Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 1:07 am Post subject: Observations on having a first litter
These are my observations on having a first litter.
Mating
Went well. 2 visits to the stud dog. Good ties - no aparent distress for either party. Found it fairly straightforward to predict the right time after reading extensively on the subject and observing my bitch and comparing that to previous seasons.
Early Pregnancy
Again pretty straightforward. After reading about the various stages of pregnancy my bitch seemd to follow them/show signs at the predicted times. Kept her active throughout. Very marked increas in appetite 2-3 weeks before whelping.
Late pregnancy
Bitch continued to exhibit all the signs and behaviours I had read about. She remained fairly active. Grew very large in the latter stages but was apparently happy.
whelping
Went into labour outside a B&Q. Started shaking about 15.00hrs. Digging around 5pm and sick around 2am. 3am first puppy arrived. bitches first litter. She nearly gave birth to it on top of an electrical extension socket. I opened the sack and cut the cord/tied it. She accepted the pup and it began suckling readily.
Another 9 puppies arrived between 4am and 9.30 am. By 3rd pup the bitch was readily removing the sack and chewing the cord. i was a bit worried she was chewing it a bit close to the stomach and intervened to help break sacks and cut cords etc when I could get to the newborns before her. All pupies apparently healthy - no cleft palates etc.
found the "mess" easy to deal with. bitch drank a lot of the fludi and I removed about half of the placentas - again she was woolfing them down quite quickly. Was giving birth mainly on her side or slightly raised, and predominantly in her whelping box.
Was a long night but at no point did I feel she was having difficulties.
Day 1
moved mother and pups from whelping box to a small inflatable swimming pool, with bed in it. Seemed a good option with flexible sides, containment to stop pups falling out. bitch was panting a lot but othrwise seemed very pleased with herself. Had one puppy that was quite small, but she was nursing fine. Gave her a little Lactol. Had intervened to try and make sure each puppy got collostrum. Worried about temperature and drafts but probably didnt need to turn heating on etc. First ythought it was too cold then too hot etc.
Day2. All pups seemd to be doing well. keeping an eye on them all with the "nest" in same room as me all the time. Very worried about pups getting crushed etc. Bitch seemd very careful but every now and then one of he pups would appear to get stuck somewhere or other or work its way away from the milk bar and squeel a lot etc. Unfortunately found one pup dead early in the morning. He was flat on his back apparently sleeping contentedly with a few of the others. Dont know if hed been crushed earlier or had just had a congenital defect that had taken 12-24hrs to "tell". Dont think hed been crushed- no visible signs of a defect etc - although he was still very warm when I found him, he didnt responfd to resusitation. Thern worried about others even more.
Day 3. All puppies suckling and quite noisy now. bitch had to be coached extensively to go outside briefly on th toilet run and showed lots of seperation anxiety. Gave the bitch and a puppies a liver soup/liver juice - 1 drop for each of the puppies and about 500grams of liver for the bitch. same as day before with trying to keep an eye on the them all to ensure none got crushed or suffocated. roted pups occasionally. basically they all worked their way to nipples somehow and process a bit scary with them pushing right under the bitch and pushing each other out of the way etc.
Rest of week 1 - all went well. Same routine but felt able to leave bitch and puppies alone for longer periods of time. Bitch had stopped panting.
Week 2 same as weeks 1 really. pups still blind and deaf but all gaiing weight. I was weighing them every day - again taking some away in a warm box for a while to let smaller ones suckle more readily without competition from bigger ones. Variation of 1/3 body weight between larger pups and smaller ones. One that died was about 3rd lightest at birth.
Week 3 pups eyes opening and ears a few days later. Few finding their way out of the swimming pool. bitch cleaning up afteer them faitrly well, but had to clean out the pool once a day and disinfect it. End of week 3 offered pups some soaked kibble - all ate it immediately an readily. Earlier in the week had been offering them a pet food suppliment I found on the net made of corn syrup and designed to give a callorie boost.
Weeks 4 Moved pups to a much bigger swimming pool with a toilet station. Pups moving around a lot more now. Added a childs tent. found bedding was difficuly to keep clean now. motyher cleaning up after them. Most were going outside tent to the toilet area but after a few hours the whole pen would be messy with exception of the bed. Eating regularly.
Week 5 - new owners/prospective owners started to visit. Pups all doing well and readily accepting contact. Some intrest in toys and each other for play. Started to ween them off mothers milk. All proved a lot easier than i had expcted however.... bitch was only suckling them intermitently and showing quite a lot of signs of discomfort - basically yelping and getting out of the pool after short period of time. Think the pups were biting and scratching her a lot. bitches milkbar was often vry swollen, was worried about possibility of it being masitis, did a bit of hand milking myself (brest pump would have been handy but I didnty have one at the time), pressed her with hot wet towels and this seemed to reduce the discomfort for her a lot. In morning she appeared a lot happiere and less swollen. Never been any puss or especially hard parts of her breasts so hadnt thought it was a definite case of mastitis. More hot towels that day and problem seemed to sort itself out afteer that.
Weeks 6 milk off the menu for the pups and bitch spending a lot less time with the pups. Had expected a stage where she let them suckle whilst she stood for them but this didnt happen. Milk dried up quite quickly and I didnt have to keeop tyhe bitch away from the pups - she avoided them herself/refused to let them suckle. All pups gained weight and doing well - more playing. really big issue now was th amount of wee and poo being produced by the 9. Early this week had dfone away wit hthe pool as it was jut impractical. Couple would poo out of the potty station and in no time whole pool would be swimming in wet paper poo and wee. This was a bit 10ft by 4ft inflatable pool.
week 7- pups now have free run of a whole room. 50% using the potty station- Rest just evacuating wherever the whim took them ! Talking maybe 4-6 poos and wee a day each = a lot of work to clean up. cleaning pups regularly fairly time consuming becasue they were playing in their own wee and poo/ fighting each other themn trapsing it all round the rest of the room. end of the week owners came and 3 pups went off to new homes. All very healthy happy and well socialised with plenty of human contact from my family and kids, TV on for them through much of the day, individual handling etc. Had had a swim in the bath. doing really well on burns food, raw chicken an other raw meat. Real hard work to keep tjhe pups contained in one area as they had a habit of bunching up by thwe door and making a run for it when door was opened. Made a bit of a mess of my hall and living room one day after a mass breakout.
Weeks 8-10 rest of the pups off to their new homes. maybe 8-10 time wasters - basically people coming to see the pups and deciding all manner of things - I want a golden Retriever really - um well these are labradors and I cant wave a wand and make them intio golden Retrievers, kids coming in and screaming and parents deciding that a puppy wasnt for them, people trying to get me to give a puppy for a mobil phone or negotiate price, others I guess in stage of deciding if they wanted a puppy and coming to see them then deciding against it. All adds up to quite a lot of woork really- have to make the place respectable for each visit, clean/bath the pups, as if you are not wit hte pups all the time it is impossible to keep the area they are in clean and tidy. pups verty active, playing, fighting, weeing pooing. I found one poo literally 3 foot up the wall - quite a feat I thought.
Seeing pups off was fine - happy they had all gone to good homes - but had turned down several people over several weeks that I didnt think were suitable. Variation of mostly experienced dog owners and novices. All familys. high demand for males and with only 2 in the litter and me keping one I could have sold males 3-4 times over easily.
Only advertising i did was on internet sites= both genrasl advretising sites and specialist dog sites. some specialist sites generated a very poor/almost no response despite having to pay for them. Free ones were better. Couple of ads in paper. My nmain issue here was after week 1 all pups were apparently sold. Pups were too younfg to be visited and I stopped advertising. when it came to them being visitable several people dropped out and then I started advertising again - same happened a week or so later. Leson here is if going to use that route - need to be taking deposits immediately from peoplee who you are happy to sell to - they drop out at that stage or are reluctant - keep talking to others that are suitable.
KC registration process was straightforward and efficient didnt vacinte any of the pups after reading about the various pros and cons of having them vacinated from 3-12 weeks.
found it interesting that most people were not that interested in the dogs pedigree -although i was quite extensive in pointing it out. I found I had to sttle people who bought down to talk about the bitch and the sire, reasons for mating them, explaining health certificates etc.
had bought a large crate by week 8 - should have got one earlier to contain the pups more effectively for cleaning up/bathing them and at night. really were pretty happy spending night and a few hours in the crate most of the time and it made my life a lot easier.
Wit ha big litter it is relatively challenging to give each puppy a lot of individual time and effect training. within seconds literally of entering their room a lot would wee excitedly and after meals a lot would poo - sometimes in right place always some not, followed by lots of play in the wee and poo. I must have gone through 20 litres of bleach. Ive seen off 2 mops, lots of newspaper, had to buy a carpet cleaner and I have an old settee to jet wash ! very little damage to my room - most pups chewing toys and each other rather than the sette/skirting boards.
occasionally one would get into a kitchen cupboard when back was turned and shred anything in there. most of them had some curry cook in sauce one day after getting into a cupbiard while i was putting their food out ! didnt seem to do them any harm.
I went through 60kg of puppy food from week 3-10 quite a bit of chicken and other meat. Bitch was eating a lot last weks of pregnancy and ofc she produces a lot of poo herself while nursing.
Conclussion
All in all it has been a wionderful experience and I am happy that I helped produce a strong healthy litter as far as i can tell. all my pups went to nice homes on the face of it. A puppy contract of sale helped me a lot. There is a lot of work involved and you will go through a lot more cleaning materials, be washing bedding a lot more than you might imagine. Your litter will grow very rapidly from week 3 onwards into a mob by week 7 ! Think poo wee and more poo and wee cleaning it up, feeding, bathing pups, washing bedding, clipping nails, cleaning up for visitors, sorting out adverts, telphone calls and registrations and after all that you have time to enjoy the puppies and do a bit of basic training.
Would I do it again - absolutely would i do things differently - absolutely. 4 sets of bedding - 1 in use - 1 in reserve - 2 being cleaned at any one time. use crate/small contained area earlier, more aggressive advertising and deposit taking throughout weeks 1-7 - no settee in the room, fewer toys in room at any one time(they get covered in poo as well) (!) seriously consider an outside kennel (in good weather).
Hope thats useful additional detail for any novice breeders out there for what was all in all a vety straightforward breeding with no serious incidents that reqired vet intervention and an excellent bitch doing here job perfectly.
I know nothing about breeding so would have no idea if how you did it was good or bad but it sounds like it went really well
From what i can gather on here it is often far from plain sailing and is very complex - certainly not to be jumped ino lightheartedly. Sounds like a great job for a first timer, probably due to all your homework in advance.
I am sorry to hear that one of the pups died, but 9 healthy pups is great.
Do you have any photos? Whats mums name?
Thanks for a lovely read, the image of pups in a paddling pool with a tent really made me smile
I am surprised by how many time wasters you experienced and by how many would-be-owners were not asking all the health questions etc. Its lucky for them that you had all the health checks and paperwork done and could educate them.
Basil was one of a litter of 10 too. I remember visitng our breeder, unlike you she had not particularly cleaned up (well she had the pups but not herself). She was covered in milk, dried up food and dog drool down her front. She said her husband had asked her to change and she had replied ' anyone getting a pup needs to know its not clean and fluffy all the time. If a bit of pee and poo puts them off they made the wrong decision in the 1st place'
She also had 4 big labs to greet at the gate - she said if people were scared of the grown up version then they sohuldnt get the pup. She was a lovely lady, i liked her atittude
Hi Sally what an interesting read thanks for posting
So glad you had a great first litter hopefully though new first time breeders will not think this happens all the time as unfortunately it doesn't and so much can and does go wrong.
would be nice to hear more about your bitch and new pup
What a great read Sally thanks for that. I knew nothing about breeding thats why Jess was spayed and pup no2 who comes soon will be neutered as well.
Hope you join us xx
Only this week I have heard of a bitch which had to have an emergency C-Section to deliver one very large pup...unfortunately she haemoraged and died on the operating table . Her distraught owners are now having to hand rear 8 puppies, knowing full well that they could easily lose all the pups too.
This breeding lark isn't for me I'm afraid.....the stakes are too high.
I am sooo grateful that everything went relatively smoothly with Poppy. I have had no problems at all - except for the horrific mess 9 puppies create! I should take some pictures and that would put anyone off!!!
Things that get me:
The hard bits of skin that have appeared on my knees from kneeling down so much
The unbelievable smell first thing in the morning. You don't need an alarm - your nose catches fire at about 6 am.
The loss of my washing machine to countless loads of vet bed - I don't have any clean clothes!!
The lack of time I now have - mostly due to constant round of cleaning, feeding, etc.
The amount of visitors to my house - it's quadrupled at least - we are the latest tourist attraction!
Forget hand cream - I'll just buy new hands when it's all over...
But when I come down in the morning and they all run over to see me, smiling, skidding in all that poo and wee, it's worth it!!
what a good read and very detailed. It came across how much hard work is involved in raising a large litter and it is something I am quite happy to leave to those more experienced than myself! If you have pictures it would be great to see them to go along with your fantastic post?
If you are raising your litter in the house - you cant use a hosepipe to clean up after them. After week 4 a hosepipe is a very attractive proposition and would make the job of cleaning up a lot lot quicker and more effective.
Puppies climb allover visitors. Hard to avoid their first experience being that of having their legs ripped to shreds by the litter. Also funny how some are reluctant to hold the pups, or hold them for a short period of time before letting them down - when when you are trying to get some kind of order. you hav to contain them somewhere out of the area you are showing them in. if your visitors are late, your pups are often very fired up by the tim they are let loose. You cant solvee the problem by letting them loose in one room and have them come into the show room - becasue they will probably have been weeing and pooing and playing in that - just when you thought they were all nice and clean So you have to sort of crereate a routine before visitors arrive so they are just clean and have only just been cooped up in one room/area ready to com into the clean/showing room.
As soon as buyers see the puppies they pretty much ignore anything you are saying to them. Best process I worked out was to have mum meet them at the door, quick talk about mum, questions to them and then let pups in. Contain a few of the pups/any pups that are not available a few minutes after the vistors have seen all the pups and the mum - so you have fewer pups running around. Keep a mop handy in a corner !
As mentioned above, it really doesnt matter what you do - unles there are some secrets out there - your house will smell pretty bad. Hard if not impossible to irradicate the smell in the short term - you get used to it, but yiou know it is there and potentially off putting to vistors.
Pups are quite viscious to each other. Not unusual for you to find one being dragged along by its ear screaming - all works itself out but it can be a bit disconcerting. Girls in my litter ganged up on one of the boys and took lumps out of his willy (poor thing !) Mum will often loll the pups heads in her mouth.
Touching to see the bitch let the puppies have food before she will eat herself. You notice quite a lot of behaviour which is common with humans and their children.
No socialism in the litter it is literally dog eat dog !
I found it quite hard to identify personalities/personality traits. Puppies pretty much all look the same, or you get a few types and cant easily tell pups of the same type apart. Was by no means obvious which dogs were dominant in my litter. one minute you think you know the next minute you are back to square one.
Puppies learn fast. I am not sure if I could have trained them not to jump up as much but by weeks 6-7 I could get them to sit and wait for food from me albeit a bit sketchy.
I couldnt blieve how high they can jump. Pups were jumping as though they were on a trampolene at times
They sleep a lot.
Pups all benefit and calm down a lot when handled individually - so like children - you need to make a habit of handling them all individually.
Wasnt as sad to s them go as I though I woukld be, but it doesnt matter how much effort you put into trying to vet potential owners, I get the feeling i will always wonder how all these little lives are doing - dont underestimate how much that feeling can affect you.
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after a mass breakout.
. Her distraught owners are now having to hand rear 8 puppies, knowing full well that they could easily lose all the pups too. 
So you have to sort of crereate a routine before visitors arrive so they are just clean and have only just been cooped up in one room/area ready to com into the clean/showing room.
