Help gaining weight

[nizz]

Hello. We have 2 puppies who’s mom isn’t developing milk so they must be bottle fed. We have puppy milk replacer and they’re 3 days old now. One is losing weight and one is only maintaining it.

The vet said to try to get them to feed more, which we’d already been doing without any success on weight gain.

A breeder we happened to meet said a little bit of cow’s milk can help them gain weight.

I haven’t given them any yet because online says it could cause dehydration if they start vomiting and getting diarrhea from lactose intolerance.

I just wanted to ask this subreddit what they think I should do, since we don’t actually know if the information given to us by the stranger who said they were a breeder is reliable and have no other helpful options to go on.

Should I put a little cows milk in their formula? Should I give them something else? Should I force feed them with a syringe? I’m trying my absolute best for these babies and I don’t want anything to happen to them due to misinformation or my own doing of not gathering enough information.

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz Can you get your vet to show you how to tube feed? There are videos but sometimes it helps to have a hands on demonstration. There is a formula that many breeders use as it is higher in calories than commercial formulas. Do not use cow's milk. I have best luck with tube feeding, there is a sponge method as well that there are videos on/ Recipe is below:

Myra Savant-Harris Puppy Formula

One can of evaporate goats milk, undiluted (Walmart carries it)

One cup of full fat yogurt (the fattiest and freshest you can find) (I use Goat's Milk Kefir from Trader Joe's)

Two raw egg yolks (do not worry about the raw eggs)

1/3 cup of freshly made, strong liver broth made from boiling a piece of liver in one cup of water and then reducing the water to 1/3. You can substitute fresh beef broth if you just cannot tolerate the smell of liver, but the liver is much better. Do not eliminate the broth.

1 Tablespoon of Virgin Olive Oil (you can use mayonnaise if you like but remember it is acid based) Use 2 tablespoons to make this formula for kitties.

1 teaspoon of karo or corn syrup.

1 dropper full of baby/puppy vitamin that doesn’t contain iron.

Place it all in a blender, blend and then pour it into ice cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, store the ice cubes in a plastic bag and just get how many of them out that you need for a feeding and thaw and warm to about 100 degrees. It is good in the freezer for a full year. If you are going to use this for bottle-feeding or Adele’s sponge feeding technique, you may need to thin it with a little bit of pedialyte.

The advantage of this formula is it has been formulated to contain 3-4 times the calorie content of breast milk. Mother’s milk has 3-4 calories per cc. This formula has 10-12 calories per cc. The reason for using the evaporated milk without diluting is to get extra calories, same with the full fat yogurt and the olive oil. It is all about calories. Your puppy will gain weight on this formula beginning about 48 hours after beginning to feed the formula. Feed the puppy one cc (one ml is identical to a cc) of formula for every ounce of body weight every 3-4 hours, or when crying from hunger. Self-regulated bottle feeders may eat more at every feeding and want to eat less often. This is fine too.

Commercial formulas try to match the caloric intake of breast milk, but we are unable to match the time that a puppy spends nursing from its mother unless we are tubing about 18 hours a day. Therefore, the best way to insure that the hand reared puppy gains weight as it would with mom is to increase the caloric intake. That has been the goal of the formula from the beginning. The liver water adds in important amino acids that your puppy needs for growth and health of the eyes.

This formula will stabilize blood sugar nicely and works little miracles for the GI system. Most breeders see soft formed stool with no diarrhea after a few feedings. You can use it on all ages of puppies from immediately after birth to old age

 

[dukedesu]

@cosimnot Highly recommend Myra’s formula. Mine weren’t gaining weight on just replacer but the formula worked well.

 

[nizz]

@cosimnot Genuinely, thank you so much for all of this information!! The vet only told me about milk replacements, they didn’t mention calories or additional recipes. This is brand new to me.

I have a couple of questions;

https://preview.redd.it/v7m51k857mj...bp&s=b8044cc528ecd3f0127bf85c88339fef059a013c

This is the milk replacer we’ve been using. Is there any way to incorporate it into this recipe, or does this recipe have to be exact? I would hate to waste all of it, but I will if there’s no way to use it.

The second question I had is: is tube feeding better than bottle feeding? My brain says bottle feeding because it’s close to how they feed from their mom, but I also haven’t had experience in and don’t know the benefits of tube feeding.

Thank you again!!

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz No, the goats milk can is evaporated so higher in calories and you are adding more fat to increase the calories. Milk replacer is lower in calories and litters of puppies many times just lay and nurse at will so 10 minutes of nursing sleep for 20 minutes and then nurse so get more food than bottle or tube feeding. Tube feeding get milk into the stomach with out expending calories suckling so in puppies not gaining, it is a quicker way to get them to gain weight. And once you get tube feeding down, much quicker than bottle feeding. You vet will push the formula, as a breeder I like the results of Myra's formula.

 

[drsharles]

@cosimnot Agree with above that Myra's formula is by far the best. The canned formula often lacks taurine which can cause issues as the pups get older.

 

[nizz]

Additional information that may be needed;

We feed them every 1-3 hours, depending on when they whine or if after 3 hours they don’t whine then we feed them anyways. They usually drink between 2 and 5mL in one sitting. The first two days between the two of them they drank an average of 20mL each (everyday they have drank more, day 1 they only drank around 15mL each and day 2 they drank around 25mL each. Today they have been fed 3 times, around 15mL each and have about 4-5 more feedings today).

We keep them in a tent pen with a heating pad underneath and a heater nearby plus small towels around and a puppy pad, not sure on areal temp but we have a room thermometer coming tomorrow to be sure.

One of them, the one maintaining weight, hasn’t been going potty as much as the one losing weight. He goes around 4 times a day, which I know is about half as much as he should be.

Since their mom isn’t producing milk, they didn’t get colostrum and we’re taking them in when they’re about a week/ week and a half to see if they vet recommends them getting plasma and/or starting their vaccines early.

I have been adding a small bit of extra water to the one maintaining weight and going potty less’s milk due to the possible constipation.

I also gave the one going potty less a drop of Karo light syrup.

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz Have you tried fenugreek to help bring in the milk? It works like a charm. It is available at most health food stores and many other stores that carry vitamins. Normally given until you smell maple syrup on their breath. To start a normally give morning noon and night until I smell the maple then cut back to morning and night.

 

[nizz]

@cosimnot Do you think trying to get the milk to produce will get her to want to be near them? I wouldn’t want to get her milk producing and then her continue to avoid them.

 

[maybeitsme]

@nizz Are they still in with mom? She may be pottying them if so.

 

[nizz]

@maybeitsme No, she doesn’t want anything to do with them. I think it’s a combination of not producing milk and the fact that she had a c-section. I don’t know if she realizes they’re hers.

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz Did they give her a shot of Oxytocin to bring in the milk at the c-section? Did you work with the dam to introduce and get the puppies latching? Once puppies start nursing, it gets the oxytocin flowing so maternal instincts kick in and helps bring in milk.

 

[nizz]

@cosimnot They recommended bottle feeding from the get-go because of how small, lean, and young she is. Another vet told me that was wrong, but I’m not sure. Two different opinions confusing me. I was hoping to just get the first two days but she freaked out anytime one of them got near and ran away, I’m assuming because of her suture wound.

Forgot to answer your question; no they didn’t give her oxytocin, I guess they didn’t think it was necessary since they recommended bottle feeding.

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz I don't think you have a vet that is great at reproductions so unfortunately you have not been given good reproductive care or advice and it may be too late to get your dam in a place to be a good mother. Or you bred too young from your comment. I am not trying to judge but you have to to answer if your dam was too young to have a litter from your comment. Not sure as I don't have as you have not given enough background to give you advice. And it may be that you don't want to be as forecoming with what the breeding was.

 

[nizz]

@cosimnot Sorry, I’ve made a lot of posts recently I get confused on what information I have given and where.

We did not breed her intentionally.

I left my dad in charge of the dogs for a single day and he left them in the same room when he left for work, I’m sure you can assume what happened while he was gone.

The vet recommended not to spay her until she’s a year old / fully grown (she’s very small and they wanted to reduce her risk), so that’s why we hadn’t spayed her before that.

The day it happened was December 19, 2023 and she was ~10 months old at the time. Her birthday was today.

Edit; and just to comment on your last sentence, I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m trying to give as much information as I possibly can.

Another additional note; we weren’t even sure she was in heat either and we were gonna get her checked up to make sure she was okay regarding that. She didn’t bleed a single drop, the only tell we had was the male dog trying to get to her.

 

[cosimnot]

@nizz First heats can be very light so she may have cleaned herself so you didn't see blood. Or it was what is considered a silent heat. I have sent more questions in the chat but saw this after. I am not trying to judge, just be helpful and some of the questions I am sure sitting in your shoes come off as judgmental but it is background for me to properly give advice.

 

[sqs1]

@nizz It’s okay. I am a breeder and had an accidental litter (well, a single pup) this same way when my puppy was 7.5 months old. She had a silent heat and the male didn’t act at all interested in her when we were around. Which was all day because at the time my mom had a stay at home job. It can happen to the best of us. Now, our male is never unsupervised around the females without a diaper on just in case.

But Rosie did fine! She was a great mom and it didn’t hurt her growth or anything to make and feed one puppy. Your dog is probably struggling due to the c-section more than her age. It’s bad advice in my opinion that she shouldn’t feed them. Bottle feeding newborns enough is very difficult even if you’re doing everything right, puppies still fade.

I would call the vet you saw or another one if necessary and get her an oxytocin shot, make sure she’s eating and drinking well, and hold her down so the puppies can suckle even if there’s no milk right now to stimulate the production. Your best bet at having healthy puppies is to get their mother’s milk in them regardless of the lengths it takes. I say that as someone who has been in the nightmare situation of having a mother who couldn’t feed them, though it was temporary and I got it resolved. It’s tough and scary and I’m sorry you are going through this.

 

[nizz]

@sqs1 Reiterating what I said before, we’ll try in about an hour or two to hold her down. Hoping for the best she seemed in a much better mood today than the last few days since her C-section.

The puppies hadn’t been gaining weight, but I made the nipple holes slightly bigger where it drips slowly upside down instead of only dripping slowly when upside down and gently squeezed. I hope that isn’t too big, but it has gotten them to eat a lot more. It also stopped the clogs we had on the nipple. The one that was losing weight looks to be maintaining it through the last 3-4 feedings so that gives me hope that they’ll start gaining if holding her down doesn’t work.

Thank you for the responses, genuinely I really appreciate it it made me feel a lot less awful about the situation hearing your story as well. I’m going to reply with images of the pups below.

 

[nizz]

https://preview.redd.it/ayxbv38as0k...bp&s=b320ce6c60ac52ef28b978b541b7b4a65a8f9c4d

 

[nizz]

https://preview.redd.it/1444zvhcs0k...bp&s=32e0e6cbf214034b178da5ff1c94a75d1dd77bc3