Preparing for puppies!

By Zoe Russell, Posted in Blog, Care & Advice

Written by Zoe Russell, BSc (Hons), ANutr, 

Nutrition Officer, Naturediet

Welcoming a litter of puppies into your life can be an exciting, yet nerve wracking experience. There are many factors to think about when breeding- is the mum fit and healthy, do you have time to raise a litter, do you know what to do should she require medical intervention? Amongst these considerations, it’s also important to know what to do in terms of diet and nutrition, for the bitch and her puppies.

Pregnancy

After a bitch has been scanned and confirmed in pup, she can stay on her “normal” adult food until around week 5 of the pregnancy. At this stage, we would suggest moving her onto a more nutrient-dense diet, such as puppy food, over a period of 7-10 days. Suitable options include the Feel Good Puppy, or the Feel Good Grain Free Puppy. Around this time, you may also need to increase her number of daily meals, as her stomach capacity will start to reduce due to the presence of growing pups.

Feeding the puppies

By now, you should hopefully have a litter of happy, healthy puppies. For the first few weeks of their life, mum should be feeding them and providing all the nutrients they need. Then around 3-5 weeks of age, you can start to begin weaning the pups off their mum and onto their puppy food. Typically we suggest feeding the same puppy food the bitch is currently on, as it’s more convenient and also less stressful should the puppies snaffle a little bit of mum’s food!

To prepare the puppy food, we would suggest boiling the kettle and letting it cool. Then you can mix in a small amount of tepid water to the puppy food to create a softer, “sloppier” texture. We would suggest starting off introducing one meal per day, then slowly building up to two, three, and finally four meals per day. Don’t be alarmed if the puppies start off by tentatively eating the food, or even paddling in it- it is after all, a whole new experience for them!

Lactation

Lactation puts a huge energy demand on the bitch, particularly if she is raising a large litter. Therefore we typically suggest feeding the bitch ad-lib while she is lactating- essentially how much she wants, when she wants. The exception to this would be if the bitch is particularly greedy- in this case, you may need to continue weighing her food. If you need a set of feeding guidelines, please contact our nutrition team and we would be happy to provide them.

As you start to wean the puppies off their mum, you can slowly move her back to her “normal”, pre-pregnancy food over a period of 7-10 days. However if she has dropped weight and condition through the pregnancy, you may choose to keep her on the puppy food a little longer, as it’s more calorie dense.

Contact us

Looking for more advice? Please give our nutrition team a call on 01362 822 320 or email us at nutrition@naturediet.co.uk and we would be happy to help.