[Erin Lynes]

Twig is my little yellow female who is now five weeks pregnant. She has already gained over ten pounds - and it's all going straight to the puppies. Her mother, Nestle, is also a 55 pounder and she added 18 pounds by the the time she whelped her last litter (+32%)

Is anyone else keeping track of weight gain? I'd be curious to see what is average in Labs.

 

[YardleyLabs]

My girl had gained 11 pounds as of 7 days prior to delivery. She delivered 10 pups weighing a total of 7 pounds at birth when clean and dry. After one week, the pups weigh a total of 13 pounds and are doing great.

 

[doubledown]

Grow Cash, grow!!!

 

[YardleyLabs]

Grow Cash, grow!!!

20 ounces and feisty as of this morning. My grandson and granddaughter were putting him through his paces a few hours ago. He is beginning to lift himself up on his feet and take a few almost steps.

 

[helencalif]

Is anyone else keeping track of weight gain?

Yes, we kept track. The trial running weight for our Ruby (see avatar photo taken just before she was bred) is 80 lbs.; Ruby is a tall, lean, muscular machine. The day she whelped her litter she weighed 102.7 lbs. at the vet's office. She was carrying 12 puppies. Birth weights on puppies ranged from 13 oz. to 16+ oz. (5 of the 12 were 16+ oz. pups).

Thus, the total puppy weight was around 12 lbs. The other 10 lbs. would be placentas, fluids, and some body fat, but not much body fat. We did not let her get "fat" during her pregnancy. We controlled her intake and she got plenty of exercise.

After the pups were weaned, she slimmed down to her usual 80 lb. running weight (food monitoring plus she went back into training). The pups are now 4 mo. old and you can't tell that Ruby even had a litter.

 

[Erin Lynes]

Thanks for sharing Helen. When Nestle had her huge gain she had 11 monster puppies. That was the first time I bothered weighing one of the girls - she looked SO big I couldn't believe it. Looks like Twig is headed in the same direction - I'm just crossing my fingers for an easy delivery.

 

[windycanyon]

I like to do a series of actual girth measurements (waist, at the last full rib, and at the chest). I've got a small database now, and so far, it's been interesting to follow. I had my recent litter pegged at 8, possibly 10 if the pups were small, but ended up w 7 much larger than expected pups.

All of the info that I've been able to find online is that at 5 wks, the fetuses are only 18-30 mm long. At 6wks, I've read they are only 45 mm and 6 g. It's not until the 7th wk that they seem to get really growing (which is amazing if this info is really correct!). So that kind of weight gain has to be fluid if this is correct. Any vets on here that can verify the above info?

Anne

 

[ErinsEdge]

I had my recent litter pegged at 8, possibly 10 if the pups were small, but ended up w 7 much larger than expected pups.

Fun to guess but I just do an xray. I've learned you really can't tell by girth unless I suppose it's the same female.

 

[windycanyon]

Fun to guess but I just do an xray. I've learned you really can't tell by girth unless I suppose it's the same female.

Yes, there is definitely some extrapolation there, esp when comparing a short coupled squarer bitch to a longer one! And the same goes w/ weight gain as some bitches seem to have more water weight gain than others. Still, I am using the amount of gain in girth by 5 wks to tell me when (if) to increase the food, though I only increase by ~15% a week typically anyhow. With my one short coupled girl who was carrying 12, there was no question about it that she needed more food. When her sister was only carrying one, it also showed in her measurements, so in a gross sense, it has helped. As long as there is good evidence that mine are carrying a decent sized litter, I'd just as soon save the xray for afterward if had any question. I doubt a vet would have been able to count the 12 accurately even if I wanted to know that time!

 

[Erin Lynes]

I like to do a series of actual girth measurements (waist, at the last full rib, and at the chest).

Anne

Good idea! I think I'll start doing that as well.

 

[ErinsEdge]

I go by one who has whelped many many more than me when she said "Nance, sometimes you just can't tell." Some of you will know who that is. I've had them look barely pregnant and have 10-12. It depends on retained water, fetus count, weight gained, abdominal elasticity, conformation, and athleticism or not. I sure would feel bad if I was not feeding much based on a database showing the bitch measured for 2 pups and showed the last few days and had 10. I'm privileged now to have a repro vet that stands by and she always wants a pre-whelping xray and that's not just for count-she looks at calcification, size, placement, and even abnormalities as I recently had an anencephalic puppy-it hardly matters if there are 10 or 13 and many times the count is inaccurate.

 

[Guest]

The dam of our litter that is three weeks old had gained 20 pounds three days prior to whelp.

There were 11 puppies.

Personally, I'd be concerned if a bitch had already gained 10 pounds by 5 weeks of age. That much weight cannot be going "straight to the puppies" that early in the pregnancy. It may be worth an ultrasound to make sure everything looks normal.

Edit: A fun fact...well, depending on what you consider fun. She gained 6 pounds in just 4 days during that last week prior to whelp!

 

[2tall]

Grow Cash, grow!!!

Hi! I can't wait to meet the new arrival either! Check your PM's.

 

[Erin Lynes]

Personally, I'd be concerned if a bitch had already gained 10 pounds by 5 weeks of age. That much weight cannot be going "straight to the puppies" that early in the pregnancy. It may be worth an ultrasound to make sure everything looks normal.

Yup, I was concerned - and did take her for an ultrasound. The vet said the puppies were quite big already, and it looks like there is a pile of them - mom is healthy as a horse. This is not my first litter, although it is Twig's - so I'm quite confident that she is not getting overweight in a 'chubby' sense either. Like I said, her mother also tended to grow at an alarming rate in addition to a large litter there may be a genetic predisposition to large placentas or fluid retention.

I've had dogs in the past who've had huge litters and didn't show at all until three or four days prior to whelp, but this line seems to shows big and early. It's exciting to see visual confirmation of the pregnancy at this stage but it's also disturbing and a little stressful when they look like they could pop at any time!

 

[helencalif]

Yup, I was concerned - and did take her for an ultrasound.

My 2-cents: An ultrasound can be done earlier in the pregnancy to confirm pregnancy (if you need to confirm early). However, don't count on it for giving you an accurate count on the puppies.

For a more accurate account, we x-ray 6 or 7 days prior to due date so we can count skulls and spines. For our last litter (Sept), we could clearly see 10, but there were shadows so our vet said to expect up to 12. The vet was right. There were 12.

Why x-ray? In addition to finding out how many pups, our vet checked size of pups. She looked for uniformityin size and measured skulls to see if there could be problems.

If spending $$ for both tests is too expensive for you, I would recommend the x-ray -- especially if you think your bitch is carrying a lot of pups. Also, don't wait until the last minute to x-ray as the pups could be born prior to the due date by 3 or 4 days. "Due date" is an estimate based on averages; it is not in concrete. Our experience has been that if the bitch is carrying over 9, she is probably going to be early.

Re: natural breeding thoughts. When your bitch was bred can be a factor in pup size. Our practice is to get at least 3 breedings over two days -- hopefully morning, night, morning... or night, morning, night. Sometimes this is not possible and we have had to let 24 hrs. lapse between breedings which means a 3 or 4 day spread.

Our theory is... don't stretch out natural breedings too far apart. Why? Conception could be on the first breeding and the last breeding. If stretched over 3 or 4 days, the size of the pups could vary because the first conceived pups and the last conceived pups are going to be whelped all at the same time resulting in bigger pups and smaller pups. Our theory could be wrong, but that's my 2-cents as why you might plan your natural breedings closer together than waiting for 24 hrs. + in between.

 

[Erin Lynes]

Interesting thoughts Helen.

We've always done several natural breedings over several days, because we don't have access to prompt progesterone test results (samples must be sent out and take up to two days to get results back). So, in order to maximize odds of conception, we stagger the breedings, using vaginal smears or prior records to guesstimate ovulation. Without a good repro vet in the area, or access to a veterinary laboratory, this is just how it's done out here in the boonies.I've often thought that this could result in the size differences that are sometimes seen within the same litter.

However, I was recently reading a book by Myra Savant-Harris, who indicated that puppy size differences are a result of where they attach (ie. smaller puppies may have attached in a location with some scarring so they don't receive optimal nutrition) - she emphatically stated that all litters are born 63 days from ovulation regardless of when the individual puppies were actually fertilized. So there's another theory on the matter.

As for the ultrasound - we did not expect to get an accurate puppy count from that, and none was given - just the rough estimate of 'lots' which was the conclusion I had already come up with, lol. We've got a little while before we get to the x-ray stage, so I'll just keep weighing and measuring for now

 

[helencalif]

We live in the boonies, too. Progesterone results takes over a day, even when the results are faxed to our vet. Sort of worthless. Is she going up or coming back down?

We take smear checks then trust the male to tell us when ready is. We do the morning and night natural over 2 days or 3 days maximum and cross our fingers.

It sounds like you have a handle on this. Good luck with your bitch and your puppies. OH, one more thing. Don't let a lot of time lapse between the birth of the puppies. Our vet believes in no more than 2 hrs. and she was right. With our recent litter, after 2 hrs had gone by and no other puppy was born, we called our vet at midnight and ran her in. She was tired, the uterus was tired. She had 5 naturally, but could do no more and appeared to be going into stress. Instant C-section delivered 7 more puppies.

Lynn Moore has posted her sad experience with her FC/AFC on this forum. They had been advised to wait it out. They waited too long. The result was, they lost puppies and the dam had to be spayed. You may read elsewhere that it is OK to wait longer than 2 hrs. between puppies. I say, don't do it. There could be a life threatening situation that has caused that long lull in between puppies. We talked it over with our vet ahead of time. She gave us her cell number and told us to call her day or night and not to exceed the 2 hr. limit.

 

[Erin Lynes]

I've been blessed with all natural deliveries so far. Its doesn't really stop me from being paranoid though, because of course there is always a first time for everything - a forum like this is a great way to hear about all the what-if's that could happen. One vet will never see every scenario but collectively I bet the RTF has!