Housing

Room Considerations

If possible house pups in a north or south facing room. The temperature varies much less than in an east or west facing room. It sounds crazy, but the temperature in my normal whelping room (west facing) rises dramatically in the late afternoon and the drops suddenly once the sun has set. I have raised three litters in this room, but the temperature variance for the first orphan litter proved too much. The pups would move to the edge of the box in the late afternoon and then the sudden drop in temperature reduced their temperature so quickly that they were unable to move back to the heat source!

The second litter was housed in another room (north facing) and we never had any problems with temperature control.

If you are unsure, keep a min/max thermometer in the room - the variance in temperature should not be more than 5C.

Compartments

Due to the skin problems and sucking problems we had to separate our pups in the first litter. Each pup was placed in their own basket, which were arranged in a star shape underneath the heat lamp. This was not the best situation as there was not enough space in the baskets for the pups to move away from the heat if they needed to. I thus had to check each pup's temperature on an hourly basis - not fun.

With the second litter we had the same skin problems, but this time I segmented the whelping box when the pups were about 7 days old. This gave each pup plenty of room to move around and regulate his heat. I had to cut my blankets into triangles to fit the compartments.

One of the pups (Pluto) had pneumonia and his compartment was sloped so that he could sleep with his head raised. If it were not for the rest and elevated position that this puppy received thanks to the compartments he would not have made it.

Pluto at 7 weeks

As the pups grew larger and the skin conditions cleared up I removed the partitions, keeping an "ICU" portion if an emergency arose. I also placed a plastic mesh on top of the middle bit as the pups were getting their legs stuck.

After feeding the pups would all spend some time together in the large compartment for an hour or so. I was mildly concerned that the compartments may affect their canine socialisation, but in retrospect I was being quite silly as this phase only really starts at 3 weeks.

Once the pups were three weeks old they moved into the large whelping room. The side of the box and all partitions were removed.

Creature Comforts

The first litter appeared to become very restless from about day three onwards. They were constantly knocking one another about. I placed a surrogate "Sleep Mommy" in the box with them as well as several blankets for them to burrow underneath. This did the trick and the pups slept like babies.

With the second litter each pup had a soft toy to snuggle up to when they were in their compartments. This really seemed to settle the pups - I would assume that they feel the need to have something to press against that feels like Mom.

Page last updated: 18-09-08 11:02:04 PM

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