hello everyone!! does anyone feed any extras to their pregnant bitches e.g milk,vitamins,etc I have increased my bitches intake slightly and increased the protein content and she likes to have milk every few days .Also what is the earliest anyone has noticed that their bitch is in whelp,my neo is now 3 weeks since mating and looks like sh e has swallowed a football,(her ribs have expanded).Has anyone else seen changes as early as this?? thanx all... p.s I give her raspberry leaf aswell

Hi Kane,
I don't alter my bitches' food till about 6 weeks, when I increase the protein. At about 7 weeks I give 3 meals a day instead of 2, and maybe later increase that to 4 meals, but without increasing the overall quantity a great deal - just more protein and less carbohydrate.
:)

hi Jeangenie
I do the the same as you increase at 6 weeks

thanks jeangenie,i have only very slightly increased her intake as i have 2 reputable whelping books that say increase after 2 weeks if the bitches appetite increases and then increase further after 5 weeks.At the moment she seems to be ravenous but am being careful as i dont want her to get overweight as she is a very fit dog.She is also very clingy and spends as much time as possible sitting on us whenever possible,i also cant get to the loo sometimes in peace as she follows me and tries to get in!.To be truthful the waiting is killing me,because we dont know for certain that she is pregnant,and my husband wants to make a whelping box,play pen etc Do you have any tips on calming me down!!??? regards

A supplement I do give is raspberry leaf tablets. If the bitch has taken, then they seem to make whelping easier, and if she has missed, the ensuing phantom is over quicker. So it seems to be win-win!

Reading "Dogs and How to breed them" by Hilary harmer, I notice she says there is no need to make any alteration to the bitch's diet during the first month, unless she is not normally being given red meat and raw egg yolk. As you already know, it is very important not to let the bitch become overweight because it's not good for her anyway, it will make whelping more complacted, and she may not even be pregnant, so it's a waste! But the quality of the food must be good.

Being a superstitious person, I try not to make too many puppy arrangement too early on, certainly not until pregnancy has been confirmed, on the grounds that it is "counting chickens" and my plans are more likely to be scuppered! :rolleyes: Silly, I know. A good tip to calm down? Yoga and gin. ;)
:)

I agree with all Jeangenie has said but sometimes I find a bitch is ravenous by 5 - 5 1/2 weeks if they have a big litter and fall on their food like they haven't eaten for a week! If this happens I do start to increase the quantity, but only slightly, as well as the protein ( I change from a 24% protein complete to 30% at 5 weeks - for Westies) and if they appear ravenous would gradually increase the quantity a little so that by 7-8 weeks they are having something like 25% more volume than they normally would have. It may be different with other breeds, but my breed is not that "greedy" by nature and its clear to me that they ARE hungry and not just being greedygobs !! BUT I would only increase the amount food if it was obvious they were having a big litter. If Westie bitch has a definate "pot" at 35 days then its almost always a biggish litter, say more than 4 . It doesn't always work the other way round though. My biggest ever litter (8 puppies) was born to a bitch that I thought was carrying a normal size litter as she didn't look that big - I thought 4 at the most. I couldn't believe it when they just kept coming and by no 7 I was getting really worried. :-) We did lose one sadly but all the others did well and were not undersize/weight at birth even though she had had very little extra volume when pregnant.