The American Beagler Forum

My female just had 12 pups. Am afraid she doesn't have enough teats for them all. Anyone have experience with supplemental feeding pups. Should I just let nature take its course? They will be a week old tomorrow. Don't wont to say too loudly, but they're looking pretty good. She needed no help from me.

My female had 13 pups last year and raised 10 [3 of them didn't last more than 48 hours ].
Ten was a basket full but she was an excellent mom and did well with them.
Mostly the pups will fend for themselves but if I saw one or two smaller ones getting pushed out by bigger more aggressive pups I would just pull the big pups off the teat and put the little ones on to make sure they were getting fed.Don't worry about those big ones,they get plenty and that's why they're big.
When you have a litter of that size be sure you give mamma ALL she wants to eat of a good quality chow. The demands on her when nursing that many are huge and you don't want her getting all sucked down and poor.
With that many pups I'd start them on mush food as early as you can get them to try it [2-3 weeks ] and help mamma out.

Thank you!

Hope your puppies are doing well, how many made it?
Big and little pups are born and part of their size is genetic and another part is the placement of the embryo on the uterus wall. If the embryo attaches to a place that has rich blood flow, it will nourish and grow better than one that has a poor placement with less nourishment. So over time after birth, the pups size can even out overall. The milk production runs off demand, if the pups keep drawing on the bitch, she will regulate the milk to their needs. Some mothers are tremendous producers of milk, while others drain quickly. The mothering instinct helps to keep a mother with her pups keeping them fed, but a large litter and a poor milker is a deadly combination.
I had a bitch I bred late in her cycle and only one time. She whelped 3 puppies, 2 male. The next heat cycle, I bred her 3 times over the 6th thru 12th day, she whelped 8 puppies, 3 male. I summarized, as the eggs came down from the ovaries to the uterus on the large litter, the male was there to fertilize the eggs. The small litter, that was a late breeding, some of the eggs had already been flushed out before the male was introduced, so there was no conception for the egg, so it passed through.
Out of curiosity, how many times and in what time frame did you breed your female? Maybe some less frequent and timing adjustment could lessen the number of puppies, if this large litter is to much on her and you...
Best wishes..

The best thing to do is let her take care of them. Very hard to keep them alive trying to bottle feed. I would feed a very high quality dog food to her as well as add a 1/2 cup of milk replacer to her food once a day. There is an all animal type available at most any farm feed store in 10 pound bags. Once they are 3 weeks old start introducing them to it. It will help her make milk I have had very good luck with it. Best of luck, be sure to keep them warm with the low temperatures coming thru.
Hunt-Em-Up

I agree with Mike, Feed her well and often, quality food, plenty of water. some may not make it. Good luck

Well the pups will be 6 days old tomorrow and are doing good, all 12. Momma is doing a good job, needed no help from me. She was bred 4 times in the last week of her cycle. Two artificial insemination and two times natural. The IA because he was having a hard time breeding her. The sire is 9 yo. To insure she was bred, the vet told me to let him try every other day till she went out. Worked. I've got the female on puppy chow and vitamins.

Thanks again for all the input.

They all look like nice healthy puppies.

2 weeks old tomorrow. Eyes are starting to open and are growing like weeds. No help needed from me.

3 weeks old today. Started feeding them cottage cheese and puppy chow just to give mom a little help.

Pups were 5 weeks old yesterday and have been eating puppy chow for a couple of weeks. There are a couple of smaller ones but there are no runts. They are all fat little boogers.