Hand Rearing Rspca Rescue Staffy

[Debbieness]

hi, i work for a kennels in the northeast and we board RSPCA dogs on behal of sunderland branch RSPCA and we often get RSPCA puppies in. last sunday we had a pedegree staffy bitch come in who had 8 2day old puppies, she had no weight on her and was in no state to take care of the puppies without causing problems for her own health, the puppies are all being hand reared and the one that i have at home and am hand rearing has went from taking a feed of 200ml every 2hours to having 200ml every 4-5hours by only 8 days of age, he is now 10 days old and 200-300ml every 4hours does not seem a lot, i have always hand reared larger breeds of dog in the past and i was wondering if anyone who has had any experience of hand rearing smaller dogs could tell me if they have had this with pups around this age as i am not sure weather this is normal or not. he is a very lively puppy and is putting on weight at a steady rate and has given me no other reason to wory about him as he seems healthy enough other than that. any replys appreciated :-D

Debs

Edited May 29, 2006 by Debbieness

[BrunoBella]

Hi Debbieness

I have no idea but suggest you put this message in the breeding forum where you'll find people with this experience.

Hope you work it out.

[Mjosa]

Hi,

That sounds fine to me the amount that he is taking.

As long as he is gaining weight and sleeping between feeds you are doing the right thing for him.

If he was not getting enough he would be restless and crying.

I do not know what formula you are using, I usually use Divetalac, just follow the instructions on the packaging, because as they get older they require the strength of the milk to be made a little stronger as they get older.

Best of luck with this baby.

[peibe]

I have not hand raised pups so I cannot say, but do you only have 1 pup? Better to have 2 for socialisation and warmth if you can

You are doing a great job

[Kirty]

I hand reared 8 BC cross puppies from 14 days old onwards, and that was about all they would have. I was feeding them every 3-4 hours and they would have 200ml at a time. The smallest one had even less. Good luck with the puppy, but I agree that it would probably be better to have at least one other pup as well.