Breny,
This might help you to understand what it does for contractions: Calcium, either calsorb, vanilla ice-cream, or tums.
Vanilla Ice cream is awesome between puppies, as it gives them hydration, glucose for energy, and a calcium boost, will help the parathyroid gland to release a hormone from her bones, to help with muscles and pushing.

Calsorb works the fastest IMO.

My last litter, I used vanilla ice cream between contractions. She ended up pushing longer than I felt comfortable with and we were off to the emergency vet. After a couple oxi shots she delivered the boy.......many hours later they ended up doing a section for the girl.

Then I had told one of the people (tech???) I had tried helping with vanilla ice cream and was replied with a kinda snotty "oh well no wonder she had diareiha, YOU gave her ice cream" Like I was an idiot :rolleyes: (I wont go back)

So I'm hoping to try calsorb if needed when I have another litter.

Yep too much ice cream can cause diarrhea thats why calsorb works better too,lol! don't ya hate snotty tech's I know I do.

I sure do !!!!! :D

Well I have plenty of time to shop for it , so I'll put it on my list. Thanks!!!

I used it with my last litter ( I have used it before also) first pup took a long time to get out and then contractions were not very productive at all.
We Had a pup in the canal way to long and could not get him out tried about everything .Called my vet not around (and he is always around but had a family emergency in the cities)! So I called a breeder poor girl got her out of bed bless her heart,but we discussed the situation and gave her a shot of oxy and out he popped.If she would not of answerd I would of called the next vet but then it was a hour drive to them.
Labor stopped completely after that pup and we had one left , waited for a long time and then another shot of oxy and 10 min later out came the last.So after that situation I do not know what works better.
I do not like using oxy either so no more than .25.
What do you girls use dosage wise with calsorb in those conditions.
Maybe I had not given her enough.
I know some who use it at the beginning of labor also.
I only give oxy shot after I have spoken with my vet.He is very good about suppplying me before a whelping with what I may need.

I use it, I'd hate to be without it during whelping and it's great if there are any signs of eclampsia after birth. It's a very fast way to get calcium. I have calsorb and oxytocin. It's the next best thing to oxy and much safer (for someone without experience using it).

I've always used the oxy. We kept it on hand when we had livestock. So it was just 2nd nature to use it with my yorkies. I have done some research on the Calsorb and I've talked to my vet about it and she said the oxy will be just fine. However, I'm still not completely convinced. I'm thinking that I will get some to have on hand as I think there are situations that it can be very useful.

We use Calsorb with every litter combined with Nutri-drops...If your females calcium levels are too low Oxytocin will not do it's job...When our girls start hard labor, pushing, we always give both Calsorb and Nutri-drops..We will repeat this between pups but we do check heart rates before giving it...Too much calcium and you can send their heart racing too fast...

We also give Calsorb daily to mom until weaning to prevent Eclampsia which I have seen three times...So far we have not had a problem with it again...(knocking on wood)...Calsorb tastes terrible is very bitter and yes we have had mom's throw up or foam at the mouth from the taste of it...I don't like giving it but we feel it is in their best interest...Just wish they would find a way to make it taste better!

~Laura

Still, no one has said HOW MUCH to give at a time. The one I ordered is already in a syringe so how much of the syringe do you give at a time? Thanks

Recommended dosages 1- 3 ccs
I start with 1.5 cc with the Yorkies
My Cavalier (she is 12-13 lb) we started with 3cc

Deana
Prestigeous yorkies

i haven't received my order yet but it looked like it was in a marked syringe. so, you only give it when contractions slow down and if it works to start them up again, you don't give it anymore. only when they seem to have stopped labor.?

This is a great thread!!! I wish I knew about it before my last 3 litters!!!!

The one I get is a 7 dose syringe. I usually start with 1.5 to 2 cc's depending on the weight of my female and go from there if I feel more is needed.

here is an interesting part of a siminar on canine reproduction.
i copied and paste just part of it here and found it to be very interesting....


Question: Oxytocin (Pit shots).

Can you discuss the proper use of oxytocin injections during whelping? It seems that many breeders use oxytocin early on in the whelping process, when they feel it isn't progressing fast enough.

DrHutch: A puppy in the uterus has only two elements maintaining its oxygenation and life, one being the heartrate of the puppy, two being the blood pressure from mom to the uterus.

The whole goal in whelping is to maintain vital elements. Oxytocin I use in a very specific manner. If you've gone three hours without a puppy, I use one dose of oxytocin. My dose of oxytocin is two units per ten pounds of body weight. Oxytocin is normally 20 units per ml; I never use more than half an ml, no matter how big the bitch is.

I give one injection; if nothing happens, I give a second injection 20 minutes later. If nothing happens, I go to a C-section.

If you get too much oxytocin at a time, you will cause the puppies not to be expelled from the uterus but shrunk wrapped IN the uterus. The two injections of oxytocin actually increase the blood pressure to uterus which is beneficial to the puppies. If we keep giving them, we LOWER the blood pressure to the uterus, which robs the puppies of oxygen.

Using calcium with the oxytocin... now that we can monitor calcium levels in our practice I do not normally give calcium if the bitch is normal, because it causes the heart to slow down. If I need to give calcium I now use Calsorb, an oral gel that is absorbed almost as quickly as injectable. I can give it in small amounts more often, and don't have to worry about the side effects of injected calcium.

To clarify, my standard protocol (with oxytocin) is two injections; if two don't do it, two, four, ten, twenty, is not going to do it. In most cases I keep score by how many live puppies I deliver, not how many C-sections I avoid. I wait three hours from the last puppy.

My signs of dystocia are:

Temp just before labor readjusts back up to normal;

If I have no puppy born in four hours.

That is my definition of primary uterine inertia.

Straining hard for an hour... that is when you would NOT give oxytocin. Longer than three hours between puppies, that's when you DO give oxytocin.

Any black, red, or green discharge before any puppies are delivered indicates placental detachment and needs attention.

Ultrasounds, fetal monitoring devices, are critical to determine fetal well being. The ability to monitor the fetal heart rate is essential with WhelpWise or having an ultrasound.

I have worked and consulted with breeders using WhelpWise; it's ESPECIALLY

I just used the Calsorb on my girl this morning. I will have to say she delivered the puppies faster than she normally does. They were 15-20 minutes apart. She had three. Her last litter she had 3 but it took 7 hours. So I don't know if it was the Calsorb or not.
I will say, she got sick three times and with her last litter, she never got sick.
I will definately try it again and always have it on hand.