I have tried just about everything on the market, and what I use now is getting outstanding results. I DO NOT feed straight DCP, as it is only used because it is cheap, in fact I was using this with Livamol - 75 Kgs of each a month and it was costing me almost Aus$300 a month for 100 dogs.

I have been using a VERY high quality preparation called RapidVite Amino-Cal Plus+B-GB for the last 18 months. All the dogs on my farm get this every day - 7gms mixed in their feed. They get nothing else but Fatty Beef & Wholemeal Bread, and sometimes, cooked vegies.

Since using RapidVite my average litter size is 9.8 pups at whelping for the last 15 litters ... a long way above the Oz Industry average of about 6.5 pups per litter.

The only thing I've changed in the last 3 years is to throw all the other rubbish out, and use RapidVite Amino-Cal Plus+B-GB I am 100% convinced that it contains something that increases fertility in the bitches.

When your bitch comes in season treat her with a good quality wormer, and get your Vet to check her for Vaginal infections. A culture/sensitivity test is advised.

Get her to the Stud master/dog at least by the 8th day. Don't leave it till you think she's ready. If she has to go interstate, you may have to send her earlier, ask the Studmaster, he wont mind, trust me. When sending bitches remote Stud dog Ive dispatched them as early as the 5th day, this means faxing the Veterinary Culture-sensitivity test results to the studmaster, and he then will administer any Antibiotics required.

2. PREPARING HER TO WHELP
Continue feeding her as you have been, for 6 to 7 weeks, then increase her food by about 25% around 14 days before whelping. Start to split her meal into a morning and evening feed, to save her being uncomfortable ... there's not much room for 2 or 3 kgs of food, with a gut full of puppies.

She should be wormed at about 4 weeks into the pregnancy, and about 2 weeks before whelping. Your Vet may recommend a Vaccination at this time also.

She will stop eating her food about 12 to 20 hours before she whelps. Make sure she has plenty clean newspaper to tear up, otherwise she will chew on the whelping box, walls, door jambs etc ... she can get quite destructive. DON'T panic ... this could last for several hours at least, prior to the first pup. There will be a lot of panting, pacing and paper tearing. This is quite normal ... so don' panic.

As soon as the first pup is born, she will settle down to the job. The only time to panic is if she is pushing to move a pup for more than 3 hours, in which case it's off to the Vet you go, as a pup is probably stuck.

Give her a cup of milk or watery milk a few times while whelping. To help with contractions, I inject 2ml of Calcium Gluconate into the thigh muscle after each pup is born - 10 mls in total over the whelping ... ask your Vet about this.

The pups should all be born in 8 to 15 hours, but could go 24 hours. I've had 10 pups born in 5 hours, and then again I've also had 6 born over 24 hours. When it looks like she's done, get a lead on her and take her for a short walk on clean ground, to allow her to empty. She won't want to leave the pups, so you will have to put the collar on and force her to get up.

Clean the whelping area up, replace the bloodied paper, and then tack a piece of carpet on the floor, so the pups are warm underneath. This also gives the pup's a surface to grip on while suckling. Make sure the kennel is comfortably warm, with a bag or drape of some sort over the entrance. A 100 watt light bulb fixed on the wall, about 6 feet above the floor is all I use for heat ' this in a closed kennel 4 ft x 4 ft and 8 ft high, with a full length drape on the entrance.

Don't try to feed the bitch, she will eat OK the next day. Just give her some Milk and water with electrolytes the first night. Plenty of fluids will aid in getting the milk flowing I give as much as a 2 litres a day for the first 2 day's.

If she won' eat the next day after whelping, cook up some Chicken or even stew up some Lamb Shank's and try that.

3. AFTER WHELPING
All you have to do for the first 2 weeks is Feed the bitch ... and feed her a lot. A bitch with 8 puppies needs about 2 to 3 kgs of Lean High Quality Beef, balanced with Bread/kibble, and RapidVite, again balanced to the amount of food - Probably as much as 20gms of RapidVite a day. She won't need this amount of food and additives until about the 5th day or so.

Just make sure she keeps her pin bones covered.

I worm the puppies at 14 day's, with Canex Suspension -1ml/pup - and trim their nails on their front feet. Use a white marker as you do them, so you know which are done. This is to stop scratching of the mother's titties, often a reason why the bitch will wean the pup's early - it probably hurts like hell to have ten ravenous pup's chomping on your jug's 24 hours a day, let alone scratching hell out of them as well!

IMPORTANT - Repeat worming and nails at 4 weeks of age.

I introduce them to solid food by 4 weeks of age. I simply put a handful of their mothers feed in a shallow dish and push their noses in it ' but the beef must be fine minced though. They don't eat the first time, but by the 2nd or 3rd time they love it.

I don't feed milk of any sort to puppies, NOT EVEN COLOSTRUM - which is a new fad - if they were meant to get extra milk, bitches would have cows udders... PLUS cows milk has very little Calcium in it compared to Dogs Milk.

I completely eliminated pup sicknesses when I stopped feeding milk about 8 years ago.

The pups get the same feed as their mother, 2 to 3 times a day, from when they are 3 or 4 weeks old. Be sure there's no fat in their diet till about 9 or 10 weeks old, as fat seems to upset them at times.

By the time they are 3 months old they are eating almost as much per day, as an adult dog. They are fed 2 to 3 times a day till 3 months, then 2 times a day till 4 months, then once a day.

They should be wormed every 2 weeks until 8 weeks, then at 12 weeks and every 6 to 8 weeks after that. Trim their nails every time you worm up to weaning - at about 6 to 8 weeks, depending on the bitch. Once they are out in the yard, digging, running etc, their nails should stay short.

Don't worry if their mother appears to be beating on the pups from about 5 weeks, she is just weaning them, I can guarantee she is not hurting them, no matter how much screaming you may hear.

I leave the bitch in with the pups to at least 3 months old. She will teach them a lot (including how to dig holes), and get them running around the yard etc.

Give them some Meaty beef bones to chew on from about 8 weeks. It will help prevent stomach upsets at this critical time of weaning... and breaking adult teeth at about 4 months old.

It is between the age of 6 and 9 weeks that most people lose puppies. They will go off their food, then start to scour ... stop feeding them, just give electrolytes in water, and plenty of it. Change the water every day, as they will be vomiting in it etc. Keep them warm. If their temp rises, get to the Vet.

I give them Injectible Amoxil, under the skin, as soon as a pup is off colour, and have only lost 2 pups at this age (6 to 9 week's) from about 270 whelped in the last 4 years. It's no good giving tablets as they vomit them up.
See your Vet for advice on this.

I vaccinate the pup's with Canvac C3 at 8 weeks and Protec P4 at 12 to 14 weeks.

If you follow this advice, you should not have too much trouble in breeding and rearing a healthy litter of puppies

I have tried just about everything on the market, and what I use now is getting outstanding results. I DO NOT feed straight DCP, as it is only used because it is cheap, in fact I was using this with Livamol - 75 Kgs of each a month and it was costing me almost Aus$300 a month for 100 dogs.

I have been using a VERY high quality preparation called RapidVite Amino-Cal Plus+B-GB for the last 18 months. All the dogs on my farm get this every day - 7gms mixed in their feed. They get nothing else but Fatty Beef & Wholemeal Bread, and sometimes, cooked vegies.

Since using RapidVite my average litter size is 9.8 pups at whelping for the last 15 litters ... a long way above the Oz Industry average of about 6.5 pups per litter.

The only thing I've changed in the last 3 years is to throw all the other rubbish out, and use RapidVite Amino-Cal Plus+B-GB I am 100% convinced that it contains something that increases fertility in the bitches.

When your bitch comes in season treat her with a good quality wormer, and get your Vet to check her for Vaginal infections. A culture/sensitivity test is advised.

Get her to the Stud master/dog at least by the 8th day. Don't leave it till you think she's ready. If she has to go interstate, you may have to send her earlier, ask the Studmaster, he wont mind, trust me. When sending bitches remote Stud dog Ive dispatched them as early as the 5th day, this means faxing the Veterinary Culture-sensitivity test results to the studmaster, and he then will administer any Antibiotics required.

2. PREPARING HER TO WHELP
Continue feeding her as you have been, for 6 to 7 weeks, then increase her food by about 25% around 14 days before whelping. Start to split her meal into a morning and evening feed, to save her being uncomfortable ... there's not much room for 2 or 3 kgs of food, with a gut full of puppies.

She should be wormed at about 4 weeks into the pregnancy, and about 2 weeks before whelping. Your Vet may recommend a Vaccination at this time also.

She will stop eating her food about 12 to 20 hours before she whelps. Make sure she has plenty clean newspaper to tear up, otherwise she will chew on the whelping box, walls, door jambs etc ... she can get quite destructive. DON'T panic ... this could last for several hours at least, prior to the first pup. There will be a lot of panting, pacing and paper tearing. This is quite normal ... so don' panic.

As soon as the first pup is born, she will settle down to the job. The only time to panic is if she is pushing to move a pup for more than 3 hours, in which case it's off to the Vet you go, as a pup is probably stuck.

Give her a cup of milk or watery milk a few times while whelping. To help with contractions, I inject 2ml of Calcium Gluconate into the thigh muscle after each pup is born - 10 mls in total over the whelping ... ask your Vet about this.

The pups should all be born in 8 to 15 hours, but could go 24 hours. I've had 10 pups born in 5 hours, and then again I've also had 6 born over 24 hours. When it looks like she's done, get a lead on her and take her for a short walk on clean ground, to allow her to empty. She won't want to leave the pups, so you will have to put the collar on and force her to get up.

Clean the whelping area up, replace the bloodied paper, and then tack a piece of carpet on the floor, so the pups are warm underneath. This also gives the pup's a surface to grip on while suckling. Make sure the kennel is comfortably warm, with a bag or drape of some sort over the entrance. A 100 watt light bulb fixed on the wall, about 6 feet above the floor is all I use for heat ' this in a closed kennel 4 ft x 4 ft and 8 ft high, with a full length drape on the entrance.

Don't try to feed the bitch, she will eat OK the next day. Just give her some Milk and water with electrolytes the first night. Plenty of fluids will aid in getting the milk flowing I give as much as a 2 litres a day for the first 2 day's.

If she won' eat the next day after whelping, cook up some Chicken or even stew up some Lamb Shank's and try that.

3. AFTER WHELPING
All you have to do for the first 2 weeks is Feed the bitch ... and feed her a lot. A bitch with 8 puppies needs about 2 to 3 kgs of Lean High Quality Beef, balanced with Bread/kibble, and RapidVite, again balanced to the amount of food - Probably as much as 20gms of RapidVite a day. She won't need this amount of food and additives until about the 5th day or so.

Just make sure she keeps her pin bones covered.

I worm the puppies at 14 day's, with Canex Suspension -1ml/pup - and trim their nails on their front feet. Use a white marker as you do them, so you know which are done. This is to stop scratching of the mother's titties, often a reason why the bitch will wean the pup's early - it probably hurts like hell to have ten ravenous pup's chomping on your jug's 24 hours a day, let alone scratching hell out of them as well!

IMPORTANT - Repeat worming and nails at 4 weeks of age.

I introduce them to solid food by 4 weeks of age. I simply put a handful of their mothers feed in a shallow dish and push their noses in it ' but the beef must be fine minced though. They don't eat the first time, but by the 2nd or 3rd time they love it.

I don't feed milk of any sort to puppies, NOT EVEN COLOSTRUM - which is a new fad - if they were meant to get extra milk, bitches would have cows udders... PLUS cows milk has very little Calcium in it compared to Dogs Milk.

I completely eliminated pup sicknesses when I stopped feeding milk about 8 years ago.

The pups get the same feed as their mother, 2 to 3 times a day, from when they are 3 or 4 weeks old. Be sure there's no fat in their diet till about 9 or 10 weeks old, as fat seems to upset them at times.

By the time they are 3 months old they are eating almost as much per day, as an adult dog. They are fed 2 to 3 times a day till 3 months, then 2 times a day till 4 months, then once a day.

They should be wormed every 2 weeks until 8 weeks, then at 12 weeks and every 6 to 8 weeks after that. Trim their nails every time you worm up to weaning - at about 6 to 8 weeks, depending on the bitch. Once they are out in the yard, digging, running etc, their nails should stay short.

Don't worry if their mother appears to be beating on the pups from about 5 weeks, she is just weaning them, I can guarantee she is not hurting them, no matter how much screaming you may hear.

I leave the bitch in with the pups to at least 3 months old. She will teach them a lot (including how to dig holes), and get them running around the yard etc.

Give them some Meaty beef bones to chew on from about 8 weeks. It will help prevent stomach upsets at this critical time of weaning... and breaking adult teeth at about 4 months old.

It is between the age of 6 and 9 weeks that most people lose puppies. They will go off their food, then start to scour ... stop feeding them, just give electrolytes in water, and plenty of it. Change the water every day, as they will be vomiting in it etc. Keep them warm. If their temp rises, get to the Vet.

I give them Injectible Amoxil, under the skin, as soon as a pup is off colour, and have only lost 2 pups at this age (6 to 9 week's) from about 270 whelped in the last 4 years. It's no good giving tablets as they vomit them up.
See your Vet for advice on this.

I vaccinate the pup's with Canvac C3 at 8 weeks and Protec P4 at 12 to 14 weeks.

If you follow this advice, you should not have too much trouble in breeding and rearing a healthy litter of puppies