Feeding A Large Litter Of Puppies

[isanbirder]

My toy poodle (mostly, but a bit X) had a litter of two when she was 15 months old. One of the puppies is now beside me healthy and happy 15 months later.

We decided it was time for a second litter. She was getting bigger and bigger, and the last few days has clearly been in some distress, as she kept asking me for help (who says dogs can't talk?). Yesterday afternoon, the birth started; three puppies and I thought it was finished. They were a bit small though. At 7 p.m. there were five. By this morning there were seven (when we had expected two or three). Not an unprecedented litter-size, but definitely BIG.

The poor mother, all six kgs of her, now has to provide milk to nourish seven growing puppies. One or more may die in the normal course, but I feel I owe it to the mother to provide her with as good a diet as I can to give her the maximum chance of rearing them all. Any advice, please? I can find a lot out on the internet, but would like some help in deciding what to give for an extra-large litter.

Then of course there will be the difficulty of finding homes for them all, or at least those which survive. I used to be a big-dog-man, Alsatians for preference, but I admit I fell in love with the mother poodle.... lively, affectionate, loves long walks, and just good to have around the house. A bit yappy, but that's only their way of warning the owner that strangers are about.

[wayned]

If they survived the birthing, there is no reason that you should loose any now. A liter of 7 is not large. The puppies should be kept in a whelping box and kept warm, not hard in Thailand. The box should be such that the mother can get in and out and her food and water kept outside of the box. She should always have water and either keep dry food out all of the time or feed her at least 3 times a day. She will eat about that much more than normal. I would feed her a good quality puppy chow as it has more nutriants in it than normal food.

[isanbirder]

They're all doing fine, wayned. The mother is looking a bit frazzled, and keeps demanding more food (she's getting fed four times a day).

In fact, for a toy poodle, seven is a large litter. Two or three is normal, some bitches have four to six, and a few have seven or eight. Since she had two in her first litter, I expected her to run true to form.

[wayned]

Glad to hear that they are all okay. Feed her as much as she wants. She will look like s*#t until well after the puppies are weanedm but will self adjust her food intake accordingly. I had a toy that only had one litter before she was "fixed". She had 9. I raised Golden retrievers for many years and the smallest litter was 9, the largest 12.

[isanbirder]

Glad to hear that they are all okay. Feed her as much as she wants. She will look like s*#t until well after the puppies are weanedm but will self adjust her food intake accordingly. I had a toy that only had one litter before she was "fixed". She had 9. I raised Golden retrievers for many years and the smallest litter was 9, the largest 12.

They're fine, so's she, now the first milk-bar frenzy is over. She's also got her figure back almost instantly.

I knew many big dogs have large litters; I'd always heard that most small ones had small litters. This is the first time in 40 years of keeping dogs that I've had a breeding female (always lived in towns with limited space before), which is why I asked the original question!