumps under the skin, feeding is the best way to unblock them.

It is painful feeding through mastitis and blocked ducts, but when the feeding suddenly causes something to unblock, the relief is instant.

I let her feed them this morning. The problem with getting any milk out of the teats has been happening since the first week. My vet thought then that I may need to hand feed the pups. I persisted with the bitch feeding them and started supplementing as soon as I could. When I did offer them that food the pups were ravenous! The milk flow thing isn't down to the mastitis itself, there is something wrong with her teats, period. Each teat has a scabby cap on it which never goes anywhere! I will let her feed the pups again today and as you say there is the stress factor to consider. Thankyou again for all your help, I really appreciate your advice.

Remember that any milk that you can get out after the pups have finished feeding is wasted effort on the part of the bitch; in an ideal world they'd strip her out completely because that's when the satisfying 'cream' comes.

We started weaning by the end of week three, using warmed goats milk, 4 times a day.   Most of their nourishment at this point was still coming from mum.   As they managed to lap, we added a good quality puppy food, mixing it either with goats milk, or warmed water, into a porridge which was served less moistened as the puppies got older.   As far as mum was concerned, and we did have mastitis in one, once we used a warm flannel to get the teat working as it should, the puppies were back on that teat - we always found gradually weaning, with mum still involved up to about 6 weeks actually, standing to allow 'comfort suckling' towards the end, this helped her scatter the milk far better than abruptly hauling her off her puppies as some breeders do.

Do you have contact with a breeder at all because I am always concerned about how much actual experience, as opposed to theory, many vets have.   So often it is all theory which is fine for treating infection, surgery, prescribing drugs etc. but perhaps not necessarily when it comes to things like a nursing bitch?   "I know you may be listening to your vet, but I doubt that he is a breeder.  Breeders have years of experience in rearing litters"   Jean SW - exactly!!.

I totally agree with the suggestion that feeding is the best way forward when it comes to unblocking the flow.   Manual milking doesn't necessarily do this.    If these puppies are only 3 weeks, for me by far the best way would be to keep them on her still.

Thanks again. I am listening and I will continue on with letting them feed. I also take the point about the vet not having any experience of litter raising, I have raised a number of litters myself in the past and I have experienced problems with whelpings and had bitches with C-sections etc but this is something I have been lucky enough not to experience before. I have never had to intervene and hand-feed and I have never weaned early. When I have shown the pictures of this bitches teats to breeder friends of mine they are equally at a loss as to what is going on there and have never seen anything like it before.

Bitch seems a little happier this morning. I have been doing the hot compress thing. She's just been in and had a check on the pups and wanted to come out again. We'll keep trying.

Regarding the vet trying to get milk out. 

It isn't as simple as just trying to milk a teat.  When a bitch suckles pups in her den,  the security of the den relaxes her as does being with the pups, the pups action of massaging the milk bar with their paws, and their nearness to the bitch, their smell, and their sounds, all combine and physiologically affect the bitch, this is when the milk comes in and is 'let down'  

It's also why a stressed bitch (or human mother)  might have less milk,  the milk isn't being 'let down'  ;-)

Trying to manually milk a teat in a vet's surgery is about as far away from this as is possible - no wonder he can't get any milk out.

As long as the pups are plump feeling, warm and settled after feeding, they are getting enough milk.    Pups that don't settle and sound like seagulls even straight after a feed are hungry.

You could try weighing them daily and recording the weights, then you'd know if they are putting enough weight on, or if they start losing.  

Also I'd like to say 3 weeks is the usual age I start weaning, in fact I offer them their first taste at 18 days then two the next day three the next and at 4 weeks am offering food four times a day, as this is when I worm, and |I prefer to do this (and have found less reaction) on a full stomach of more than just milk.

As the others have said if the pups have been surviving and gaining weight on Mums milk until now, despite the problems, then she is producing enough milk.

continue to use the lanolin to soften the teats for her comfort and let her feed as and when she wants and offer pups weaning food to appetite four times a day 9which is what you'd do at this stage anyway).

What proportion of their nourishment will be from the bitch will not be particularly relevant as long as they are gaining, but I would use a puppy milk replacer in with their food until around 5 weeks, the stage at which a bitch will  be reducing milk feeds quite drastically, and then supplementary milk feeds will no longer be required as the pups ability to digest it decreases as weaning progresses.