Newborn puppy care is an exciting and daunting job to take on. During their first few weeks of life, puppies develop fast and their needs change along with them, so it’s important to know how to keep up. Your newborn puppies need to be fed every two hours, toileted every two hours, and their whelping box needs cleaning once a day.
NEWBORN PUPPY NUTRITION : A mother dog’s milk provides all the nutrition a newborn puppy needs during their first four weeks. If the mother is unable to care for her little ones, it’s down to you to bottle feed and wean them in her place.
BOTTLE FEEDING :Your orphaned pups must be fed a canine milk replacer for four weeks. A puppy’s growth is fast-paced through the first weeks, so their diet must be dense in calories and high in protein to keep up. To meet these needs, your canine milk replacer should be enriched with essential vitamins and minerals as well as amino acids.These nutrients might be delivered in the form of skimmed milk, protein isolates like whey and casein, vegetable oil, and egg products. Puppies under one month old need approximately 3.5 to 3.75 calories per ounce of their body weight every day. Following this rule, a 6-ounce puppy needs about 22.5 calories every 24 hours. Most puppy milk replacers supply 1 calorie per ml, so for this 6-ounce puppy, the 22.5 calories can be divided between the recommended 6 feeds. This pup would need approximately 3.75 ml of milk in each feed. But how do you feed the puppy this milk?
While it might seem natural to turn your puppy onto their back like a newborn baby, this position is unnatural for puppies. Your newborn puppy would lie on their belly to nurse from their mother, so you’ll need to simulate this position when you bottle-feed them. Wrap the puppy in a warm towel and lay them on their stomach. Press the syringe gently into the corner of the pup’s mouth and squirt a small amount of milk replacer inside. Never squirt the milk directly down their throat as this can cause them to aspirate it. Between squirts, allow the puppy time to swallow.
To continue part 2 .........
1. WEANING
2. INTRODUCING SOLID FOOD
3. SUBJECTING YOUR PUPPY TO 3 MEALS A DAY
