evantwheeler
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Good morning. All 9 are seemingly doing well. I have kept a pretty close eye on them and I became concerned I never saw any turds or signs of them. Still today, I haven't seen any poop from the 3 black ones and the big brown female. Since Friday night, I have tried to stimulate every single one of them to get them to poop twice daily, just to make sure momma isn't missing anyone. She IS doing a good job of trying to stimulate them instinctually, but with 9 pups, I'm thinking its likely she would miss one or two or just not give them enough licks to cause a movement.
So on Saturday I called a contact that a member gave me via PM after my original post. She lives 2 miles from me and breeds Frenchies. She came over and confirmed that while momma was making milk, she wasn't making much. There was no obvious indication that they were hungry as they weren't overly restless or crying constantly. She said they looked healthy. She brought come Karo syrup and gave each pup a mouth full which helps with their energy and also with their bowel movements apparently. She gave me some pills that are supposed to kick start milk generation in the mother and they seem to have helped. She also recommended blending some milk based human foods into the kibble for the mother, so I've been using greek yogurt. Sunday evening and this mornings feedings that I watched were much longer duration and the pups slept longer afterwards, I'm thinking that means they're getting more milk. A few have definitely pooped since, but its not the mess that I thought it would be. Apparently that happens in a couple weeks when it turns into a mud wrestling match.
In hindsight, I think the only regret I have is not buying a scale and tracking their weight from birth. If I had that data, it may have helped make a call quicker about the milk situation, although most of them are definitely bigger than they were at birth. I also had not thought to physically check to see how much milk could be squeezed from a nipple, no any idea how hard to squeeze, in all the reading I did, I never once read about checking the mothers milk production.
The runt can fit entirely in the palm of my hand still. Most of the others are more than twice her size. She is active and feeding just as much as all the others, but dosen't seem to be gaining much in size. I try to always move here to the rear when feeding as i read there is typically more milk available back at those nipples. The breeder did not recommend bottle feeding or even supplementing any of them at this point as that could cause the mom to reject the whole litter.
Here is the runt, little black one.
“ drops down to a pan or a try / liner that can get washed out fairly easy.
