Antibiotics for Pregnant Females

[Keystone Kid]

Since the early 80’s I’ve been raising litters of beagles, birddogs, coon dogs and retrievers, but by far most of my experience has been with beagles. I’ve raised many champion breed beagles and I’m an avid rabbit hunter when time allows!

In the last 24 hours it was brought to my attention for the first time by another squirrel dog owner “to give antibiotics” to my pregnant female squirrel dog. He told me to give her injectable antibiotics around 14 days after she was breed. He said this “supposedly” helps prevent uterus infections that can get into the embryo sack and weakens the embryo. This supposedly is why a lot of pups are born weak and die in the first 72 hours. I personally have never heard of this before.

My questions are:
1) Does anyone know this to be factual?
2) If so what “exact type” of antibiotic is to be given and in what dosage?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[cajunmeadows2]

I would like to get a response to this also!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheLittleBlackBook]

There is a phenomenon that can occur in bitches post-whelp called accute metritis, which can and will kill a bitch ... but I have never heard of pre-treating for it with preventative antibiotics. Usually this condition arises because of a retained pup, or a retained placenta, so I am not sure how much help pre-treating with antibiotics will help for dealing with retained matter in the uterus. To be sure the uterus is cleared of any dead pups or retained placentas, "best practice" calls for giving her a very small injection of oxytocin (or to have your vet examine her and do it) the day after whelp, which will cause further contractions that will help purge the uterus and expel any excess matter.

Secondly, there are hundreds of different kinds of antibiotics that can be used, some are effective for uterine infection, some are not (where it's just an infection and dead matter is not retained). So the catch-all word "antibiotics" actually means nothing. A person has to use the right antibiotics for the job, in the right dosage, at the right frequency per-day, and then has to continue to use them for the right duration of time in order to obtain optimal results. Just giving a dog "a shot" of penicillin (for example) is useless, at best.

That being said, giving certain kinds of antibiotics to a bitch while she's pregnant can be a good thing, and I myself do this at times, but I have done so to prevent mastitis of the teats, not accute metritis of the uterus. Certain bitches get bad milk when they become pregnant, which not only can kill the pups but can kill them as well. Therefore, proper administration of drugs such as Clavamox, cephalexin, and trimethoprim-sulfa can prevent mastitis from developing in the bitch---and it won't hurt the developing pups either. However, improper administration of drugs like penicillin won't really do anything, or (worse) using improper drugs like Baytril or tetracycline on a pregnant bitch may actually harm the bones of developing pups.

Therefore, a person really has to learn which antibiotics do what, so that he doesn't do more harm than good when using them.