Hi, does anyone have experience of hand rearing a puppy, our litter was born yesterday, and one is smaller than the others and not getting a look in at the milk bar!:rolleyes: I have taken the puppy away from the others and am feeding her every 3 hours with Lactol as advised by my Vet, should she be put back with the others during the day or is it best to keep her with me 24/7 to give her the best chance of survival? any helpful advice appreciated. Thanx.

Keep the puppy with the others as much as possible and make sure it gets onto a rear teat as much as you can. (You won't get a lot of sleep, but that's par for the course with a litter of pups!) It needs the colostrum from the bitch and stands a far greater chance of survival that way than if you try to hand-rear it.

Hi, thanx for replying so soon. i made sure she got a good feed of colustrum when born, but she cant seem to latch on to any teat nomatter how hard i try, but she does take the bottle teat fine and drinks a good few ounces of formula, she get pushed out of the way by all the others in the box so i dont feel it would be beneficial to keep her there until she's a bit bigger and can push her way in, this is the first time i've had this and its a bit worrying to say the least. Di

Can you get some milk from the bitch to put into the bottle? It'd be far better for her than formula.

i can certainly try that, i'm using lactol formula, which is supposed to be as close to mum's as possible isnt it

Mum's milk is closer.

Hi

keep her with mum and if you need to take her out to feed and put back again. Mum will raise her better than you. She will be able to see to her toilet and keep her warm with the other pups. As she gets stronger she will be able to drink and not be pushed out. As long as mum wants her let her have her. If you are sure she isnt feeding by all means feed her but let mum do the rest.

Wendy

To be honest in my experience Lactol is pretty worthless -the fact that it is sold as being suitable for puppies AND kittens says it all when bitch's milk and queen's milk isn't the same.

keep feeding her she will get stronger but try her with mum before you give her bottle .I have a strong heathy 9 month old who started out the same way.

I would, let a stronger pup suck on the back teats first,
for a minute, then put the weaker pup on when the milk is flowing,
keep an eye on its weight. only feed supplements if you think the pup,
is not gaining weight, otherwise let mum feed her

Donna :-).

I'm in agreement with all the other posts our smallest born 3 days ago was really struggling to latch on and feed and started loosing weight - so I expressed some colostrum and fed that to her then put her straight back in with mum and on a back teat - over the last couple of days I have given her a couple of top up feeds to keep her strength up and now she has learnt to feed properly of mum and is slowly (compared to the others!) gaining weight so we are happy with her progress - so I'd say start her off on the teat so she can get some of mum's milk and then give a top up after.  We give whelpy don't know if this helps at all??

Have you tried giving the pup a drop of vet&pet nutritional drops to get the sucking re flex stronger, i had one like yours gave the pup a drop of vet & pet drops and never looked back. Good luck.

Best change of survival is the puppy feeding off the mother. Take the others out and put her with the mother first to get a good feed then put the others back. Keep doing this till she is strong enough herself. Put her on the bottom  teats also all the time. As you know this is why it is so important to be with the litter for the first 2 weeks all the time so you can keep sneaking in and puttng one on..moving the greedy ones out the way for a little while.

I hand reared from 2 weeks so not quite the same (in fact not the same at all) and used Whelpi, I found it fantastic, but after some advice once Whelpi was all used up,  I then stopped giving them man made milk formula and fed goats milk with egg yolks, I know a lot of people used to rear pups on this and I had a big healthy, chunky, litter of 9.

I agree with everyone else though, keep her with mum she has the chance to feed normally and should be given that chance it is the best she can get, if she will suck from a bottle, she should suckle from a teat.

Unfortunately, mine would not feed from a bottle after being with mum and I had to syringe feed, at the end of the day as long as you can get milk from wherever into her that is all that counts. If the mum can feed her though, keep trying your hardest to get her on teat.

I had that to with a pup, I just got up every 2 hrs and put it on mom at the back nipple and held the lil one there till done nursing, I too waited till milk started to flow. Worked like a charm, mind you I didn't get much sleep for the first 2 weeks but it was well worth it. Have wiped bottome and bottle fed a litter for 48hrs till moms milk dropped and that was a very hectic time, would never wish that on anyone :(

Hope ur lil ones makes it, no sign of cleft pallet at all since you said the pup had trouble latching onto the mom? Sorry if I misread that wrong.

I would agree with the rest that mums milk is best but if you have a pup that is otherwise healthy but doesn't seem to be able to stick on the teat I would bottle feed until I could see that it was latching on properly.  Weigh your pup to  check if it is gaining and if it is persevere with mothers milk, if not you will have to bottle feed - unless there is a severe medical problem and you would only be rescuing a pup to loose it later.

I didn't think one of mine would survive as he just didn't get the hang of feeding from his mum, just wriggled all the time and fell off.  I fed him every couple of hours and kept trying to get him to latch on.  At two weeks he seemed to have a break through and started to latch on.  I made sure he got fed first and then put the others back with mum as he was still very easy to knock of the teat.  He has grown into a super puppy with fantastic temprement.  It is worth the effort.

I read in a 'top breeders' book (dont think name giving is allowed) that ewes milk is a good substitute for bitches milk?

hi all, thanks for all the advice, she cant latch onto mum, i've tried all ways, taking the others out, etc, she's doing well on formula and stays with mum and littermates most of the time, and is very strong really, half the size of the others but doing ok. i'll keep on and hopefully like someone said here earlier it will suddenly click and she'll be away. all help appreciated, i'll certainly try the goats milk and egg yolks too. i'll keep you posted. di

I sucesfully hand reared 8 pups very hard work  there all lovely and bouncy well worth the work .
I used liquid lifeaid and carnaton milk  as a supliment as adviced to us by someone who specialises  in handrearing pups , she told us to throw our other puppy milk supliments out . and she was right at the end of it all of our babies were lovely and healthy :d

Hi all, thanx for continued advice, sadly one of the girls died during the night, and the smallest one if still holding on, just will not / can not latch on to mum at all, even with the other puppies otu of the way! I'm doing my best to keep her going with formula and putting her back with mum as much as possible but I'm unsure if she'll make it which is devastating as she was doing so well.

hi goldie, im so sorry to hear you lost one of your puppies :(
i had exactly the same thing with my girls litter last year she had 6 pups 1 of the boys was very tiny and couldnt latch on to mum at all he ended up hypergycemic (spelling?) and we nearly lost hime a couple of time i mixed up a batch of glucose and fed him this to keep his strength up and i had to hold him onto mums teats myself aswell as topping him up with formula, he was so tiny compared to rest of litter we were sure we would lose him.. we were devastated a week later when we lost what seemed to be a perfectly healthy pup, the pup that was struggling went from strength to strength even after being told by the vet he had no chance of survival, he is now 8 months old, is extremely happy and healthy and is actually the biggest of all the pups,
i wish you all the best of luck with the little one and the rest of the pups :D
KwackerZ9

I have been weighing my pups every day, most put on an average of 2oz a day, however the smallest one born seems to only put about 1/2 oz on a day, the rest are racing ahead most now over 20oz but she is still a tiny 14oz, she seems to suckle alot although not as strong and for as long as the rest, but wriggles about as though perfectly healthy, just tiny.  She hasn't had a day where she has lost or stayed the same weight though. Advice please?

as long as shes gaining and feeding then id personly be happy with that , funny enough my smallest pup is a medium size now and one of my bigger pups is tiny tiny there almost a yr old now . When it comes to weaning they just eat and eat and eat I think thats where the smaller ones catch up . someone may have some different advice for you though .
goldengirl I was told/read somewhere   that if you have a sick pup dont feed it a milk supliment  only liquids as sick pups find it hard to digest milk , Use liquid lifeaid or Lectade, I supose thats untill it gets strong or you see the vet . just wanted to mention that as you said you dont think she will make it mabe someone else knows more about that  . I really hope she does  make it

Hi all, so sad to tell you that the tiny girl lost her fight for life also this afternoon, i'm so upset as i though she was doing well.

Sorry to hear you have lost your hand reared pup,I will keep everything crossed for the rest of the litter.

:( aww thats such a shame its horrible when something like that happens , goodluck with your other tiny bundles :)

I'm really sorry to hear that you have lost another one - just hope that the rest of them continue to grow nice and strong

Best wishes
Suzi

Hi again, just to say all the remaining babies are thriving and growing well, so fingers crossed all will continue that way. thanks for your help and support.