Need help with newborn puppy (not cattle related)

[Simmymom1]

Okay, here is the deal....This is the 4th litter my Blue Heeler has had, we breed her to our Red Heeler.  She had 9 puppies on Friday morning.  There were two that were born very small.  One was very "greenish" looking where the white color should be, he died on Saturday.  Now this little female is having some problems.  She is about 3/4 of the size of the other puppies, they are fat and healthy looking, she is skinny and weak.  I bought some formula from the vet and have been trying to bottle feed her.  I also try to remove the other puppies and put her up to the momma and let her nurse.  She can't even make it to the nipple.  You have to put her mouth right on the nipple and then she will start sucking.  She will suck, and then she runs out of energy and she stops.  I have noticed she was also born with a cleft pallet which I don't know if that is part of the problem.  I brought her up to work with me today because she looks so bad.  She is very weak and keeps making these very helpless sounds.  Is there anything else I can do, or is she just deemed to die?  Thanks for ya'lls help.  Lisa

 

[inthebarnagain]

Not trying to be callous but usually a puppy born small like that is deemed to die.  The cleft palate would be the straw that breaks the camels back.

 

[jason]

Yea, tough to say without seeing it.  I would wait it out just a bit, I have seen dramatic turnarounds when it looks like all is lost.

 

[vc]

Not sure but I know we had a litter of 11 chocolate labs, all but one had cleft pallets, we ended up with 1 pup. I usually use the 3 day rule, if they make it 3 days they have a shot at making it. Any internal problems will have take their coarse withen the first 3 days.
Keep trying to feed it and just cross your fingers.

 

[renegade]

We had that same problem this year. We have a breeding pair of pure bred blue heelers. We dont really set out to breed them - just if it happens. We usually get a litter a year and the dog has them on our back porch and she and the pups stay inside until they are sold. She has had from 6- 11 pups and has never lost one - until this last litter. She lost one male shortly after it was born and another (female) about two or three days later after I spent a lot of time trying to get her to eat and stuff. At times she seemed like she was doing ok and then all of a sudden she would be bad again. Idk we just kinda stunned because we had never lost a pup. The two that died were pretty small and there was only i think seven before those two died. We have had two other runts that did fine so who knows.  :'(

 

[Bawndoh]

Dont want to be a bummer, but usually those ones dont make it long out in the wild...aka...real doggy world.  Maybe it was basically not meant to be.  Poor baby though.... (angel)