This is Ruby's second litter and she is a lot more relaxed with them.
What that means is she is happier to leave them for a few minutes many more times during the day than with her first litter.
She went very skinny with her first litter and thankfully this time we managed to bulk her up a bit more before she whelped by feeding her lots of fresh meant and eggs etc and varying food when she might otherwise have eaten less.
The puppies are all looking very healthy and strong having put on quite a lot of weight in the first few days.
There is a constant worry one will get injured in the whelping box by being squashed somewhere but that eases as they get stronger. The pig bars round the whelping box help a lot.
Ruby is currently drinking a lot of goats milk and eating chicken, ham, eggs and puppy food but she is a bit fussy still and the demand for milk will increase steadily over the next 2-4 weeks.
Ruby has access to the rest of the house all day and the garden several hours a day but she still prefers to spend most of her time with the puppies.
We don't remove dew claws as our puppies are destined for pet homes and we don't see the need as it appears very few dogs indeed have problems with dew claws and in any case owners can elect to have them removed later at spaying/neutering if they wish.
The puppies eyes and ears will start to open around 2 weeks of age so at the moment they are blind and deaf. |