My bitch has acute mastitis, 7pm she was happy 8pm She was drooling being sick & couldn't lift her head up running a very high temp.
She has a litter of 10 pups just 18 days old, vet put on her pain killer & Noroclaw, she was feeding the pups & I've staring feeding them Butchers tinned food & there happy tucking into this, ( vet advised to feed them ).
But day 4 into this nightmare she is at home on a drip in lots of pain & struggling to feed pups, it's just to painful for her to feed them now, I've tried putting one or two at a time on her, but because they are hunger they are being ruff with her.
I've got pups in one cage & her in one next to them.
I know wet food isnt going to give puppies at this age all they need but I cannot get them onto a bottle or dried puppy food soaked in milk. Some of the pups will lap up a little bit of milk but now enough.
Any tip on how to get the poor puppies onto milk pls

Try a syringe, it worked great for me when this happened.........it is too hard to get pups to bottle feed once they have been used to the dam, sometimes it can work, but I could never get them interested,  sit the pups on your lap in a sitting position with your hand gently holding the head up, just as you do when worming them, and very gently squeeze amounts of milk (goats or whelpi) into the mouth, you can see exactly what you are giving and the milk goes down, you sometimes get wrigglers but persevere, they are old enough to lap up milk so also continue to put down bowls of slightly warmed milk for them to drink too.

My pups first whelping food is scrambled egg made with goats milk, nice and easy to eat, along with bits of mince meat, (so perhaps you could do one meal butchers, one scrambled egg) progressing to chicken and rice, fish and rice and mince meat, with a couple of meals a day of good quality soaked puppy food, I like to give different tastes and textures.

If the dam is so bad that she needs to be on a drip, stop letting the pups near her to feed, my vet told me that pups were not to feed and he was right, it depends on the severity of the mastitis, some can continue, some can't, if your vet says no, do as he says.......seperate your girl for a day or two to give her time to eat, drink and rest, weaning the pups early will not do them any harm, you will have to take on the roll of dam whilst she is feeling better, it is just harder on us...plenty of us have had to do it at some time.

When your girl is more up to things, put a T-shirt on her so that she can visit the pups, clean and socialise, but the pups can't get at her teats........

Good luck it will be harder work, luckily they are not as young as some of ours have been, but they will be ok, the syringe will kick start things and stop you worrying they are not having enough milk....... after that, they will lap and eat just fine.

Hope that your girl will soon be better, but keep an eye, mastitis can turn bad very quickly.

Are all her glands affected, if not tehn she can still feed the pusp and pups will nto go for the affecdted glands.

I had this situation with a ten day old litter, it does make them miserable as it's like flu.

Are you stripping the affected glands?  This is important.  The vet showed me how to do it, using alternating hot (careful not too hot, just as hot as you can stand on your skin) and cold compresses.

You then get above the gland and apply pressure from above, drawing to the teat,.

Initially what I got out was the colour of tomato soup, then mushroom soup and finally it was clear.  she needed two weeks of Noraclav.

With the pups get a good dry puppy food and soak in boiled water for a couple of hours mash and add some puppy milk so it is a porridge.  give up to 6 meals a day. I start my pups off at this age anyway, and within a week they are eating considerable amounts.  Then put a couple pups on her at a time, when they have just had a good feed.

The reason they go crazed is your separating her from them, let her come and go as she pleases. let her eat the unfinished puppy mush it's a reward/incentive for standing there letting them feed.

At 18 days+ they really don't need bottle or syringe feeding they are old enough to lap.

As asked, is her whole 'milk bar' affected because I suggest that would be rather rare.   I have occasionally had a bout of mastitis but it always hit just one teat.   I think you need to get those puppies onto her, or if her milk isn't being drained, she'll maybe be in worse trouble.  I used a warm flannel to help draw off the clogged gland which usually worked so the puppies could be left to the run of the teats again.

At this age, they should be able to start to learn how to lap, much as I didn't start this until the end of week 3 usually.   With the puppy food, don't use boiling water to soften it - this will destroy the vitamins.   Warm water should do the job and you could always use a blender.

As I don't really remember any of mine being that off-colour with mastitis (eclampsia yes) I'm wondering whether there is more than this going on - did you have her in for a shot to clear out retained birthing material.   If she has anything left inside, this would make her ill pretty fast.

Thank you everybody for your prompt replies, mum is unable to feed at all now as she is drying up and crying out with pain also growling at pups if they come close, I did try one pup at a time on the teats but they are trying to move on to next test as she is empty.
I have tried skinners puppy soaked with puppy milk and milk on its own one or two are lapping, the only thing they will eat is the butchers, one small girl is doing non of the above have tried the syringe and got some milk down her.
I will try the eggs rice & chicken.
The Vet said I am wasting my time trying to put them on mum as the mastitis is drying her up, she can now also have more drugs to help if the pups are not feeding from her.
I have tried to drain the affected teat not much coming out its very hard & hot.
I thought eclampsia but the vet said acute mastitis.

Fingers crossed,

" .....the mastitis is drying her up"

I think you may have misunderstood.  Fact is if the puppies are not suckling this can cause lactation to stop and the supply to dry up.   I've had a bitch with mastitis, in just one teat, and she certainly didn't 'dry up'.   Her puppies continued to nurse with me being there to keep them off the infected teat, until I managed to draw out the bad stuff, and get it working properly again.

I think, if this was my bitch (and the fact she just has the one teat that's affected meaning there should be no reason not to have the puppies on her), I'd be looking for another vet.   With respect to him - what's being suggested he's said is BS.

Goats milk, warmed would be a good substitute for the puppies as it's close in make up to bitch milk.    She can be given antibiotics even if she's nursing.

Clearly she's a very unhappy girl, probably as much because she knows she should be nursing this litter as much as anything else (and again I'd not rule out her having an infection from something she hasn't expelled after whelping)

How are these 10 puppies doing?   Not well I'd imagine.  I'm not sure Butchers tinned food is right for them at only 18 days old, to be honest.   A good quality puppy food, made into a porridge with either warm water, or warmed goats milk, would, at this stage, be far more appropriate for them if they have to be in effect, weaned this young. They should be on probably 5 meals a day (including one overnight) still, I think.

ps    Noroclav contains amoxycillin and would be given for a bacterial infection.   I'd expect it to work although if something more serious is going on, then further investigation/treatment will be needed.

I haven't stopped mum from feeding her pups it's just there isn't anything there & she doesn't want them on her,  she had a scan at the vets the first day she became ill & she is all clear inside, she did have oxytocin after the last pup was born.
I agree they need more than Butchers but they will not eat anything else :(
The puppies do look like they are doing ok, the vet is coming back later on today.

We will have to disagree in this inst..

Again, I will raise an air of caution:

There are differing degrees of mastitis......most and that is probably 80% of cases can be soothed with a hot flannel and expressed, some go beyond that and some dams become extremely poorly, and the teat not only turns into a solid jaffa orange and splits, but as in my case (hence being more cautious than many of you) also turned gangrene, my bitch losing her teat completely,

That was to my determent in ignoring my vet and following everything I knew of mastitis, listening to my girls breeder, and everyone else in the dog world, I continued to feed my pups on unaffected teats, continued to soothe and express the infected one, I should have allowed the milk to dry up with the pills, as my vet wanted, and my girl would not have lost a teat..............

We don't always know best.........sometimes........I know it is rare especially when it comes to breeding, but just sometimes, our vets get it right.

If the dam is in distress, if she is ill, and if the milk is drying up anyway, why continue to allow milk to be made if the teat is in trouble? The vet is the one who has seen it, we haven't, and we can't see just how ill the dam is,  as the pups are old enough for early weaning, then IMO they need weaning as the vet has said, my vet cared about my bitch and her welfare, and I agree that a dam comes first, she's stressed and in pain.

As I said, it is more work for a breeder, but I would rather have a happy dam......... and there are no worries that the pups will not survive, the smaller one I would keep on the syringe until 3 weeks, and hopefully by then she will be fine to lap with the others.

And the dam will have a full recovery, fingers crossed.

I just know how terribly wrong things can go, and how mastitis can differ from one case to another, I really would follow the vet here.

Just to say you must not add the puppy milk until the dry food has been soaked and mashed as it prevents it softening if you add it to the milk.

Are you weighing the pups, are they maintaining, gaining or loosing weight???

Update
mum has had a rupture at the side of her teat & she is feeling & looking lots better.
She is very sore when I clean it, I haven't put the pups to her as I don't think she could stand the pain on being touched,
I gave the puppies some scrambled eggs with puppy milk mixed in & they all ate some, the small girl ate the most.
Mum isn't intested in the pups, she just walks past the cage,
Am just worried about the pups getting enough fluids. Any advice pls
Lynda

Remember food replaces milk, the more food they eat the less milk they need.

Although many dams still give comfort feeds right up to the pups leaving, (my girl always did) just as many lose interest, and at the 3-4-5 week stage allow little to no feeding, and run for the hills. (Some of the dams I've overseen have done this)

The dam may be showing no interest right now because she is in pain, (most likely) or she may have now terminated her responsibilities. Either way........you will cope.

You certainly can and should (as you already have) add their milk to the scrambled egg, and puppy food also to begin with. Once they have eaten pop down a bowl of their puppy milk, some will drink, some will drink and play in it (fun, fun, fun) to begin with, it will be like that, you can always add some more, just keep topped up puppy milk there whenever there is no food to be eating.

When their eating really gets going, put a bowl of fresh water down too, by 5-6 weeks I put their milk down morning and evening, only regardless of a dam still feeding or not, they generally gluten their food, milk and then the dams too.

If your pups are not nice and plump, which you will notice handling every day or you notice a pup is not eating much and doesn't look as though drinking from the bowl much either, you always have the syringe for backup, handling pups every day you will soon spot any not thriving, they should all feel nice and chubby.

It's horrible when this happens, but everything should be just fine.