jen214 and board
There is nothing abnormal happening here. Mother dogs often, more than 50% I'd guess, go through the "horrors" like this.
It is simply indicative of her converting nearly all her food into milk for the puppies.
Heres what I suggest
1) 4 week old puppies should be almost fully weaned, they only need to have a "comfort suck" a couple times a day. They are at the stage where there human mommas should of interceded with the puppy food! They are able, should be able, to lap from a dish and will no doubt have teeth so are ready to eat. Get them fed and they'll lose interest in momma pretty fast and she'll be on the way to regaining condition. Although it's not what I would feed probably the easiest and best way would be to get a bag a high quality premium PUPPY food of the Iams, ProPlan, Science Diet ilk. Feed it to the puppies soaked.
2) Try to get some Silica tablets from the local Health Food or drug store. Feeding your bitch this (2 tabs x 3 times a day) will have her milk dried up in a few days.
3) I have a feeling that momma might not have been fed adequately throughout the nursing period. Probably unknowingly, not pointing fingers, but a nursing bitch will need anything from 3 to 5 times her normal daily intake of food to be able to keep condition and be able to produce milk. At this stage it's a Catch 22 for you. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. She's going to have to be fed bigtime. Forget cottage chees and peanut butter etc, that only produces fat and has little nutritional value. By way of example, Sabine with her recent litter had been eating, in the nursing period, 3 kilos of fresh meat a day. That's roughly 6.5 pounds. The meat has been in the form of fresh beef or chicken carcasses, wings, necks. She has also been getting vegetables with the beef meals 3 times a week. She was eating 4 meals a day while nursing.
I'm sure you get the idea of how much food your bitch should of been getting.
This is the catch, start giving her this much now and her milk will not dry up and it has to eventually in order to attain peak condition.
So her 2 needs contradict each other a bit. a) She needs condition b) she needs her milk drying up.
So again, although it's not what I would do as I don't like the stuff personally for my dogs I'd get her onto a high quality premium as well. Nothing like Eukanuba for putting weight on dogs.
PS Before anyone jumps up and down about getting the puppies off the bitch NOW and not later and starts telling me how they keep their puppies with the mother till xX weeks etc etc. I agree!!!!!!
But this bitch sounds in quite poor condition and the last thing she needs right now is puppies on her, it's a special case
PPS Jen, her hair might all fall out!! This is OK too, it'll come back brighter and silkier than ever
Matthew
