Hi everyone
I have some 11 day old pups and im worried about one of them -
there are six in the litter and they all weigh around 1kg but one boy only weighs 600g and looks considerabley smaller. he was slightly smaller at birth but not much.
I am having problems with mum she is losing her coat (see post in health) she has ad lib dry food (beta active) and im feeding her a 1lb of chicken mince or beef mince on top of that every day she is plenty fat enough! but she doesnt seem to have much milk ive been trying to supliment the little pup over the last two days but he wont take the bottle ive just been out and bought a glass bottle with a softer teat and im going to try him again tommorow.
All the pups seem satisfied (not crying) and they are all very ,very active and if he was from a large litter I would understand but a litter of six is certainly not large for the breed.
:)

When I first started breeding cats (15 years ago) I had a litter with what seemed like a very small kitten (but very lively), on contacting my mentor I found that this was the only normal sized kitten!! Her advice was to supplement the largest of the litter and to let the little one take from the mother at the 'best' teat (supervised). Although this sounded mad at the time I did it and it worked really well. The bigger kitten was better able to take from the bottle and the little one was able to get all he needed without getting pushed out by the biggest kitten. The larger kitten did seem to grow faster than the others but as an adult was no bigger than the smallest kitten!

If the dam is on dried food she may not be drinking enough, you may need to add water/stock to her dried food to encourage her to take more liquids.

Hope this helps some
Regards
Dill.

hi kao kate....they are like calves in that if the don't imprint on a bottle early they might not ever take it....you can tube feed them or supplement with nutrical.....

I agree to tube feed instead of bottle as with bottle feeding more risk of milk going down the wrong way and pneumonia setting in. Tube feeding takes a fraction of the time and food is straight in the tummy. Ask your vet to show you how for the first time. Once you get your confidence it is easy, and effective.

It might be worth trying the small pup on one of the more productive teats towards the back legs and if possible let him have an uninterupted suckle without his litter mates.
If you can hang in there for a few more days the pups will be ready to be weaned them off mum.
We have a litter of 5, 13 day olds and have two one dog and one bitch who are much heavier than their counterparts, these two jokers do the teat test, they get to mum first then work their way up the teats till they find one with an acceptable flow and stop there.
Al

Try syringing some natural yoghurt into his mouth,I have found this can give them a little kick start.