Alyosha

So exciting!!! :D

20 pups Kaffy???

It's working for us made as a tea - I'm using the tea as a base for her goats-milk formula. She's not only increasing her milk, but holding condition very well - even slightly increasing her weight - despite being picky with her food.

We have a girl who comes from a family of regular 6-7 months cyclers, yet she goes 9 months on the dot. It hasn't affected her fertility... She just had 12 pups in her maiden litter!!

I'm like you Jetpoint, not super confident on evaluation, and will be enlisting trusted help. But I did definitely like some pups when they were wet - made some notes in my whelping notes... I'll be interested to see how they turns out! We are keeping two - we always wanted a girl from this litter, but knew we'd be tempted by a special boy... Am just hoping my instinct is right and he's as special as I hope!!

Britt your little Cavs are just beautiful!!! And Jetpoint!! What lovely babies!! I just love the little liver snuggled in amongst them! And the tent photo is priceless! I'm so glad you found a simple solution. Funny you mention Enya's music Allerzeit. The day Sonya was in labour - last Wednesday - in the morning she would only settle if I played Enya. Then when she was whelping, she seemed to get on with it better with the music on as well! Maybe just coincidence I know, but at one stage we had a loooonnng wait between pups and I got my husband to put the Enya back on - out popped a pup!! Very strange indeed... We had dewclaws done today so are all home sooking on mum. And our little one with the damaged tail had his dangling tail end removed. Do you think I need to get the vet to do a certificate with him now? I suppose technically he's now a docked Borzoi!!!

This is our "A" litter for Borzoi, and we're doing a Greek mythology theme. Our Girls are Aphrodite, Athena and Andromeda. The boys are Apollo, Adonis, Atlas, Alektos, Argus, Arinyes, Alexander and Ares.

Well done on your den construction Jetpoint!! Talk about saving the day! She's getting there. Milk arriving has been a slow process, but so has the passing of placentas so I shouldn't complain. She's steadily improving now with the fenugreek. She won't touch it in food although she seems to find the smell exciting. But if I make it into tea and then use that to mix with her milk-replacer powder - she goes nuts for it. I'm not topping up pups after every feed now, but will still top up the smaller ones. Although they're starting to catch up! This is one of the two smallest boys with one of the biggest today: I know what you mean about the big backyard! We were always hopng for a bitch from this litter - and we have lovely girls. But I knew I'd be tempted to keep a really nice boy as well... And yep, I'm tempted alright, don't think he'll be going anywhere. But two more borzoi, well they're easy to fit in... :D

Sorry Jerojath! I forgot the Vislas were due before the puglets. It must be that huge pug belly that's stuck in my mind!! Hopefully you don't have another out-on-the-grass delivery!!

:champagne: Hooray Jetpoint!! Congratulations on your litter. Sorry for the ones that didn't make it, but what a lovely range of colours you have!! And all those girls!! :cheer: Now we wait for those puglets to arrive... :D

Funny though, she gets excited by the smell of it but then won't eat it. Maybe it's just that her appetite isn't quite back yet. She is loving it in her milk. Our milk was slow to start because of retained placentas like BB said. We had a shot of oxytocin the day after whelping and it has been steadily increasing. But slowly. I don't doubt we would've lost some pups without giving them extra, one small one was weakening the first night. He just didn't have any reserves. As it is, they're all thriving and her milk is almost enough now to support them - so worth the extra effort of supplementary feeding. I'm looking forward to the end of it though, and a little more sleep!! So the fenugreek tea is my new best friend.

My girl won't eat it powdered in food but I've made a tea and mixed it with her milk-replacer drink and she's loving it! Fingers crossed milk seems to be increasing...

Great idea guys. I'm wondering if I can sweet talk my vet into doing the same!!

Oh BB how awful. It happens so fast. Another few seconds and my little boy would've been gone too. He was just horribly limp, and I thought he was crushed instead of breathless. It was only blind luck I happened to be standing next to the whelping box and realised. Will keep it up with Fenugreek. She seems to be getting interested. She is preferring her food drier than normal which doesn't help. Does it still work if you make a tea of it? She might like it better in her milk...

We have. She's not very keen... She actually isn't really eating very much at all yet - and is being fussy which is very unlike her. We have her on milk replacer so at least she's drinking lots of that. We'll keep at it. She has finally passed placenta today so should brighten up. No signs of infection though which is good. We'll keep at it. Early days. She did almost squash one of the pups today - it was a heart starting moment indeed! He got under her front looking for a teat and she leaned her shoulder back onto him as she stretched back for the others to get to the belly. I heard a little whine, did a quick headcount and dived under her. He was blue and limp. A good rub and a couple of little breaths and he was back to normal. Can't say the same for my heart!! I felt bad as she's trying to be so careful. But she's a big girl and they're so squiggly!!

Dammit. Jetpoint I saw you'd posted and thought she might have started!! Hopefully your instinct is right and tonight's the night. :D

Wow! Gorgeous bellies!!

Great to hear she has recovered. And congrats on the bulge! Good luck for a smooth pregnancy and whelping. I hope the pups are all you hope for.

I have done a quick search but haven't found one, so thought we could use a thread discussing different ways to manage large litters. Anyone up for it? There are obviously various tried and true ways that breeders deal with large litters, and sharing some of those methods, ones that work and ones that don't, is a great way to help out newer breeders, and people experiencing larger litters than they have before. This is a topic dear to my heart at the moment with our litter of 12 being born a few days ago to a maiden bitch... As we have friends who recently had a large litter as well I have followed their example and divided our pups into two groups of six. Six pups are much easier for the dam to handle in the box at a time, and there are enough teats to go 'round. They get swapped onto mum every two hours. I feel so lucky that If we spoke to them about it, otherwise I would be really struggling at the moment. I passed the idea onto a friend overseas who recently had 14 pups and it also helped her a great deal. So we have a heated box / towel lined laundry basket with hot water bottle - a heat pad would work the same. Half the pups stay in there while the other half are with mum. I keep that box next to the whelping box, but pups are covered with a towel. If she wants to stick her nose in she can. If they are full and warm they don't cry so (hopefully) mum won't come looking for them - she'll be busy with the group she has. I can see this system not working quite so well if a dam was not quite as devoted as she could be, you could run the risk of rejection. Would it be better, if she was going to reject, that she reject part of the litter instead of the whole lot? Surely the less that need hand raising the better. Or would you be tempting fate and would it be best to try and keep the whole lot with her? It also may fail if she was too devoted and couldn't bear to be separated from some of her pups. We had an added complication of a slow start to Mum's milk supply - fatigue etc from a large delivery, retained placenta etc. So I have topped up the pups in the meantime. With the system of two groups, I can leave a group on mum for two hours, then take them off and top them up with a tube feed. They then go in the heated box full and warm while the other group go onto mum. Two hours later the process is repeated, with the other group getting a top up. This saves tube (or bottle) feeding the whole litter every two hours, which is a very draining and time consuming process. Deos anyone else have any experience or ideas to share that may just help someone out when they're up to their elbows in puppies??

Fingers crossed for you Jetpoint!! We need pics if the happy event ever arrives!!! I'm just having a very exciting moment with ours. After topping up all 12 pups with tube feeds for the last 24 hours I've just taken the group of littlies off mum and they're FULL. Does this mean the milk had truly arrived??? I really hope so. I'm hearing contented gulping from the second group of pups, instead of the frustrated squeaking they've been doing trying to get enough milk. I don't mind tube feeding them and they're all doing so well at the moment (touch wood of course!!)... but the possibility of just checking them every two hours instead of making feeds, feeding, cleaning up and sterilising (and then trying to find time for sleep!!). I am scarcely believing my luck... I can only hope we keep the milk flowing from now!! :D

Ooooo! Pointer babies!!! Come one Jetpoint's girl, tonight's the night, let's go!!!

Sigh. Poor Jetpoint, you must be getting a little impatient by now... Nearly the whole litter have the heart BB. Mum has it, but her marking are such a pale cream it's hard to see. None of her littermates have it, but she has passed it to nearly all these babies!! It's very pretty.

Oooo! Jetpoint I missed yours! Fingers crossed things are underway!! Yay! :D

Oakeydoak we had 3 girls and 9 boys. Which is similar to their sire, he is from a litter of 8 - 6 boys and 2 girls. Mum is better since her shot of Oxy, and milk is steadily on the increase. This is the girls:

How did she go Cass?? Recovered? Plus I had to add - we had a 35 minute tie and got 12 pups!! So good luck!!