Gaining Weight

[anjalahnis]

Feeding 7 pups is taking its toll on 'Candy'.

She currently has 2 meals a day, consisting of chicken mince/veges & the occasional snack of rawhide sticks.

She has just started having, at night, a serving of Animalac plus. (which she thoroughly enjoys)

She is looking quite thin behind her ribs and I feel, as the pups get larger she will need a bit more in her diet to keep up with them. Before the pups she ate only dry food, and was a healthy weight/size.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can give her to help her gain some weight. She is quite fussy.

[Dogsfevr]

2 meals isnt enough for a feeding mum ours get 3-4 meals a day.

Chicken mince whilst appealing has no iron & is really a bland diet the raw hides are a waste of time & offer a feeding mum nothing.

mutton/lamb mince & anything else she will eat is better than nothing,feeding mums often go through the fussy/picky stage & whilst some meals arent on the top of the list for a good diet eating is more important.

[persephone]

..yes, any of ours with pups get 3-4 meals as well.

they get fresh red meat,& bones, a good puppy kibble or working dog kibble, eggs, calcium,snacks of bread & butter(not marg)& vege leftovers.

I increase it slowly as the pups grow, and then decrease from 5 weeks, as the pups are then taking solid food a few times a day themselves.

[anjalahnis]

Showdog/Persephone

Candy has only just started wanting to eat more than 2 meals per day. At the moment, the chicken mince/veges is all she will eat. She will not touch her dry food, although i have begun to mix it with the mince and so far she has not noticed. She does not like egg, bread, or vegies on their own. I have had a devil of a time gettting her to eat. She won't drink milk but she does like the animalac.

What would be the best small bones I could give her, they have to be meaty however as she usually doesn't eat the entire bone. Which red meat would you recommend, is roo meat ok? She was having another mince from the butcher I presumed was a mixture of beef/lamb, but everyone was raving about chicken mince so i thought i would give it a go. Maybe that was not a wise choice.

[Shelby]

I also add some cottage cheese or grated cheese. I have also found giving them a splash of petmilk over their meals helps too.

I also change the bitches over to puppy kibble as it has more protein etc & feed them 3-4 times a day.

Make sure she also has access to plenty of fresh water too to help make milk.

Good luck with your babies.

[anjalahnis]

Shelby,

I have tried parmesan cheese with no luck, will try some grated next time. Water, she has a good supply of from many points, both in the house and out. Petmilk? do you mean longlife shelf stuff?

She won't drink normal milk. Before the pups she was so easy to feed. It is so frustrating.

[Maverick]

Don't worry. Mai's mum didn't eat and would only eat BBQ chicken

With Saffy who is a picky eater at the best of times and is now a porker. We fed her 3-4 times a day. She had weet bix, warm milk, an egg and divatatec in the morning, mince and kibble with beef stock lunch time and weet bix again at dinner. She loved the weet bix so we kept on feeding it.

Now the puppies at 5 weeks get puppy kibble ground up, mince and puppy porridge all mixed up. Smells gross but the kids love it and play in it They are walking fatty boom bahs now..

Mum gets taken away for good this weekend.

[Stitch]

Do you remove the bitch from the pups for ever increasing periods?

That gives mum a bit of a break from them plus a chance to regain some condition and they get to eat more solid food instead of putting that drain on the bitch.

[Shelby]

Yes it is pet milk that you can buy from the supermarket so it is lactose free. She should start to eat a bit more now that the pups are two weeks old? I know my shelties for the first week aren't all that interested in food but as the babies get bigger so does their appetite. She may be feeling a little bit upset in her tummy cleaning seven babies gggg

Even if you try giving her smaller meals but more often. She may not feel like a big bowl full of food. I also just use mince from the supermarket & divide it up into small plastic bags & freeze them. Then just make sure I get one out when I use one so that there is always a fresh lot in the fridge for her next meal.

Try not to baby her too much - it is amazing how they can play on being pampered & have you do nearly everything for them. I normally have to finger feed mine for a few days but then I say OK feed yourself now.

[anjalahnis]

Okay, now 'Candy' has gone and made a complete liar out of me. As the afternoon wore on she decided that food is now her best friend. She even started to 'taste' her dry food again. She seems to be back to her old self as far as food goes

Shelby: I am so glad to hear you say you fingerfed your dog, My husband thought I was insane for doing that in the beginning, but it was the ONLY way I could get her to eat.

STITCH: As for leaving the pups, she does that every chance she can get. She is actually tying to spend a lot more time outside again,(she was an outside dog until the pups) so we are getting her outdoors kennel set up nice and warm and clean for her and babies to move into in the next week or so. Pup's eyes are starting to open, and they are starting to move around alot more. Also the weather has warmed up considerably out this way(we actually had an evening of about 15 last night) so days in the sunshine and fresh air are now on the cards.

I was concerned with the amount of milk she had, but each time I look at the pups now, they are fat and content. I think each time i checked her she had just finished feeding them.

God what am I going to like with my human 'grandbabies' when they start to arrive Luckily I have a few more years to go yet.

Thanks guys.

[Maverick]

hehe I was covered in JRT puppies last night. We thought they might like a romp in a different room last night. Oh dear, puppies everywhere. My cockers ran at the first sight of them and then I had puppies crawling all over me and giving me puppy kisses

[MelodysMum]

So where are the up to date photos Grandmas? Five week old JRTs and 2 week old cockers and no photos in sight!! We want to see puppy pics!!

[Guest talbra]

Parmesan might be a bit too " Cheesy" for a dog!!

There is a great pick me up product called Nutrigel you can get from your local supplies shop. A little dab on her toungue should help to get her back on her appetite.

Sardines and any tinned fish are excellent not too much milk as they wont digest the lactose easliy. Pedigree make a Puppy Porridge that is good too.

Good luck with your family!

[anjalahnis]

Wendyh,

We are just waiting for all of them to completely open their eyes, then I will try and get some single shots. BTW, is there any way of actually putting separate shots in the one post. So far I have only figured out how to post pics one at a time. Doing it that way with 7 babies is going to take up a lot of posts.

Talbra,

It seems I do not need to try the cheese after all, Candy got her appetite back full swing. She is starting to look pretty good again and seems quite happy to eat almost anything put in front of her now.

Annie

[Maverick]

Ok, I have been lazy.. Will get some pics on the weekend. I have no excuse as I own a digital camera...

On the topic of fussy eating cockers. My girl Mai went fussy last night! :D Partner fed dogs pet mince last night. She turned her nose up and only ate the dry food.. Oh my god, I nearly had a heart attack. As she was sifting through, hoover boy Maverick polished up the rest without even a growl from her. Go figure ?

This is from a proclaimed food addict

[persephone]

may I ask a question?

It seems quite a few bitches are fussy eaters or small eaters after whelping.

This worries me....

I was always taught that the first sign of not eating ravenously is cause for a check-up...pain/infection/stress/retained afterbirth/pup etc.

OR...are we pampering our girls too much?

OR...????? :D

If Our bitches are having pups...they will often eat during labour as well!I have never seen them refuse a meal after whelping< & they will happily scoff anything offered thereafter, thank you very much :D

Maybe ours are different in that most are still working till just before they whelp..on a couple of meals a day, but still very active...would this keep their metabolism high or something similar?

Sorry for the side track..it got me cogitating!! :D

:pant:

[anjalahnis]

OR...are we pampering our girls too much?

Persephone:

I know we were definately pampering our girl, & we have learnt our lesson. She started gettting fussy when we brought her indoors to have her pups.

Before she was pregnant she was happily an outside dog, with her 'mate', eating mostly dry food with the occasional leftovers. She very rarely came inside, and as a result sapped it for all it was worth..

Now however, she is beginning to miss being back outside all the time with her 'mate' so the move is on for outside living. Now that the weather has warmed up here, her & pups will soon be moving into their enclosure with the heatlamp for night time.

[cockers n cairns]

I think we are all guilty of pampering new mums.!! there has been many a nite when we have had toasted sandwiches for tea, while I was roasting a chook for welping bitch!

Some bitches do go off their tucker for a bit, The product Nutrigel is a great pick me up, but if you cant get it..good old VEGIMITE works wonders! Make it up like a broth..about a teaspoon of it to a cup of water and put over their dinner. Its a great source of all the vits and mins, and most dogs love it..

Probably still puts a rose in every cheek on dogs as well as kids!!

Julia

[macdolly]

I think I must fuss over mine way too much - Once they are four weeks in whelp, I change their dry food from Energy to Puppy and once they hit six weeks, they get two meals per day, and the last week three meals per day.

We have a bitch with three day old puppies at present, and I am feeding her five times a day - she loves chicken necks, and will eat ten to twelve in a sitting with dry food, and today I made her scrambled eggs, with half a carton and she scoffed the lot and I cooked up the other half dozen for her straight away.

I do hand feed them when they wont eat, and I will buy whatever takes their fancy - I always find BBQ Chickens, Kabana, KFC Chicken Nuggets (I know I know but they love them), and Vegemite toast soldiers tempt the fussiest Cocker Spaniel eaters :D

Whoever said Nutrigel was great is spot on - my guys line up to lick it from the tube as a treat whenever any of the bitches have puppies, they all have to have a taste

[goldenpup]

O suppose everyone fusses over them because we all want what is best for them :p

I think, you should feed her whatever she wants while she has puppies , if she wants cheese give it to her.....OR if she wants BBQ chicken let her have it!!