Scan just been done at 35 days and confirms at least 3 puppies.  Although, from looking at previous posts it seems that the puppy count at this stage is not very accurate - I am just happy she is definitely pregnant.  Expect lots of questions! My vet suggested slowly adding in some puppy food and/or things like liver to her diet and I did put a tiny bit in but she has immediately had loose stools. My breed is notorious for having very sensitive stomachs so not sure whether to just keep her on her normal (Orijen) or to persevere.

One of my bitches nearly died when I put her on puppy food. She got such an upset stomach. I persevered and when the pups were born and she ate the afterbirths it got a LOT worse. She must have lost half her body weight. What saved her was giving one chicken wing an hour during the day. Since then I never use puppy food for a pregnant bitch. Around week six I increase the amount of normal food, not sooner and not anything new.

As I have learnt, do NOT give liver during pregnancy.  Excess vitamin A can lead to cleft palates.  There is a study on this... Thanks for whoever told me!  Fortunately mine are all ok, but I wouldn't feed it again in pregnancy.  

I also wouldn't feed a puppy food, especially not so early on.  And especially not if you are feeding a really high quality food like Orijen - which is probably even more nutritious than most puppy foods of other brands.

As advised by the experienced stud dog owner, I kept my dog's diet exactly the same as usual until week 7 of pregnancy - and she is fed on Orijen too.  Only then did I increase her food, by one meal a day (of the same amount as the other two).  We have 7 good size puppies, a very easy birth, and a very fit bitch now.  If I'd been feeding her extra from early on in pregnancy, she'd be the size of a house....

I also fed normal food and didn't increase until the end. No issues with giving birth either

It makes me wonder about exactly how much experience, never mind training, a lot of vets have.   Fact is you'd do far better to keep her on her normal good quality dog food until, once she's whelped, you SEE the number of puppies she has to cater for.   The puppies will take what they need from her before birth and for me, there's no point piling in food, making the bitch fat, prior to whelping.   Puppies don't make much demand on their dams for the first week, and again assuming she is on a good quality food now, you'd do way better not to give her any extras at this point.   Once she gets big, if she does, she'll not need the bulk and then you concentrate on a smaller meal, more often, and with perhaps more protein than bulk in it.

We never did anything significantly different than that with our pregnant bitches and our puppies were usually around 18 oz at birth, when the norm is probably nearer 16 oz or less.

If the liver has made her loose, stop feeding her that!!

And I have no idea where this concept of feeding the dam puppy food has come from - puppy food is for PUPPIES!!

> <br />And I have no idea where this concept of feeding the dam puppy food has come from - puppy food is for PUPPIES!!

My thinking would be maybe because its higher in protein than adult food???

It's not though, if you're feeding a food like Orijen - where the puppy and adult versions are equally high protein...

Ok, just some brands differ in protein with adult & puppy....

Re: Liver - it depends on what you feed normally. We feed a raw diet of 80% meat, 10% bone and 10% offal (of which 5% is liver). If you feed a RAW diet - the liver is needed to keep the diet balanced but as with my girls - although I up the food, I do not up the offal or bone unless the poo is effected.

Again, if you feed a balanced kibble diet - you do not need to add anything more to it as it should be just that ' balanced'. If you feel you need to add any extras, you should wait until round the 6th or 7th week and then look at possibly adding the odd raw egg, tinned sardines or mackerel or some cottage cheese. I didn't up my girl's intake by more than 50g in the 7th week and 100g in the 8th week. I know some breeders will feed to the dog's appetite but in my opinion you just end up with a fat dog which isn't good for her during whelping and doesn't really help the pups either.

You will be better of upping her food once the pups are born and then adjust amounts as per her requirements. Currently my girl (with 7 pups) is eating 3.5kg per day of various protein sources, eggs, kefir, yoghurt etc. Sometimes she eats it all and sometimes she leaves a little but she isn't begging for more.

Thanks for the advice and help.  i am rapidly coming to the conclusion that my vet is not an expert in dogs - and certainly not on pregnant dogs.  He also suggested I worm her in a few weeks but others seem to think I should wait until the puppies are being wormed.  Advice gratefully received

Hi, I am not an experienced breeder or anything but I woud never give  my bitch any chemicals etc during pregnancy or whelping.  My own thing is to do a thorough worming and flea treatment before mating then worm Mum again when I worm the puppies.  Hope that helps

Hello Peoples   Just checking in to ask if everyone is well...including furbabies

All is well here, babies finally settled once I replaced the heat mat!!  It's very warm here so I turned it off for fear of cooking them, but they weren't happy.  As a last resort when they wouldn't stop fussing, I replaced it and now have happy puppies!!  You live and learn eh?

Nothing else to report, hope everyone is well
xxxx

From experience and listening to others  many vets don't have much knowledge of either breeding or nutrition unless they have special interest in the subjects . I am not surprised that many of things suggested not always the best.
Not sure about breeding but with canine nutrition very little of their training time is used for this subject. Some have said around 10 % and considering the vast amount of things that do have to be covered its not surprising
The sponsores are then often  the same companies who the vets go one to sell precriptoion diets for.

One of my bitches cannot tolerate puppy food it's simply too rich for her so she remains on her normal feed and I just increased the amount and frequency of her meals. She had 8 very healthy puppies with absolutely no problems!
I had problems with her after her first litter as she's lactose intolerant so cleaning up after the pups is an issue for her so this year I put her on a human herbal supplement called slippery elm and she had no problems with the cleaning up after pups either!! So it might be a good one for you to have in your cupboard! You feed one tablet per meal. It can be used any time they have an upset stomach.

>The sponsores are then often  the same companies who the vets go one to sell precriptoion diets for.

Could you maybe write this again?  I'm truly interested to know what you wanted to say.  Thanx. 

>so this year I put her on a human herbal supplement called slippery elm and she had no problems with the cleaning up after pups either!! So it might be a good one for you to have in your cupboard! You feed one tablet per meal. It can be used any time they have an upset stomach.

Sounds great!  I've just found it (here in Switzerland) on the internet and ordered it!  By "upset stomach" do you refer only to vomiting, or also to diarrhea?

BTW:  Aren't ALL dogs lactose-intolerant???

Nime it seems there is little training in nutrton done by vets in training.a lot of the information they are given is  by the commercial companies who make the prescription  type diets.eg hills and royal canine .this means the info is geared towards vets learning about how good these diets are and not in a truly neutral way .does that make better reading ? Same is often founder woth people who have done canine nutrition  courses many are are.actually back by the same commercial compairs so u won't get independent  advise.I add most not all. This isnt a opinion it's after researching and speaking to people who have tried to get proper independent advice

Re lactose intolerance yes most are some cam manage more than others when adults without problems and after weaning

Btw slipper elm or tree barks powder is excellent for dogs and humans alike woth tummy problems .I have been using for yeats for all of us. Makes a nice hot milk drink too

> He also suggested I worm her in a few weeks but others seem to think I should wait until the puppies are being wormed.  Advice gratefully received

We wormed our bitches prior to being mated.   And then nothing until we wormed the puppies first, at 2 weeks post whelping, when mum was wormed too using a regular worming med.   I didn't do this with our first litter (inexperience!) and when I wormed the singleton surviving puppy, he produced TONS.   Put me off eating spaghetti for years.   Since then, worming mum before being mated and again at 2 weeks, neither she nor her puppies produced any worms that I saw coming out.   I'm one who doesn't believe in putting chemicals into a pregnant bitch, rightly or wrongly.

Alternatively many of us choose to use Panacur for the last trimester of pregnancy to reduce the transference of activated worm larva across the placenta by 98%.

PANACUR is the only product that deals with these early larval stages, and for female pups reduces the larva that are encysted in her tissues and then passed on to her pups when she is pregnant.

I have been using this protocol with 7 generations of bitchrs with no problems.

In fact the only time I had problems was worming pups at 2 1/2 weeks followed by at 5 weeks.

As the pups are born with so little likelihood of a worm burden, and PANACUR us effective on immature worms, U worm the pups from treated mothers at 3 and 7 weeks ( so tuns are settled before homing), and advise next dose at 11 weeks, sobit' not done at same time as vaccinations.

>In fact the only time I had problems was worming pups at 2 1/2 weeks followed by at 5 weeks.

Hi Barbara,

I too had problems with a litter wormed at 2.5 weeks on Panacur, and I attributed the problems to the Panacur.  What kinds of problems did you experience?

We did not worm in pregnancy because we didn't want to give chemicals during pregnancy and also because our girl doesn't tolerate wormers well - they give her an upset tum. 

We just wormed at 2 weeks (bang on) with Panacur paste, with no ill effects whatsoever.   Mum still whined and had a tummy ache, but the pups all seemed fine.  I didn't see any worms.

We will worm again at 4wks, with Panacur paste and at 6 weeks we will probably do Drontal Puppy, just to be sure. 

Then we will leave it to new owners.

If you do worm during pregnancy, Panacur is the only one to give, from Day 40.

In Switzerland we worm during the last 3rd of the pregnancy with Milbemax.  I don't say it's right, but it might be interesting (or maybe not) to hear what is practised in other countries, especially in other modern countries with state of the art veterinary medicine.

My vet told me yesterday that he is not too happy with Panacur (for puppies), as he has quite a few cases of problems caused by panacur.  I don't think anyone here has ever heard of the daily dose of Panacur for Mum from day 40 until birth.  I must ask him about this.

Concerning my present problem with too soft poop in the two 11-week-old puppies who are still with me, he told me another thing I find worth passing on, namely that Metronidozole can be given over a long period of time precisely because it does not harm the "good" flora in the intestine, only the "bad" stuff.   So the soft poop is more than likely not a side effect of the metronidozole they were taking for a while up to 10 days ago.  I'm taking in my 3-day samples of everybody's poop tomorrow, and he is going to have the lab check for everything (including giardia, trichomoniasis, and coccsidiosis).  My pups feel fine and are eating normally, but the poop is still too soft basically.  Sometimes nearly normal, then again not.  He doesn't want to use panacur.  I don't know what he will decide he thinks should be done, if anything.

looseness, in my opinion if the wormer has nothing to work on then it upsets the pups more, so I prefer to give it once they are on solids.

I have never had an issue of it affecting a pregnant bitch, as the dosage rate is only 1/4ml per kg so 5ml of the 10% strength daily fro my 20kg bitches.

When I first bred I had small children and was mindful of the zoonotic issues of toxocara.