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Have any of you ever had a litter born over three different days, because that is what happened to us last week, providing us with an interesting dilemma about assigning a birth date for the lot of them. While we have had pups spread over two different calendar days with a bitch that whelps beginning in the early evening and continues overnight, and think this is fairly routine, the litter we had last week out of Edith -- Cdn.Ch. Avalolnia Wispa Jesta (Eng.Ch. Nevedith Justa Jesta x Cdn.Ch. Nevedith Wotta Wispa) x Erik -- Fin.Swed.Cdn.Ch. Scheik's Ardbeg Avalonia (Cdn.Fin.Nor.World Ch. Avalolnia Wheatfield Waving x Int.Fin.Swed.Dk.Ch. Scheik's Royal Choice) unfolded as follows:
On November 15 Edith went into labour in the early evening before delivering her first pup, a male, at 5 minutes past 11. Then there was nothing more till 3 a.m. on November 16th when number 2, a bitch arrived. A third pup, another dog, arrived at 6 a.m. and then there was a further three hour delay and then the two "final" pups - one dog, one bitch - were born between 9 and 10 a.m. All was well, Mom seemed normal and we concluded the whelping was finished and made our appointment with the vet for dewclaws and a first health inspection for the 5.
At midnight on the 16th I checked mom and the pups in their whelping box in the bedroom beside mine before heading off to bed after a very long day. She and the pups were fine. Because I always fret when new pups are born, and Mom had spent the day wrapping the pups up in blankets sometimes making them inaccessible for nursing, I slept fitfully. I got up at 3 a.m. and went in to check that they were all fine and discovered the blankets again balled up. I unrolled the blankets to find the five pups perfectly fine, and what was clearly a brand new black and white number six (female) in the final fold. She had been born sometime between midnight and 3 a.m. on November 17, resulting in a litter born over three days.
We plan to register the birthdate as the date on which the majority of the pups were born -- the 16th -- but I was quite astonished by the lengthy, untroubled whelping time -- at no time was Edith ever in distress -- and so I queried my vet when I brought Mom and the pups in to see him. He confirmed that whelpings reallly can go 25 or 26 hours without problems to either the pups or mum and noted the fortuitous timing of our litter which ended up producing 6 healthy pups born on three separate days. Strange huh?
Lanny Morry
Avalonia Whippets, Canada
On November 15 Edith went into labour in the early evening before delivering her first pup, a male, at 5 minutes past 11. Then there was nothing more till 3 a.m. on November 16th when number 2, a bitch arrived. A third pup, another dog, arrived at 6 a.m. and then there was a further three hour delay and then the two "final" pups - one dog, one bitch - were born between 9 and 10 a.m. All was well, Mom seemed normal and we concluded the whelping was finished and made our appointment with the vet for dewclaws and a first health inspection for the 5.
At midnight on the 16th I checked mom and the pups in their whelping box in the bedroom beside mine before heading off to bed after a very long day. She and the pups were fine. Because I always fret when new pups are born, and Mom had spent the day wrapping the pups up in blankets sometimes making them inaccessible for nursing, I slept fitfully. I got up at 3 a.m. and went in to check that they were all fine and discovered the blankets again balled up. I unrolled the blankets to find the five pups perfectly fine, and what was clearly a brand new black and white number six (female) in the final fold. She had been born sometime between midnight and 3 a.m. on November 17, resulting in a litter born over three days.
We plan to register the birthdate as the date on which the majority of the pups were born -- the 16th -- but I was quite astonished by the lengthy, untroubled whelping time -- at no time was Edith ever in distress -- and so I queried my vet when I brought Mom and the pups in to see him. He confirmed that whelpings reallly can go 25 or 26 hours without problems to either the pups or mum and noted the fortuitous timing of our litter which ended up producing 6 healthy pups born on three separate days. Strange huh?
Lanny Morry
Avalonia Whippets, Canada
