Want a real life story? The boy went to take out the trash and heard someone squeaking in the container. The child turned out to be brave, reached into the container and took out a newborn puppy. The boy hugged him close and ran home, with tears in his eyes begging his mother to leave the baby. Mom agreed, the find was fed. The result was a wonderful dog that lived in the family for almost 15 years.
What to feed a newborn puppy? What did that woman feed her son's find? And how to care for the baby? Now let's find out in detail.
Making a nest
First of all, the puppy needs to build a nest. A large cardboard box is suitable for this purpose. The bottom is covered with soft cloth. You need to make sure that there are no threads sticking out of the fabric. Puppies have very thin paws, they can get tangled in these threads.
The baby needs heating. The fact is that a newborn cannot adapt to the ambient temperature if it is below 37 degrees. Therefore, the presence of a heating pad in the nest is mandatory. It can be a plastic bottle with hot water or a rubber heating pad. The disadvantages of these methods are that the objects cool down quickly. A good option is an electric heating pad with temperature control and insulation.
What kind of milk should I give to a nursing puppy?
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What kind of milk should I give to a nursing puppy?
This is not a situation - it is a real nightmare for breeders when, for some reason, newborn or nursing puppies do not receive breast milk. Everyone has heard that babies are fed milk from a bottle, but what kind of milk or formula is this? The article is addressed to all dog breeders without exception; it may be useful to the widest circle of our readers.
Yes, the situation is extremely unpleasant. Everyone knows that nothing compares in value to mother's milk. It is, of course, impossible to find an equivalent replacement for him. But one cannot say that the situation is completely hopeless! Just remember a few basic rules - they will come in handy.
First, do not use normalized pasteurized cow's milk from your local grocery store or supermarket. It is absolutely not suitable, especially if we are talking about products with a reduced fat content. After drinking this milk, babies will immediately begin to experience tummy pain and severe diarrhea. Ideally, you need to run around pet stores and try to find special milk formulas for newborn puppies. They are produced by major manufacturers in two forms: powder and single-serving bags. But what to do when, as luck would have it, special milk is not available for sale?
There are alternatives: try to get village farm milk, the same one with fatty foam on top.
The second rule is to always give milk lukewarm, slightly warmed up. Puppies still have poorly developed thermoregulation, so at a minimum, their food should be a little warmer than the ambient temperature.
There is another way out - goat milk. Puppies perceive it even better than farm cows. By the way, it is goat’s milk that forms the basis of factory milk, which we mentioned above.
Now we are in the 21st century, and special milk or mixtures, if they are not on sale in nearby stores, can be found and ordered on the Internet. But it will take some time to deliver them, and the puppies are asking to eat now. What to do in this case, what to prepare from the ingredients that are at hand?
Take about 300 ml of goat's milk (in extreme cases, the same amount of full-fat cow's milk), add one raw egg yolk to it. Add 1 cup of country milk (unflavored, non-fat) natural yogurt to the mixture. Add half a tablespoon of corn syrup. If you can’t find it, then just dilute sugar with boiled water in a tablespoon. Stir the resulting formula well, pour into a bottle and serve warm. Do not use mixers or blenders, or a whisk - the resulting bubbles will cause chaos in your baby's intestines. Our milk can be stored for a week in the refrigerator without losing its beneficial properties.
Another recipe. Take the same amount of goat milk, add two raw chicken yolks and dissolve a packet of gelatin (unflavored) in the resulting mixture, which is usually used to make jelly or aspic. Gelatin will help strengthen your baby's bones and teeth. Don't worry if your manipulations result in a jelly-like mixture. Warm it up a little before using and it will become liquid again. Also store the product itself in the refrigerator.
If you have the slightest doubt or threat to the health and life of the puppies, immediately seek qualified help from a veterinarian. In no case can our article replace consultation with a specialist. Be healthy!
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Cleaning the baby's intestines
Before answering the question of what to feed a newborn puppy, let's look at caring for it. We figured out the nest and heating. Now we will talk about massaging the puppy’s tummy. This is necessary for the regular emptying of his intestines. The bitch licks her babies, helping them recover. What should a person do to help a puppy?
- A soft cloth is moistened in warm water.
- Massage the puppy's belly with circular movements after each feeding.
- The skin from the anus to the root of the tail is carefully wiped several times with the same cloth.
Why so many difficulties? This massage helps empty the intestines of its contents. The anus and root of the tail are wiped to remove any remaining feces.
Nurse
The ideal option is a female with puppies of the same age as the orphan. But it will take a lot of time to find her. Until a wet nurse is found, you will have to feed the baby yourself. If you are lucky enough to find a lactating bitch quickly, what to do next? How to place a puppy next to her?
- You need to take a small piece of cloth from the bitch’s nest and wipe the puppy with it. Only after this can you try to place him with the adoptive mother.
- If the bitch growls at the baby, then it and its two siblings are taken from the nest. After a while, the babies will get hungry and start squeaking. Now they should be returned to the mother along with the “adopted child”.
- If no manipulations help, and the bitch refuses to accept the orphan, you will have to look for another wet nurse.
The advantages of this method are that the puppy will receive all the necessary conditions for life next to its adoptive mother. The disadvantages are the time spent searching for a wet nurse and her possible refusal to accept the puppy. This method is more theoretical than practical.
Self-feeding
What can you feed newborn puppies? Bitch milk substitute mixture. This can be bought at pet stores. Several manufacturers produce formulas for puppies; Beaphar and Royal Canin are considered the best. What to feed your baby before buying a milk replacer? There are lifesaver recipes for this case. But keep in mind that they cannot be used constantly. The basis of homemade formulas is cow's milk. It is less fatty and nutritious than dog food.
What to feed: special mixtures
Many people believe that mother’s milk can be replaced with cow’s milk. This is wrong. The fact is that dog milk contains much less sugar than cow milk. But at the same time, bitch milk contains more proteins and fats that are beneficial for puppies.
How to feed a newborn puppy without a mother? It is best to purchase special mixtures - substitutes for bitch's milk. They are sold in pet stores and veterinary pharmacies.
Each mixture has instructions for use on the packaging.
What to do if there is no mixture?
How to feed a newborn puppy if you don’t have formula on hand? Alternative methods should be used:
- Boiled water, cooled to room temperature + glucose;
- Boiled cow's milk, 250 grams, cooled to room temperature, mixed with 1 drop of lemon juice and 1 chicken egg yolk.
- Boiled cow's milk, 250 grams, cooled to room temperature, mix with milk powder.
What should you use to feed puppies?
Can be used:
- A bottle with a nipple;
- Pipette;
- syringe.
In order for puppies to suck from the pipette, a thin rubber hose should be attached to it (for example, the one used to drain gas from newborn babies). The same tube should be used when syringe feeding.
As for special feeding bottles, they are usually included with formulas. The puppy will not immediately take the pacifier into its mouth and begin to suck. To do this, you first need to squeeze a few drops of the mixture onto the nipple and give them to the puppy to try. After this, he will be more willing to take the pacifier into his mouth. If even after this trick the puppy does not take the pacifier in his mouth, drop some milk (mixture) on his tongue. This usually helps the baby understand that the pacifier is food.
Important points
To prevent an older puppy from pushing away a bottle, pipette or syringe with his front paws, they need to be swaddled carefully.
You need to feed the puppy on your lap. In this case, the baby should lie tummy down, and his head should be slightly raised.
If the puppy eats the mixture greedily, you should let him breathe, removing the pacifier for a minute.
Recipes
Is it possible to feed newborn puppies milk? As mentioned above, cow's milk is not the best alternative to milk. The fat content of dog milk is above 9%. Cow's milk barely reaches 4% fat content.
But when there is no choice, you can feed your babies homemade formula, but only for a very short time. So, recipe No. 1: beat two chicken eggs with 0.5 liters of whole cow's milk, give the mixture warm.
Recipe No. 2: one chicken egg is combined with 100 g of milk. Add a drop of vitamin A and D. The mixture is heated in a steam bath before giving it to the puppy.
Artificial feeding of newborn puppies
The question of how to feed newborn puppies may arise in a situation where the mother cannot feed them on her own due to poor health or absent maternal instinct. Then the owner takes full care of the puppies if he wants them to develop properly and grow up healthy. What to do and where to start for an unprepared person who has difficulty understanding how to approach the squeaking blind lumps?
Entrust the choice of formula for feeding newborn puppies to a veterinarian, since cow's milk is not a worthy substitute for the natural colostrum that a dog has during lactation. The fact is that cow's milk has an excessive amount of protein and calories for the delicate body of puppies, so if you still decide to use it, then dilute the milk with a chicken egg in the proportion of 1 egg-2/3 cup of milk. Your veterinarian can also advise you on several home recipes for preparing formula for puppies, but many owners prefer to turn to artificial analogues, which are easy to use and do not require much effort or time to prepare. The most optimal for feeding puppies is Gosby powdered milk formula.
The diet of newborn puppies depends on the calorie content and intensity of their feedings. The richer and more concentrated the single feeding, the longer the interval between them. Underfeeding can lead to underweight and poor development of puppies, and overfeeding can lead to diarrhea and severe consequences of the digestive tract. However, in some cases it will be wise to take a closer look at the individual characteristics of each puppy. If you are trying to feed all puppies according to your veterinarian's recommendations or the information on the bottle of formula. Some of the “kids” may remain hungry, despite strict adherence to the instructions on your part. Therefore, try increasing the total daily feeding rate by a quarter. If you see that the puppy is choking and cannot eat the required amount, do not force feed him, slow down, perhaps he really needs less food.
If the puppy refuses to eat at all, we recommend that you immediately take him to the veterinarian; the puppy probably has serious health problems that threaten death, but perhaps he can still be saved.
You should not prepare a large amount of the mixture if it cannot be used up in 48 hours. If it happens that you have overdone it, get rid of it, pour it into the toilet, but under no circumstances feed it to the puppies, since the environment that has developed in the milk mixture during this time can harm the fragile organism of the “kids”. Be caring, attentive and sensitive, then your puppies will grow up healthy and healthy.
What to feed from?
We found out what to feed a newborn puppy. Now let's talk about what babies are fed with. First of all, these are special bottles for puppies. They are sold in pet stores, often complete with a mixture. The number of bottles equals the number of puppies.
If it is not possible to buy bottles, then you can build a “mechanism” for feeding yourself. To do this you will need a two-liter plastic bottle and nipples. Rubber nipples are sold in “human” pharmacies. You need to make holes in them so that warm milk flows freely into the puppy’s mouth when sucking. Holes are cut out in the bottle, equal in diameter to the nipples. The nipples are secured in them. The structure is then filled with warm milk mixture.
How to feed?
How many times should newborn puppies be fed and how to do it? In the first week, babies are fed every 2 hours around the clock. From the second week, the feeding break is 2.5 hours. From the third week of life, you can take night feeding breaks.
After two weeks, it’s time to start feeding your baby. The emphasis is on liquid cottage cheese diluted in milk. A little later, from about three weeks of age, porridge is added to the cottage cheese. Of course, they must also be liquid.
If the owner decides to feed the puppy dry food in the future, then it is introduced to it from the age of 17 days. The food is soaked in warm water until it becomes porridge and offered to the puppy. The first portion should fit on the tip of the owner's finger.
What to do if your pet refuses complementary foods? Usually the baby’s lips are lubricated with new food, trying to get a small amount of it into the mouth. After this, the puppies show interest in food and begin to actively try to eat.
Puppy feeding position
How much to feed a newborn puppy is already clear - every 2 hours in the first week of life. What feeding position should the baby have? We know that when the bitch feeds the puppies, they actively work with their front paws, as if massaging the mother's nipple. Such a massage is the development of motor skills, which in the future is fundamental in satisfying the food instinct. In dogs with impaired motor skills, this very instinct is also impaired. How to avoid this?
The puppy is placed in front of the improvised feeder on his tummy so that his head is slightly raised. This is why a plastic bottle with nipples works so well for feeding. The baby can imitate the massage of the “mother’s nipple”.
If milk bubbles appear from the puppy’s nose, it means that he is swallowing a large amount of air along with the milk. In this case, the puppy is taken away from the nipple, the milk is wiped from the nose and the puppy is fed independently from a syringe without a needle or from a pipette. It is necessary to strictly ensure that the baby does not take in air along with food.
It also happens that the puppy does not have enough milk, then the portion needs to be increased. We just take into account that the baby does not have a brake light. He can eat until he bursts. The degree of satiety can be determined by the tummy. If it is too bloated, the puppy has definitely overeaten. After eating, as mentioned above, the baby needs to have a massage of the genitals and abdomen in order to defecate his intestines.
In what position should puppies be fed?
A puppy is a child who needs to be looked after. If you give him formula in the wrong position, he may choke or choke. It is best to place the puppy on your lap with its belly down and its head slightly raised. Give him food in this position because this is how he naturally eats. This way you reduce the risk of the mixture entering your respiratory system.
If suddenly bubbles of mixture come out of the puppy's nose, it means that the hole in the nipple was too large. In this case, you need to lift the puppy upside down, let him catch his breath, change the nipple to another (with a smaller hole) and continue feeding.
Sometimes the puppy himself begins to suck greedily and quickly in order to quickly satisfy his hunger. In this case, you need to take short breaks so that the baby has time to catch his breath. A well-fed puppy usually turns away from the pacifier on its own.
After eating, hold the puppy upright for a while so that all the air from the stomach comes out with a burp. Otherwise, the dog may start vomiting what it eats. After eating, repeat the abdominal massage, the dog may have a bowel movement. Lubricate your dog's anus and belly with oil.
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