One reason the power outage was bad today, newborn puppies cannot regulate their body temperature very well. Environmental temperature should remain around 78 to 90 F during the first week of the puppy's life and gradually fall to 75 F over the next 3 weeks. Since I knew my heat source would be knocked out for several hours at this crucial time, I spend the morning filling up hot water bottles. We do have a back up generator, but the water bottles did fine.
I take time off from work when I have a litter, even if the mom is experienced and doesn't appear to need my help. This is one of the cases if I had not been at the house the pups could have become chilled. The leading causes of puppy death after a live birth is chilling.
Here you see the whelping pad has been changed, and all the pups have on the litter collars. The black boys are blue and green. The liver boys are blue, green and
red with little x's. The black girls are orange, white, yellow and red. Liver girl is orange.
I weigh the puppies twice a day to make sure they are all gaining. I observe them to see if there are any weak nursers in the bunch. They are all checked for cleft
pallets or anything that would prevent them from nursing effectively. I make sure Seger is stimulating them to urinate and defecate, which she is. When I take Seger
out, I check her over, and make sure she doesn't have any mammary glands that are becoming swollen, hard, red or hot. (signs of mastitis). Other than that, I let
her rest, and I catch up on the laundry!
4/11/2002 6pm pictures
Here you can see the umbilical cord drying up.
Some of the boys in a pile
