How many pups did you NOT expected?

[Brittany]

I'm curious when you take your bitch to get an ultra sound and when the bitch is in labor that she produces more then what you’re expecting to have. Have this happen to you people? What is the highest batch of pups did you have in 1 litter? It would be pretty neat to see who had had the largest amount of pups in 1 litters. Maybe we can have a world record of GSD litters

[Currmudgeon]

We've had the vet "miss" a pup or two. Sometimes, they lie behind one another and are not discriminated by the X-Ray or ultrasound. That's wone reason we give a pitosin shot after labor, and bring the bitch in for a post partum exam.

Our largest litter was twelve, of which ten survived.

World record? <making warding gestures> Heaven protect us. The ideal size seems to be six to eight puppies. More than that, and you must spend more time hand rearing, and it takes more from the bitch.

[Dianne]

yes...last litter... "she has five in there..and you're out by at least 36hrs..she won't whelp tonight..thanks..$110:00"

#3 hours later..whelping started.. 9 fit healthy very ready to be born furrballs..just as well I never believe vets..I did however tell the Practice Owner that this "junior colleague" could sing for the money..he laughed and credited the account {true}.

The biggest litter that I whelped [ in 1980] ...17 live babies...I fell asleep at 9 and the girl - Lyndarra Gemini - was relaxed and snoozing..Woke up some time later besides the box..and there they all were..alive a yelling.
My goodness..eventually we kept 10.
Bred her once more she had 12..[to a different dog] had her speyed I couldn't stand the pace.

[JanisN]

Actually, hate to correct Dennis on this, our largest litter was 12 with 12 surviving. NEVER AGAIN.

We ultrasound only for confirmation, never for count and then x-ray on day 56 hopefully for count. If you have anything over 10, the count will be off because some pups are hiding. The STRANGEST times is when the xray count is right. I never trust that either! <grin> But it's pretty darned scary when you've used your last pitocin shot and you KNOW there are more pups in there!

JanisN

[freundhund]

Brittany


;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

I will tell you sometime in the next 10 days.

Bree is pregnant, in her first litter she had 3 puppies, in her second litter she had 2 puppies. I mated her to my boy again thinking I would make notes on day of mating in relation to her being in season, as I keep missing with her! Mated day 7 of season. We now have what my husband refers to as a belly full of arms and legs.

I will say that this has completely stuffed (is this word allowable Wolf/Denis) my breeding programme as I had expected another small litter.

I desexed Paris my other bitch after she had a litters of 8, 10 and then 12.<All survived>. No bitch deserves to have 12 and definately not the human parent it is exhausting.


Regards

Freundhund

[whizzie]

I haven't used ultrasound, but with GSDs we have had one litter of 11, and one litter of 10, from the same dam. Of the 11, number 11 was full-size but still-born several hours later, number 5 was unbelievably tiny and lived for 7 days, and number 10 was a late arrival and suffered oxygen deprivation. (My beautiful, adorable, irreplacable Clarence!) Of the 10, number 5 was full-size but stillborn, after which there was a gap of nearly two hours. All of the puppies were fantastic.

There was a gap of 15 months between the litters, and I have to say that the large number of lusty pups were very hard work, but great fun as they grew.

We also had a litter of 3 English Springer Spaniels in between the GSD litters. The dam had a really easy time of it, one pup was HUGE and I thought we had a swimmer for a while, but she was just seriously overweight. (To the point of being grotesque even. but she grew out of it and is now a normal hyperactive nutcase!)

In the later stages of pregnancy it was obvious that the GSD was "full up", and also that the Springer was only carrying a few.

[Brittany]

Wow! What wonderful stories you people told.
According to the world record that I believe that a dog, forgot the breed, I think it’s one of the hot dog, dog or a golden that had 17 puppies and ALL lived. I couldn’t believe it for a sec!

This is off topic but why do some of you people do ultrasound? Isn’t part of breeding is to be surprised by the litters? Is it the best part of giving birth? I'm curious of your ideas behind using ultrasounds.

[JanisN]

We do ultrasound to make sure there IS a litter. I like to be surprised, sure but not by finding out on day 67 that it's a false pregnancy or she's just been living high on the hog and getting fat.

Because you u/s around day 30 it's never an accurate count. You have two horns of the uterus to take into account, and all you're looking for are blips of the heartbeats.

We get the accurate count (hopefully) with x-ray on day 56 when the bones are calcified and we can match skulls up with spines.

It takes a lot to get ready for a litter, you need to have the whelping box ready, the orphan puppy kit prepared, supplies ordered and on hand, make sure that you keep up with the dam's nutrition from day 1, etc.

The x-ray not only gives you a count but also lets you check for unusual positioning and size that might give you a problem or make a natural birth too risky.

I like surprises, but much rather keep the surprise to how many of each gender rather than if there are any or not. If we breed and don't conceive, I want to know about it as soon as possible in order to get over it and work on my next goals.

JanisN

[Brittany]

Isn't their a pregnancy test that you can take to make sure that the dog takes and is fact pregnant? I never really attempted to check if a dog is preggers or not but curious if they make a test like what they use for humans on dogs as well.

[VonIsengard]

You have to wait until day 30 to ultrasound? I though 3 weeks was ok. *sigh* It going to be a looooooong month.



My boss breeds dobermans. He had 2 females come into heat together- one of which has only ever had 1 or 2 pups, the other I think 3 or 4. They had 8 and 9! I think one died, so that's 16 healthy, rowdy doberman puppies. And once their ears are cropped, they must all be kept separately- it takes them 3 hours just to let them all out, feed them and clean up after them. By the time you're done, it's probably almost time to start all over!! Sleep at that point becomes a distant memory.

[JanisN]

Dogs are the only mammal that can't "pee on a stick" for early testing of pregnancy hormones. You can do a blood test on day 28. I would rather do an ultrasound on day 28.

Kelly day 21 is really too early to tell. They did a u/s on Rikki on day 21 and no puppies showed. Day 26 and there they were!

Yeah, it's a long month... but it goes by so quickly in retrospect.

I'm still shuddering for your boss. Yikes! I've got Rikki and Enschi racing each other into heat now. That's gonna be an experience for me!

JanisN

[freundhund]

Well Britttany we had 6 puppies. Unfortunately we didn't find all the puppies when she was ultral sounded just prior to having them. The last little one didn't make it.

So I now have 5.

Regards

Freundhund