Raising 12 Day Old Puppies - Page 5

Check nipple for mastitis iv heard if sore enough mother can kill pups and sometimes eat them. ifs she is scared the same can happen

I did think of that, yogi, and they seemed fine. Though with 3 puppies now feeding on the milk meant for 5, that's still a concern, if her breast get too engorged.

Sun, a lot of females need their common environment for whelping. A friend of mine tried to whelp a litter in her own home in the basement instead of the kennel her female was used to first and foremost ( and this female was used to her home, too ). This female ate 3 of the pups, she was restless for days. When my friend removed female and litter into the used surrounding everything was fine. Never ever any problems.
This little Corgi female is sitting in a crate, she is alone, she is helpless, and she surely feels uncomfortable. No good surrounding to raise puppies.

For all the others: Sun is NOT the breeder, she tried to help. While running a commercial dog kennel you can´t screen every customer according to your own ethical rules, might sound harsh, but you have to make money.

Sun,where do you go when the kennel is sold?

Ss just make sure any scratches are kept clean one of the biggest cause that I know of is urine when she goese out to go the toilet because teeths hang lower very common way to collect bacteria keep the whole place clean and she should b fine. I do know this is not the way u would want this to go and feel sorry that you are in the suitation your in .and I wish you all the best in your next adventure

Sun,where do you go when the kennel is sold?

I'm trying to start up a leather working business, specializing in handmade leashes and collars, but with cheap imports coming in from China and other foreign countries, I've already realized that's not going to provide anything other than pocket change.

I thought they'd be carrying me out of this place feet first, so I hadn't really made other plans for the future. I let my nursing license lapse when I bought the kennel, so I can't even do health care aid work anymore, and getting my license back would require at least 2 years of hard study, with a lot of the courses costing around $3,000 each. So, not a realistic option. I've already accumulated enough debt trying to keep this aging money-pit going! The previous owners let it run down quite badly before they sold it. I didn't realize HOW badly until I actually was living in it.

Anyway, enough of the pity party. Temperature is finally above freezing today, so got to go excavate semi-frozen poop and clean the runs! Oh, and the laundry tub drain finally thawed out, so there's a mountain of laundry to catch up on. Yep, this has been quite the week!

Susie, leaving her in the kennel was actually our first choice. However, the temps dipped to -20 C this week, and it just wasn't warm enough. Every time we tried to put in an extra heater or heat lamp, a breaker would blow. The whole kennel is heated with electric heaters, and at this time of year, the electrical system is stretched to its max. The breaker panel in the basement and I have become very, very good friends...

 

Sunsilver feeling for you =( good luck, sorry I can't help out...

Sunsilver - I just clicked your post for the first time and finished reading all the responses to your post. I don't know if this is why the female ate the two pups or not, but I will tell you what happened to my husband and me a few years back.

We have concrete kennels outside that house our English Setter bird hunting/field trial dogs. We had a female English Setter who had around nine pups. I saw her eating a pup, and to be honest it made me physically sick and horrified. She ate at least two more pups (at different times) before we figured out what was happening. The pups had died and we think she was trying to remove them from her whelping box. I know this sounds awful but is a normal occurrence In the wild.

If a pup dies in the wild the wolf/fox/coyote will eat her dead pup. The reason for this is if she doesn't eat the pup it will decay. Wild or domesticated animals will smell the dead pup, and it will draw them to the den. This puts the entire litter in jeopardy. We learned to watch carefully and remove any dead pups from the whelping box. Of course, if a pup was weak we tried to save it. Sometimes things upset the mother, and she may roll or lay on her pups thus smothering/killing them unintentionally. Also, sometime pups are stillborn, etc. 

All I am trying to do is justify why the mother may have eaten her pups. 

Set her up in a small bathroom in close proximity to where you spend most of your time when in the house.

leave the door open, and put a baby gate across the opening. You can keep a better eye on her and listen to her, and the pups, and peek in on her from time to time to reassure her.

Ditch the crate, set up layers of newspaper, especially on one end of the floor, then in a corner a nice old blanket/fleece pad, ideally a small heated pad/kane dog mat, lectro kennel mat, or in a pinch I suppose a drug store heat pad on low.

Over a week, pups usually don't need an overhead heat lamp anymore.

Make a nice comfy "nest" for mama, water bowl within easy reach, play soft music if it helps her feel like she isn't alone.

Let her out by herself, maybe only 5-10 mins at a time, several times a a day.

 

Yes, bitches will eat pups and leave no trace.  They are animals, they do freaky things..  I'd tell the owner this will probably happen again, so that female isn't a great candidate for breeding...

 

Pick up some cleaning supplies to make your life easier, if she messes the floor, replace the paper, use some lysol wipes and baby wipes for touch ups, bundle all the waste in a trash can and dump it daily. Old towels, unless she eats things, old blankets, good will or other thrift store..  old sheets...  all stuff you don't care if it gets ruined.

 

Your house dogs can be kept away from her in bedrooms, or crates elsewhere so she can't see them. 

Worm the mother and pups now, use nemex or equivalent.

Offer the babies mush/goat milk/canned chicken when they will take it, I have weaned an orphan at 3 weeks.

Make sure the momma has extra calcium available to her. Cottage cheese and yogurt is great, tums in a pinch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've always believed - and I know there are other people in
dogs who think this way too - that sometimes bitches eat
one or more pups because they 'know' there is something
wrong with them, before the humans spot this, and they will
not thrive. So maybe nothing you could have done about
these two pups anyways. As has also been said, a change
in circumstances or being too hot / not warm enough, some
real disturbance by other, particularly unknown, dogs - all
things which might have the same effect. Or it might be a
genetic trait that the bitch unfortunately carries. The only
direct experience I have had of a bitch eating her pups was
one of my mentors girls was 'parked' at another breeders for
whelping because we already had a litter on the ground (so
the friend had more time & space to spare); this bitch ate
some of her litter, my mentor went over and said she found
the kennel far too hot, so she thought that might have been
the reason - but it was also a new place for the bitch to live,
and the other breeder's dogs around rather than those she
was used to at home. So who knows ? I don't think you
really deserve such harsh comments as some have written,
Sunny - having done what you could to make the best of a
less than ideal situation, and on someone else's behalf, not
a breeding of your own.

Hundmutter is correct when he says so who knows? No one knows for sure what happened and why the mother did what she did. Not your fault!