One week old already….It is hard to believe the seven days have passed since Echo’s babies arrived. We have had a busy week because raising newborn puppies is a 24/7 job. As you can see from the comparison pic below, our one week old puppies have grown so much!
Picture on the left – Friday – Day 2
Picture of the right – Wednesday – Day 7
Caring for Echo
As with her last litter, Echo suffered loose stools for a couple of days. Although this is a common occurrence after whelping, we need to treat her symptoms before it affects the puppies. So, we gave Echo a diet of boiled chicken, rice, pumpkin, and added a probiotic supplement. By doing so, she recovered quickly and is now doing well on her regular diet.
Vitamins
Looking after the mama both prenatal and postnatal is an important part of producing healthy puppies. During labor we give our mamas Oral Cal Plus which is a Calcium Supplement between each puppy’s birth. This supplement helps support productive labor with 3 calcium sources.
We also give our Postnatal mamas a daily vitamin Oxy Momma to support lactation and recovery.
Mother’s Pudding
Another thing we give our mama’s to help them recover is Mother’s Pudding. The recipe comes from the Puppy Culture program. We follow many Puppy Culture protocols while raising our puppies.
Mother’s pudding helps Echo produce lots of milk because t is high in calcium and calories. It is also something every mama loves to eat!
Ingredients: goats milk, egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla pudding.
Neonatal Period
ENS
The puppies are in the Neonatal Period. This period is from day 0 to approximately day 14. During this period, the puppies spend their time eating and sleeping. On Saturday, day 3, we began ENS (Early Neurological Stimulation). These exercises will be continued daily until day 16.
The ENS exercise causes tiny struggles and stresses in small doses which are a benefit to the puppies. For example some of the benefits include greater tolerance to stress, greater resistance to disease, faster adrenal system, stronger heart rate and stronger heartbeats. This is a gift that a breeder can only give their puppies during the 3 to 16-day window.
After we finished our ENS, Echo was happy to have all her babies safely back in the whelping box with her.
Feeding
Before puppies are born, they receive immunity and everything they need to grow from the placenta. But, after birth, newborn puppies do not possess immunity.
A mother’s first milk called colostrum. This first milk contains a nutritious protein-rich, balanced protective food. Colostrum provides passive immunity. This immunity can last several weeks and protect the puppies from various infections and diseases. For this reason it is vital for the puppies to nurse soon after birth and over the next twelve hours. This will help the puppies build up their passive immunity.
Passive immunity is the short-term immunity which results from the introduction of antibodies from the puppy’s mother. Active immunity on the other hand is an immunity built by producing antibodies from the immune system that responses to the presence of an antigen.
For the first two weeks of their life newborn puppies spend their time eating and sleeping. Did you know, newborn puppies sleep for 90% of their day/night?
Puppies are born with their eyes and ears sealed shut so, they cannot see or hear. Therefore they have to rely on “smell” and “touch” to find their mother. Puppies are born with a natural instinct to nurse but as the days pass, they have become more proficient at it.
Echo is an amazing, attentive mama. She has a large litter of ten and spends most of the day and night in the whelping box feeding, cleaning and caring for her babies.
With a large litter, we have to keep a close eye on the puppies making sure everyone gets their fair share of milk. So, to keep tract of each puppy’s progress, we weigh our puppies daily and keep a record. This charting showed that most of Echo’s puppies are gaining weight as expected.
Unfortunately though, it was apparent that Red collar girl has been slow at gaining weight. Lagging behind the normal progress is cause for concern.
So on Monday I had to intervene. I spent the day making sure when she was nursing, she wasn’t being pushed off by the larger puppies.
The Waiting Basket
Echo can only feed eight puppies at once so, during feeding, I now put two of the larger puppies in a basket to wait their turn. The basked is placed just outside the whelping box where Echo can keep watch.
Supplementing With Puppy Formula
On Monday, Red Girl was weighed throughout the day with encouraging results. They showed that she was making some progress. But, it was short lived because when I weighed her when we woke Tuesday morning she had lost weight overnight. Because of this set back, I decided I needed to intervene again.
The next step would be supplementing her with puppy formula in addition to her nursing from Echo.
The two puppies in this picture shows Green boy who is our largest puppy compared to Red girl who is our smallest puppy.
With the supplementing it has helped her gain weight. But, we still need to continue monitoring her closely, weighing her throughout the day, and supplement her nursing with formula.
Hopefully she will continue to gain weight and soon catch up to where she should be.
Puppy Pics
LOOKING AHEAD TO WEEK TWO
- Much the same as week one – Eat, Sleep, Repeat!
- Puppies will continue growing rapidly
- Puppies still crawl; hind legs will become stronger
- Contunie ENS
- Eyes should begin to open towards the end of the week – so exciting !!!
