Care of the newborn puppy
Breeding chihuahuas is not for the faint of heart. It can be so rewarding, or so terribly heartbreaking. Not all puppies are born with all the reflexes or reactions that they need to survive. Not all mothers are created equal either, some are wonderful, some are not. Just like the newborn puppies, most of the time natural instincts kick in and everyone knows what to do, but again, that is not always the case for both puppies and mothers. Sometimes we have to intervene and give a helping hand to insure the puppies survival. This can be a fine line of knowing what to do and when to do it. This page is dedicated to the care and feeding of the neonatal puppy, those little puppies that need that extra bit of care to get a good start in life.
All of our information is from years of experience, research and applying these techniques. However, this is not meant to replace the necessity of veterinary care, or proper medical attention. It is our hope that by sharing our own experiences in raising a newborn chihuahua that perhaps we may help some of these little ones get a good firm beginning on a long, happy, healthy life.
Here are some helpful hints and tips that have worked well for us through the years.
One important fact that is often overlooked is that a puppy needs a nice warm, clean, draft free environment.
Remember that this puppy came from a 101-102 environment, what may seem comfortable to you may be much too cool for your new litter. We keep our new moms in solid crates to ensure that it is draft free. If you cover the crate the puppies are generally kept toasty warm by their moms body heat. If there is still a question you can use a heating pad kept under one half of the crate, used on the lowest setting. You will still want to monitor this to make sure it doesn't become too warm. A puppy is unable to control its body temperature until they are a bit older. They are depending on you and Mom to keep them comfortable.
Our first hand raised newborn was Stuart Little. He weighed a mere one ounce when he was born. Tiny guy. We began feeding him every two hours, but soon found that this just wasn't enough, so we fed him every hour and a half around the clock. Eventually we were able to extend this to every two hours, then three, etc, but this was a very long process that took weeks. At birth Stuart didn't have a very good sucking reflex to nurse, so we assisted
him by feeding him with a 3cc syringe with a tiny Just Born nipple on it. This can be a very dangerous way to feed, you have to use extreme caution not to force too much milk too fast. I cannot stress this enough. You can cause aspiration pnuemonia, which can result in death, so please, go very, very slow and use extreme caution when feeding this way.
It was also a hard task to keep Stuart warm enough, he had no Mom to snuggle with. Because Stuart was fed so often we were able to keep him warm by filling rubber gloves with water, heating them and wrapping them up in hand towels. Stuart would climb up on them and be toasty warm until the next feeding.
You feed puppies according to their weight. Stuart started out weighing one ounce, so he received one cc of formula. 2 ounces = 2 cc formula, 3 ounces = 3 cc etc. This is a base guideline that you may have to adjust as you go. Some pups may require a bit more to thrive.
We use a digital scale to regularly weigh the puppies. By weighing your puppy regularly you will be able to tell how well they are doing. If they start losing weight you know you'll have to make some adjustments, either in the amounts you are feeding or in the schedule itself.
A hand raised puppy can easily become dehydrated. You can easily check this by pulling up the skin on the puppies back. If the skin springs back right away the puppy is properly hydrated. If the skin stays in a tent like position and is slow to spring back to the body the puppy is probably dehydrated. This can also be a life threatening situation.
You can give fluids sub q but this is best left to your veterinarian, unless you have experience doing this.
A puppy has to be helped to urinate and defecate after being fed. This is very important. By gently rubbing the genital areas with a warm, damp cotton ball this should stimulate the puppy as its mom would. You can also hold the puppies rear under luke warm running water to stimulate it, but do not put it up wet or damp as this could cause chilling. A chilled puppy will not eat and cannot digest its formula when chilled.
To date we have successfully hand raised several little ones. It does require total dedication, for weeks this is all you will do. Sleep becomes a thing of the past. The end results are not always successful no matter how hard you tried, the puppy has to have a solid will to survive too. I cannot put into words the joy that you feel seeing these pups thrive and grow with your help and nurturing.
We hope that this page helped answer any questions you may have had. Please don't hesitate to email us with any questions that you may have.
We feed a home made formula that we have had complete success with. I can't recommend anything better than this. The puppies really thrive on it, in our experience they haven't done nearly as well on the store bought formulas.
Home made milk replacer for puppies :
1 can 16 ounces evaporated milk
1 cup water
1 cup whole milk yogurt ( not fat free or low fat )
1 tblspn white Karo syrup
1 tblspn mayonaisse
1-2 egg yolks
Mix well in blender, keep refridgerated. Moms love this too.
This will keep well for 7-10 days in the refridgerator.
We wish you the best of luck with your new litter. Questions ?? email us at [email protected]
All of our information is from years of experience, research and applying these techniques. However, this is not meant to replace the necessity of veterinary care, or proper medical attention. It is our hope that by sharing our own experiences in raising a newborn chihuahua that perhaps we may help some of these little ones get a good firm beginning on a long, happy, healthy life.
Here are some helpful hints and tips that have worked well for us through the years.
One important fact that is often overlooked is that a puppy needs a nice warm, clean, draft free environment.
Remember that this puppy came from a 101-102 environment, what may seem comfortable to you may be much too cool for your new litter. We keep our new moms in solid crates to ensure that it is draft free. If you cover the crate the puppies are generally kept toasty warm by their moms body heat. If there is still a question you can use a heating pad kept under one half of the crate, used on the lowest setting. You will still want to monitor this to make sure it doesn't become too warm. A puppy is unable to control its body temperature until they are a bit older. They are depending on you and Mom to keep them comfortable.
Our first hand raised newborn was Stuart Little. He weighed a mere one ounce when he was born. Tiny guy. We began feeding him every two hours, but soon found that this just wasn't enough, so we fed him every hour and a half around the clock. Eventually we were able to extend this to every two hours, then three, etc, but this was a very long process that took weeks. At birth Stuart didn't have a very good sucking reflex to nurse, so we assisted
him by feeding him with a 3cc syringe with a tiny Just Born nipple on it. This can be a very dangerous way to feed, you have to use extreme caution not to force too much milk too fast. I cannot stress this enough. You can cause aspiration pnuemonia, which can result in death, so please, go very, very slow and use extreme caution when feeding this way.
It was also a hard task to keep Stuart warm enough, he had no Mom to snuggle with. Because Stuart was fed so often we were able to keep him warm by filling rubber gloves with water, heating them and wrapping them up in hand towels. Stuart would climb up on them and be toasty warm until the next feeding.
You feed puppies according to their weight. Stuart started out weighing one ounce, so he received one cc of formula. 2 ounces = 2 cc formula, 3 ounces = 3 cc etc. This is a base guideline that you may have to adjust as you go. Some pups may require a bit more to thrive.
We use a digital scale to regularly weigh the puppies. By weighing your puppy regularly you will be able to tell how well they are doing. If they start losing weight you know you'll have to make some adjustments, either in the amounts you are feeding or in the schedule itself.
A hand raised puppy can easily become dehydrated. You can easily check this by pulling up the skin on the puppies back. If the skin springs back right away the puppy is properly hydrated. If the skin stays in a tent like position and is slow to spring back to the body the puppy is probably dehydrated. This can also be a life threatening situation.
You can give fluids sub q but this is best left to your veterinarian, unless you have experience doing this.
A puppy has to be helped to urinate and defecate after being fed. This is very important. By gently rubbing the genital areas with a warm, damp cotton ball this should stimulate the puppy as its mom would. You can also hold the puppies rear under luke warm running water to stimulate it, but do not put it up wet or damp as this could cause chilling. A chilled puppy will not eat and cannot digest its formula when chilled.
To date we have successfully hand raised several little ones. It does require total dedication, for weeks this is all you will do. Sleep becomes a thing of the past. The end results are not always successful no matter how hard you tried, the puppy has to have a solid will to survive too. I cannot put into words the joy that you feel seeing these pups thrive and grow with your help and nurturing.
We hope that this page helped answer any questions you may have had. Please don't hesitate to email us with any questions that you may have.
We feed a home made formula that we have had complete success with. I can't recommend anything better than this. The puppies really thrive on it, in our experience they haven't done nearly as well on the store bought formulas.
Home made milk replacer for puppies :
1 can 16 ounces evaporated milk
1 cup water
1 cup whole milk yogurt ( not fat free or low fat )
1 tblspn white Karo syrup
1 tblspn mayonaisse
1-2 egg yolks
Mix well in blender, keep refridgerated. Moms love this too.
This will keep well for 7-10 days in the refridgerator.
We wish you the best of luck with your new litter. Questions ?? email us at [email protected]
