Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Hello everyone. I am trying to get some info on what type of things you guys feed or supplement to improve your pregnant female & her puppies. Things that would improve the health of your future pups & their development.

Thanks,
Troy

www.titanbulldogs.com

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

All dogs need to be fed a high quality diet and a pregnant bitch is no exception. If you have her own a quality food, then there is no reason for supplements. Some quality foods have "all stages" foods meaning there is one formula for all dogs fanging from puppies to seniors. And this is perfectly ok. Other quality foods do have their formulas broken down by life stage (i.e. puppy, adult, adult high performance, senior, weight control, i.e.) & in that case I'm all for feeding a pregnant bitch puppy food.

When the puppies are born, feed them the same food but moistened with warm water to make a mush.

Again, if fed a quality food, there is no need for supplements. It bothers me when people want to "ehance development" or stuff like that as there is no need.....nature is good at it's job & knows what it is doing.

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Great post Mia.

I like to really feed a pregnant female, expecially if I know she has a lot of pups in her litters, she is going to need it when she starts feeding those buggers.

For wheening pups I like to add Puppy Milk Replacement to the dry food and make a mush like Mia said. I find that adding the Milk Replacement for a couple weeks and during this time and slowly decreasing it so by the end you are using just water works great.
I do the opposite when switching the pups to straight dry I slowly decrease the amount of water added to the dry food. So usually by 10-12 wks they are eating a good quality dry food with no water added.

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

As Miakoda stated, there's absolutely no need to supplement the bitch's diet if she's given high-quality food (eg Canidae, Wellness, Nat. Choice, etc.). In fact, I don't recommend it at all as it can throw off the nutritional balance of their diet... There are necessary vitamins/minerals that a dog/pup can overdose on, causing a variety of subtle or not-so-subtle health problems. The high-quality dog food brands have a well-researched, balanced diet

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

We have the pups on dry kibble by 4-5 weeks of age. While the bitch is feeding the pups, we give calcium tabs to her, and of course let her eat as much as she wants. I guess if I had one that went to eating an ungodly amount of feed I would back her up, but have never run into that. Usually the eat what is needed.
I also dont start letting them eat more until they are one month into the pregnancy. If you really fatten up the bitch before the pups come, the pups will be fatter, which means more strain on them and the mother while whelping. A small pup at birth will fatten up shortly. It is amazing how much one feeding does for them.

As someone else said, if you go to really suplimenting the diet, it is very easy to get out of whack and do more harm than good. So if you give anything extra, it would be best to get something already blended, so they already did the math. Seems like the vet sales something, pet tabs? Anyway, something like that.
Good luck.
J

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

I totally understand concerning the high quality kibble which is what I have used for years with my females but I have heard some outstanding things from people feeding the RAW prey model diet, kibble & also supplementing with salmon oil. I guess I was really wanting to know if any of you supplement any raw meat & bones to your females or if you have tried anything like the salmon oil. I should have been a little clearer...LOL I had heard that there are several pit owners who have great success with the raw. Thanks again for all of your inputs & future inputs..

www.titanbulldogs.com

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Salmon Oil, in my opinion, wouldn't usually be necessary in a RAW diet. Especially if the said dog has good genetics for skin/coat. E.G. My friend Sheila feeds RAW to her flat-coated retrievers... doesn't supplement the diet. They look gorgeous and usually take breed in conformation shows.

It's another product I'd give caution for using since it is not water soluble as, say, vitamin c: it is extremely hard for the body to get rid of excess salmon oil.

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Depends on what you feed. If you can supply your dog with wild caught foods then you're correct, it isn't necessary. However, if you feed commercially raised meats then it usually is beneficial to supplement with O3. Commercially raised meat is very high in O6 and low in O3.

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Oh, see I'm used to the wild RAW. Thank you, that's interesting to me... I don't want to seem like I was pulling info out of my a$$

 

Re: Feeding a Pregnant Female (Feeds & Supplements)

Buy stuff from these guys http://getcni.com/, I know that tom Garner works with them and they have stuff for pregnant dogs, but it is expensive, if you can afford it go for it.

Here's a quick link of a product for Nursing Bitches http://getcni.com/crel-615/product_info.php?&products_id=44