I have a 6 day old litter and a small puppy who is now showing signs of dehydration and failure to feed sufficiently. What I would like to know is how much milk do i give her, she is 420g im expressing mothers milk and syringe feeding. Its a now or never kind of thing and i dont want her to get worse. Her siblings are all healthy and putting on weight really strong and shes just not got the strength, even after me sitting there keeping the bullies away, waking her to feed and feeding on her own. she has passed stools but not in the past 24 hours at least, mother is very good(but due to dehydration not expecting her to have been able to go) even though i have been stimulating her. Been giving cooled boiled water and going to get some lectade, how often should i give the cool boiled water? and should i give her anything else? nutridrops, puppystim etc. Thanks in Advance

I don't know what advice to offer - but someone will be along soon who will, but I just wanted to say good luck and I really hope she picks up soon.

Has she been checked out by the vet that she hasn't got any physical problems, cardiac,bowel/gut problems?

Has she got the strength to suckle from a bottle or would tube feeding work better and use less energy. I would give Nutro/vet drops[never used puppystim]as it gives loads of energy in a small amount, doesn't fill the pup up and leaves lots of room for milk, using it before putting her onto Mum away from the other pups may just be the boost she needs, any feed should be 2/3 hrly so little and often if she tires easily, only offer water after a feed as it has no nutritional value, same as you don't give plain water IV.

I hope she picks up for you with some TLC

not been to the vets with her no, my local vets i dont have any faith in they dont even have puppystim in stock. im 2 hourly feeds with 10mls breastmilk and 3mls cool boiled water every half an hour.  she will sometimes suckle from mum but i dont think she is getting much, just tried to put her on again and she isnt interested, 2 hourly feed time now as well. Ill get the other half to get some teats down from the loft, what im doing is allowing her to suck on my finger with syringe at the side of finger dropping it in her mouth. She sucks and pads a little doing this but not much. Hoping she will pick up over the next 24hrs

Sorry to hear you're having problems. I've never entirely hand reared a litter, however, after major surgery on mum last year, I did supplement feed pups. By supplement feed, it turned out it was their main feed, feeding 4 bottles a day. They were probably 6 days old when I started. I used a baby bottle (I have a medium sized breed), couldn't get on with a syringe at all. A bog standard baby bottle, or get a Preemie Bottle (for premature babies). It's hard to get them to suckle from it at first but by force (very gentle!) and perserverance, it works. I just let the pups feed until they fell off the bottle, just as they would with mum. You do need to remember to burp them though! I remember my vet saying the pups were getting far too much milk ... I ignored him. They all did very well. A lovely CD lady to thank for our help :-)

I didn't express feed. The pups had received colustrum, I used formula milk. Have you been holding pup so that mum can stimulate her?

I do wish you luck :-)

If she's dehydrated and not feeding, you should be giving subcutaneous fluids.

yes or i stimulate her myself to try and help a poo out with a wipe, no poo yet though. Im a big breastfeeding advocate and i think that if i can express mums milk which she has  plenty of, i would rather do this than formula (almost a bad word boo hiss)

My vet doesn't reccommend giving water as it doesn't help with the dehydration.

You need to be feeding every hour on the hour with either the expressed mothers milk or a milk substitute, plus you'll need to take the puppy to a Vet who can rehydrate by putting fluids directly under the skin

As Chillington says above, definitely give subcutaneous fluid. It must be warmed to the correct body temperature before injection.

If you are able to express I agree that it is entirely preferable to formula...if you think of a term normal sized human baby on day 6 they would be having 40 mls roughly of expressed breastmilk so 10 mls 3 hourly for a 420 gram pup is entirely adequate. I would keep going with offering her the milk bar and topping up with expressed milk and would keep weighing 24 hourly, if she is really on the back foot I agree with the need for sub cut fluids however lack of stools is not necessarily a sign of dehydration especially if she is getting good volumes I would give it another 12 hours or.

Yvonne

Thanks everyone, she has just had a feed from mummy, mum came out of the box for some love so i brought her out when she woke up for a feed alone on the pillow. She did a big wee for mum and is now content and sleeping. Hoping she got some as the juices were flowing. Nose seems less dry and she produced some stool but not solid, very very smelly and a small amount. More a wet trump i suppose. Will do this every 2 hours for her and see how she is tomorrow, will get some puppystim anyway.

The most recent feed sound promising Louise, but I would still have the Lectade or similar on standby.  I would rather rehydrate orally if the pup is jsut verging on needing fluids rather than chance a vet trip for Subcutaneous fluids. For a pup of htis weigth I would be aiming at 15 -20 ml per feed, 2 hourly.

Im a big breastfeeding advocate and i think that if i can express mums milk which she has  plenty of, i would rather do this than formula (almost a bad word boo hiss)

That's fine if the milk is there to be expressed, with my girl it wasn't. No formula would have resulted in extremely poorly pups :-(

Sounds like you've turned a corner with puppy, fingers crossed for you :-)

Of course then in the case of mum having no milk, then formula is a must. She fed ok during the night but is abit reluctant now, she did a poo big one not solid but not really liquidy, inbetween no vets round me stock puppystim, so ive ordered it for next day delivery. Any home made energy boosters?

I hand reared a whole litter of 10 very hungry Lab pups...long story so won't go into why other than saying we changed our vet pretty smartish!!

Puppystim highly recommended as it definitely gives them the energy boost they need, as well as nutridrops. I fed them 2 hourly around the clock for the first week, then 3 hourly. They needed double the amount of feed it said on the tin, but they were greedy of course being labs. We sadly lost 2, one just went with no warning probably a problem heart, the other sadly must have inhaled some milk and despite vet visits for antibiotics and oxygen therapy he passed away being cuddled by me, tears all round!

The remaining 8 did brilliantly and grew to be gorgeous healthy dogs who are gentle, loving and actually quite calm lol. They loved people and I cried buckets when they went to their new families!!

We used human baby bottles with newborn teats, sterilised in a microwave baby bottle steamer, with Welpi as it seemed to suit them straight away. They had had colostrum from mum for the first couple of days. I did change at 3 weeks to the Hyperdrug milk powder as it was a lot cheaper, to mix with their puppy gruel and had no problems.

What you need to do is make certain she is hydrated properly especially if her temperature is on the low side, feeding milk won't help if she is too cold and it can do more harm than good. Use a sterilised syringe (obviously without the needle) and make up some hydration powder with cooled boiled water, warm it to right temperature and very slowly drop some in her mouth. This will allow her body to acquire the correct temperature, which in turn will get her organs going. Too much milk can give them runny poo as well by the way, it's a difficult balancing trick.

I took every pups temperature twice a day, it's a good indicator of something starting to go wrong...i.e. an infection starting so you can catch things early.

And remember, please don't take this the wrong way, if the worst happens then at least you tried your very best, some pups sadly won't make it whatever you do :(

I'm sure she will be fine though, having mums milk will be a definite bonus for her, she's lucky to have you :)

Thanks Hachiko,

Ive resigned myself if she doesnt get better despite my efforts then it wasnt in her cards to do so, and there must be something else going on and.... Its natures way.

Well.. complete rollercoaster of a day yesterday, mum started with a temp and had a firm boob (firm not hard) she was in abit of pain i gathered from her shaking and wouldnt eat her food. I was expressing for most of the day from the bad boob as the puppies wouldnt suckle from this congested teat, it smelt horrid so no wonder really. Must have gotten half a pint of mank from it and hey presto, mum was back to herself before daddy (my OH) came home and greeted him asif there was never anything the matter. Puppy was sometimes feeding by herself but sometimes not which led me to think she wasnt getting enough so i carried on with the syringe feeding. Medicine is here this morning so we shall see how she goes.

They are certainly keeping you on your toes.

Is she getting enough calcium, the shaking and being off her food would worry me that she was heading for eclampsia.

Hope things settle down soon.

mum is back to eating like a horse and were keeping her calcium up with goats milk in her water. If i remember last time i used lectade the vet said 5 drops every half and hour until better, my local vets where i have got the lectade from is large animal practice so only have dosage for pigs. Does this sound right? Puppystim doesnt seem to have made much a difference yet

you can also give glucose syrup to boost energy. I had to hand rear a litter of charlie pups last year and found this really useful, just a blob on the end of your finger on the roof of the pups mouth seems to give them more energy. A tip given to me by 2 old time breeders, I used to give it between feeds 3-4 times a day. Good luck.

Shes gone, she was suffering and we had to do the kindest thing. Ive lost 5 from this llitter RIP my little angels xxxx

So sorry Louise, that's devastating to lose 5  xx

So sorry you've lost her , you really tried your best for her x
It must be awful for you after trying so hard and willing her on .:(

So sorry she didn't make it, RIP little one

Hi Louise,

Sorry for not seeing this earlier.

So sorry to hear you lost the little one and had mastitis problems :( you did such a good job trying to save her and helping your girl, you should be very proud of yourself! Some litters seem to be like that, one problem after another and no reason other than bad luck!
I know someone whose girl popped out 12 pups completely on her own (average litter size 6), they all stayed in a draughty kennel with no real care given to mum or pups other than food and water each day and all thrived! Sometimes it seems the more you care the more bad luck you have!

How are you all now? x

At the start of weaning now and thank god! Mum will be done in the new year, not going through thus again with her, problem after problem. 4 seem to be thriving but one girl seems to have problem with mobility and range of extension in her rear leg. Thought it may be an injury from what I can only think being trod on when the village and his wife knock at my door. Grrr. Given her a week to heal and she is using it more now but the knee joint is still larger. I didn't want to face it really don't want to pts another one so hoping it will get better...... But if not she's going to be a giant breed without the proper use of her rear leg. Not sure what to do.

I think you've done brilliantly with a bad hand.  Well done you for saving any of your pups!!
As for the bitch, would changing the stud not make any difference?  I had a terrible bitch, well, she was a great bitch that I wanted a pup out of but I couldn't get her to keep a litter.  She lost 2 entire litters and needed a section with the last.  I decided to give it one last try with a completely different stud line.  Totally different!  We had a great litter of 5 pups, all health, all survived and bitch whelped naturally.  I repeated the mating(to get my bitch) and again everything went well.  I blame the crossing of the lines for the first 2 litters disaster.

Has the little pup seen a vet about the knee? You could maybe try anti-inflammatories if it's not too serious.  It might be enough to calm the joint and help the pup get normal mobility.