Hi I've just had a litter of yorkies she had 6 pups and no I didn't want to breed her but during her heat I lost my son he had bad hypo in his sleep and things got bad for me so here we our.. my girl has 6 pups there 4 days old but the lil runt who was 77g born has went down to 69g on day 4 he's latching on fights for a teat he has a normal size tummy not hard mum takes good care of him he does not have puppy syndrome he's not crying. I do sit with him every 2 hour or more to make sure he's not pushed off I let him rest but I stroke his back to encourage him to suckle more he's got no respiratory breathing I've also got a heat lamp above them it's perfect warmth... I dont no why he's still losing weight I'm thinking is it bcz he's growing and so weight isn't showing like others I do let the biggest suckle on bottom teat for 5 mins then I take him off and put little one on so milk flows better. I don't want to supplement feed him bcz I know it can give him loose stools or constipation. He does seem a happy pup. I just need some good advice please thank you in advance

Has he been checked for a cleft palate?

Yes no cleft palette

I did say there 4 days but there only 3 days old. Since losing my son I've lost days and thought today was Sunday when it's Saturday

Just to say I am so sorry that u lost your son .such a devasting thing to happen.
Dealing with pups is not high on your list I am sure  so be kind to yourself while looking after them

It's normal for pups to lose weight in the first 48hrs but you then want to see a steady gain after that.

You have the right idea by putting him on a back teat but if you're waiting 5 mins that might be too long - the other pup might have had most of the milk by then! If you watch the pups closely you'll see when they feed there is a lot of struggling and pummelling of the teats and frustration - that is them trying to get the milk to come down. So let the bigger stronger pups do that on the back teat. Then the pups go still and you hear satisfied gulping noises. That is the milk coming through. When you hear that happen, that's when you want to put the little pup on the teat.

You can also supplement with formula. Let him get what he can from mum and then top him up...

> You have the right idea by putting him on a back teat

I have to disagree with this - if I had (and mostly I didn't) a smaller puppy, I made sure he was put on a middle teat, the back teats being too big for him/her.   As long as he's gaining, it may not be sensible to supplement him at all,  risking upsetting his immature digestive system.  You might use goats milk, which is close in make up to bitch milk but that's up to you.

No such thing as a teat which is too big. He just won't finish it all(!).

> No such thing as a teat which is too big. He just won't finish it all(!).

I can only ever go by my experience with my breed and the back 4 teats (two on each row) were often too big for our newborns to easily cope with.

I think that would be a pretty dangerous situation, since teats which don't get expressed - especially productive larger teats - are much more likely to get mastitis. I can't think that nature would have devised highly productive mammary glands which are too big for the puppies that would be produced by the same dog.

> No such thing as a teat which is too big. He just won't finish it all(!).

They may not be too big for the puppy (actually they can be) but they definitly have a faster flow which could be very detrimental to a struggleing tiny.

Sorry I thought it obvious that I meant the back 4 teats were sometimes too big for a small puppy to cope with - as we are talking about a runt puppy here?  Of course the others were able to take milk from those teats = no risk of mastitis.