Breeding

Pregnancy and Birth

Pregnancy and Birth

Pregnancy : The length of pregnancy is on average sixty-three days. Swelling of the abdomen becomes more noticeable from the fifth week onwards, though if only one or two pups are being carried or the bitch is plump anyway, this sign of approaching maternity may be difficult to spot. The breasts enlarge and the teats become larger and pinker from about the thirty-fifth day of pregnancy. A water secretion can be drawn from the tests three or four days before the pups are born. In bitches that have had several litters, enlargement of the breasts may not being until the last week of pregnancy and true milk can often be produced as early as five or six days before the start of labour. During a bitch’s pregnancy you should feed her extra quantities of high quality food and multivitamins and calcium supplements to the diet as recommended by you and exercise her gently right up to the end. The bitch should be given anti-roundworm tablets three times; at the very beginning of PREGNANCY, ten days before whelping and ten days after whelping. Get things ready for the arrival of the puppies. The whelping and nursing mum will need a quiet, clean refuge no coloured discharge from the vulva and has not been seen to strain on any occasion other than when passing a motion. But if any of these rules are broken and pups have not appeared within two hours, consult your vet immediately. 

When birth is imminent, the bitch becomes restless may go off her food, pants fitfully and prepares her bed. This means that she wanders about, sometimes chooses a site quite different from the one you had planned paws fretfully at the bedding, and turns round and round in circles before lying down, only to be up again in a short while. This state of pre-labour usually lasts about twelve hours, but it can be much briefer or continue for a day or two, sometimes, with intervals of normal behavior. If there is no straining, no coloured discharge from the vulva and the bitch is otherwise well in herself all is in order. 

Labour proper can be regarded as beginning when you see the first strain by the bitch or the appearance of a coloured (often bottle-green) discharge. Count from now, within one hour the rest pup should be born. A water sac appears first and is sometimes ruptured by the licking of the bitch. Then follows the puppy wrapped partly or entirely in the membrane of the water sac. Puppies are often born back feet first; this is not a breech birth and is nothing to get alarmed about. 

Once delivered, the puppy remains attached to the mother after birth by a cord until the mother severs it with her teeth. If this doesn’t occur, and particularly if the puppy’s face is covered by membrane you can help, clear the membrane away from the nostrils and face and break the umbilical cord. Don’t use scissors. Pull the cord apart between the fingers of your two hands. Make the break about 4 cm ( 1.5 inch) from the navel. Return the puppy to the mother without delay. Between the birth of each successive pup the bitch may rest for minutes or for hours. The intervals tend to get shorter as labour progresses but may be irregular. 

The maximum time limit for the birth of any one pup, counting from the first strain is two hours. Remember that this is two hours from the beginning of labour for that pup not from the beginning of whelping. After the two hours is up with the pup still undelivered contact the vet. The total time for whelping an average litter of four to eight pups is up to six hours. The afterbirths will be expelled either after each pup or irregularly, coming in clumps at intervals or at the end of whelping. Try to avoid letting the bitch eat them. Which is a natural instinct; burn or otherwise dispose of them. 

Most bitches have no trouble giving birth; where problems do arise the vet may help the animal manually, use drugs or advise a caesarean operation.