Day 9: Ten Puppies Growing Fast: A weighty report!

Here we see some spots starting to show.  Look closely and we can see eyes just starting to open.  When they scramble now, they keep their feet under them to push - good athletic pups!


We also see the value of "pig rails" in a whelping box.  The pups congregate in one corner and pile up to sleep when they need a bit more warmth when Kamea is resting outside the box.  When she returns she gently curls her body over them and noses them awake, spilling them out of their pile-up, stimulating them, turning them every which way.  As she slowly lays down among them she expects them to scramble out of the way. The rails leave a small crawl space between mom and her pups should anyone get trapped behind her. After everyone's been fed and mom is sleeping among them - the pups fan out across the whelping box for a cooler lay down.  The simple space works great!

The rail makes a good head rest too? Not so sure how comfortable that is! Kamea has her ten right where she wants them, however, so she's not moving herself.  

She just finished drinking an inch of water from a water dish positioned between her front legs with a spoonful of honey at the bottom.  She knows the honey is there because she gets a lick off my fingers from it whenever she starts nursing.  We believe in rewards for such marvelous motherly behavior!   I have just removed the empty bowl and that's what gives her the rather awkward position.   Eventually she skootches down and stretches out and lays flat and snoozes.  

Time to change those mats!  The blue waterproof pads have a quilted cloth covering that helps the pups get traction when scrambling or pushing up to nurse (below).  We have a dozen of these pads to layer four at a time in the bottom of the box.  It's easy to whisk them away, and replace with four sanitized, warm ones, fresh from the dryer.  Keeps the nursery smelling of fresh laundry.

Ah! That's more like it - fresh laundry and freshly weighed babies.  

Let's see how they have grown in nine days time: Their average birth weight on 4/14/12 was 360g, their average weight today, 9 days later, is 717g and their average weight gain is 357g.  The easiest time to weigh is after a feeding, after which we put them in the basket where they snuggle down to sleep.  Then it's easy to take them one at a time from the basket and weigh the drowsy pup.  By morning all of them will have doubled their birth weight.

Good girl Kamea!  Your puppies are growing just as they should.