Hi all, my girl successfully whelped 6 beautiful pups today.
All has been going well but ive noticed when the pups arent with her, and gravitated to the heat pad, she refuses to let the smallest pup stay with his siblings, instead bringing him to stay with her.

Should i be worried or is she simply giving him more attention/milk/cuddles etc because he's so much smaller?

I understand some bitches can turn away a pup if seen as weak but this seems like the polar opposite.  However im a little worried shes keeping him to keep him away from her 'good pups'

Any ideas anyone? Xx

I think you are creating confusion by having two sources of heat in the whelping box.

Puppies are heat-seeking missiles and will gravitate to where they can feel the heat coming from.  In 'nature' there would be only one source of heat - which would be the bitch - and they would all be snuggled up with her. 

If you have a heat pad as well as the bitch, and if the bitch is too hot to want to lie on the heat pad, then you have created 2 sources of heat in the box and the puppies will go to one or the other.  It's possible the mum would like them all to be with her, and is feeling bereft of puppies and bringing one to be with her...

Heat pads have their place if puppies are cold (if you notice them balling up together in a pile) or if you are struggling to keep the temp up - but often times they are not necessary.  You need one available should you need it, but I wouldn't put it on as a matter of course. 

Turn off your heat pad and see what happens then.  I predict they will all end up together with the mum.

This m(above) is a sensible answer.   We had a brood/heat lamp over the whelping box - and had to drape a sheet across the back end of the box for mum to lie under to get away from the direct heat coming from the lamp.   If mum was in there and it was otherwise warm enough, we'd switch off the brood lamp.    And we always had a thermometer on the pig rail to monitor the heat in the bottom of the box which was often different to the general room temperature.

It will be interesting to hear whether removing the heat pad does the trick with this puppy.

Hi all

Thanks for the top advice, removed heat pad, checked temp and now all is well.
All pups staying with mum and feeding nicely.

Thankyou both, this forum has helped me immensely. Xx

Good - glad!