Here's a nice topic! We have two new 2 day old puppies, mum is stimulating the poo but not cleaning it up much. I'm wiping it away before it cakes hard and smearing a bit of honey on to encourage her to help out. But when my wiping stimulates a new one, I'm noticing it's sort of a very runny paste, and sort of brownish green when I'm wiping it up. When it's dried it's like grey cement! Just to check this is normal - the vet saw them yesterday and said all was well, but of course he didn't stimulate poo to check what that looked like!

Meconium is produced in the stools for the first day or three.  Same with newborn humans babies, they too have green poo.  It should be the consistency of toothpaste.  So all sounds well.

I'd say it was a bit softer than toothpaste, but of course they are on a liquid diet! Thanks for reassuring me. They seemed to have finally worked out how to find teats too, they were very thick at first (typical boys lol!)

The BOTB is fantastic, but so far I need it to have mentioned that the 'cord' doesn't look remotely like a cord, more like a slimy membrane and almost with 2 sections, and that green poo is normal!! I suppose I can't blame it that my girl hadn't read the book and translated '24-48 hours panting and digging' into '1 hour with 4 contractions, 1 whimper, then a puppy slides out!'

Hihi you're right Lucy

My latest bitch didn't read this either.  The 24-48 hours panting bit was right, well nearly, ( she panted for an hour and then stopped until 24 hours later and then did the same thing again for another hour) but the digging and contractions all came together and the whimpers didn't even appear.  She was like one contraction, one push and first puppy born.  Couldn't really belive it as they normally take a good bit more time with the first one.  Second and third were the same - also the fourth - and with the fifth she had to push twice !!!!!   And this was the first time for her.  The very strange thing is that if you accidently stand on her paw she screams the place down as if you were killing her.  Giving birth for her was like nothing.

For this simple reason of very little signs, I found her giving birth to the first two pups on my bed.  Lovely mess !!!!! 

Sometimes its also a bit of a yellow/mustardy colour too Lucy.  As everyone else has said its a bit like toothpaste thickness.  To encourage the mum try using some natural yoghurt instead of the honey as if the honey dries it can close the anus completely resulting in the fact that they cannot poo whatsoever.  After a few days with the yoghurt you'll notice that she will start to clean automatically without any need for help. 

Yes, she was within about 30 seconds of having the first one on the lounge carpet, but luckily she dribbled a bit with one contraction so I put her in the whelping box, then there was a gush of bloody discharge and a puppy slid out!!

She seems to be cleaning them more today, most of the time anyway! :-D