Quote:
Originally Posted by julver30  My 7 pound yorkie had 6 pups a week and a half ago. She had a litter last year and I had her at the emergency vet for hypo calcimia. I tube feed the puppies last time for two weeks and then she was able to continue nursing with no problems. When I decided to breed her again my vet told me if I did certain things this time she would probably be ok. Well she isn't.....I had her at the emergency vet again. Her calcium level instead of being 7.9 was 2.9, I left her overnight and she seems fine now.
My problem now is that my normal vet says that after this treatment that she should be fine and be able to continue nursing. The emergency vet told me not to even have them in the same house together because he doesn't mom's milk to let down. I DON"T KNOW WHAT TO DO????
I don't want to hand feed 6 puppies....I work full time but I don't want to lose my dog either. Anybody ever dealt with this issue and have any advise??
She is on calcium pills and puppy food.
Thanks,
Julie |
I don't think there's an easy answer for you. You know what your choices are. If you left the Mom alone with the babies, you could lose her while you're gone. On the other hand, feeding 6 babies around the clock is hard to imagine....it would be an enormous task.
To add to it, the babies will only eat more until they're weaned, which will drain your girl even more.The only middle ground I can see is to take a few days off work and closely monitor the Mom and see how she does feeding them. If she seems to be doing well, maybe someone could check on her throughout the day and feed her. I wouldn't just leave her alone all day in any case after what's happened.
I've never had a girl with low calcium but did have a litter of 6 this past February from a 5 1/2 pound Mom. She did fine with them but I watched her like a hawk and fed her A LOT. She was eating 5 full meals a day once the pups really started draining her.
She was a picky eater at first, like many are, but I got her to eat by feeding her boiled chicken, canned food, kibble, goat's milk and boiled beef liver. She also got 1/2 of a calcium tab twice a day. The tabs were for a 20 pound dog.
I made sure she got liver every day and I think that was the key in her maintaining her strength. I also kept the juice from it and poured it over her food. She did amazingly well and one thing I noticed was that she kept a good coat through it all. So often a dam will lose a lot of coat at that time. The only thing I can attribute it to was the liver. I had used it before but not on a daily basis and it really made a difference.
Hope this may be useful to you and best of luck.