Hand Rearing Pups

I am hand rearing 2 staffy pups a male and female who are now 3 days old. The standard Lactol feeding bottles seem to be too small for their mouths. Just wondered if anyone has any advice? I'm thinking of buying a baby bottle? Obviously with a very small hole. I've not hand reared before so any advice is welcome.

Hi sorry I can't help but sure someone will be along soon that can give you some pointers. So I assume this is your litter ?? Did you not enlist another Breeder for support before planning the litter , it's what we would normally recommend , for these kind of reasons , sort of like your birthing partner

It's not my litter. I foster for a charity and 7 pups were handed over as mum had rejected them....i think. The person who normally does the hand rearing could not take them all so I said I would help. I don't know what their reasons were but I'm told they were genuine. I am a full time dog behaviourist and trainer and know my stuff where thats concerned but nothing about hand rearing. So far so good. I managed to get in touch with a bull dog breeder not far from me and she came over this afternoon to 'check on me' ha ha. She said everything was good but suggested a bigger teat!!!

Wouldn't have a clue, so all I can do is wish you luck

Sarahhb wrote:It's not my litter. I foster for a charity and 7 pups were handed over as mum had rejected them....i think. The person who normally does the hand rearing could not take them all so I said I would help. I don't know what their reasons were but I'm told they were genuine. I am a full time dog behaviourist and trainer and know my stuff where thats concerned but nothing about hand rearing. So far so good. I managed to get in touch with a bull dog breeder not far from me and she came over this afternoon to 'check on me' ha ha. She said everything was good but suggested a bigger teat!!!

Aww great stuff and well done on the helping out hope Caryll is along soon

Hi & welcome to the forum.

Wow, you have your hands full! I don't envy you feeding round the clock, I do hope you have family who can give you a break! I take it the bulldog breeder has given you some advice?

Are they doing ok?

Sarah, I am full of admiration for you taking on these poor little abandonned pups, you have certainly taken on a 24/7 job.

I'm afraid I can't offer any advice except - remember that the little mites can't evacuate their bowels themselves at this age, the mother massages their stomachs/abdomens with her tongue and when they "go" she "deals" with it. So there's that to do as well as feeding and warmth and comfort.

Good luck to you and all the pups ><

Sarahhb wrote:I am hand rearing 2 staffy pups a male and female who are now 3 days old. The standard Lactol feeding bottles seem to be too small for their mouths. Just wondered if anyone has any advice? I'm thinking of buying a baby bottle? Obviously with a very small hole. I've not hand reared before so any advice is welcome.

You can get different sized bottles for hand-rearing. Vets may be able to point you in the right direction. Alternatively, you could check online.

If you're using a formula specifically designed for puppies, it should give you guidelines on how much to feed them as they age. It's very important in the first two weeks to ensure that they take in all the right nutrients, especially as the mother's first milk gives them a big dose of antibodies.

If you're hand-rearing the pups, you need to take control over what the mother would naturally do - for instance, bitches lick under the puppies' tails to stimulate urine and faeces. With hand rearing, you can clean the area with damp cotton wool instead. If you don't have any, tissue will do.

And yes, you can use baby bottles. They also come in different sizes.

Please keep us updated with your progress , we are all routing for you , ten fingers and toes and 8 paws crossed in our house ><

We also have at least two experienced breeders on the forum, so if you have any problems they may be able to give you some advice.

Thanks guys all your support has made me quite tearful, but perhaps that is the sleep depervation kicking in. They are both doing really well so far and i've up'd their puppy milk to 15mls now as they are getting hungrier each day. They are both toileting well, although the little girl did have a failry soft poo last time so need to keep my eye on that.

I went to Sainsbury's last night and bought 2 newborn baby bottles which seem to work brilliantly - no more milk coming out of the nose - so drowning risk averted - phew.

I've got them past day 3 which is good. Just got to get them to 7 days now. Thanks for your support.

Well done for everything you're doing keep us updated!

You're doing a really good job! Please, please, please keep us up to date with how it goes!

Wow sounds like you are doing a brilliant job, sorry I cannot help at all with it.

I would like to ask you how you got into being a behaviourist as this is something I would love to do. I will ask in a few weeks time, when your hands are not quite so full.

Hope the little ones get along really well, good luck with it.

Just saw this post, sounds like you managed to sort the small teething problems with the pups anyway and they are now putting on weight and not blowing milk bubbles out of their noses! Looks like everyone gave you some good advice, how are you keeping them warm? Do you have a warm and cold end so they can squirm between them and regulate their body temps? Not sure this is necessary if you keep them somewhere warm anyway. Its a shame that a wet nurse coudln't be found for them although I guess speed is the priority and you just need to get lots of food into them!

Well done Sarah in finding baby bottles that suit them.

I would reckon that a soft poo is inevitable on a milk only diet. Are they pooing/weeing on their own now?

Nosipho's idea of a wet nurse would be brilliant if you could find one and would mean you could get some sleep once she had accepted them.

You know we've all got our fingers and paws crossed for you don't you ><

Maybe put an advert on a local free-ads website or something. Worth a try, I've never hand-reared aprt from helping out at the vets and that was only with two surviving pups and we all took it in turns to feed.