Hand raising pups..

When Snowy died and left us 7 pups to care for,
the task seemed more than daunting.
And, in all honesty, IT IS DAUNTING AND TIRING!
We did not have high expectations that the pups would survive but did know we would give it a good try.
Ten days in things are still looking good.

Thanks to alot of people who gave me advise and sent me encouraging emails,
we seem to have our act and routine in place now.

The first few days we had the pups on a puppy milk replacer.
The pups seemed to be slightly constipated even though we were doing belly rubs to stimulate the pups to "do their business".

I now have the pups on a homemade  formula.

Since their birth the pups have mostly tripled their birth weight and seem to be right on schedule with their growth.

The formula I am using is:

 10 oz Goats milk
(or tinned evaporated milk and some water if, I or rather the supermarket, runs out of goats milk!)
1 cup of plain fat yogurt

1 egg yolk only
1/2 cup of home made beef liver broth
1 tbsp canola oil
1 tsp Karo syrup
pinch of electrolyte salts.

The pups where getting fed every three hours around the clock.
Slowly the times are extending and we are now on a 4 hour routine.
Phew, it is tiring.

Besides, the milk replacer we have also found that we need:

a huge amount of towels

assorted stuffy toys
(This is Tarzan and his tiger..)

puppy absorption pads
(they pee copius amounts)

baby bottles

baby wipes (we have used over 1000 baby wipes in 10 days)

Due to the pups having a very strong suck reflex, we had some delicate issues.
The pups had taken to sucking on the little boys private parts causing them to become seriously swollen and hurt.
One pup developed an abscess due to this.
So, we made a decided to separate the pups to prevent further problems.
Each pup has its own stuffie to sleep with and of course the pups get a lot of cuddles and attention from us.

Edward and Harry

Once the pups start eating from a dish this delicate issue should diminish.

We know that this is not ideal however, we will, as soon as we can, place the pups together.

The pups are now taking over a huge part of the living room.

It helps to have some students and kids to help with the bottles, butt cleaning, burping and cuddling!

Each pup has a name.
We decided to name them after famous orphans:

So we have Annie
Cinderella (Cindy)

Pippi

and the boys are:

Edward (Cullin from the Twilight movies)
Tom (Sawyer)
Tarzan
Harry (Potter)

All the pups are doing great.
I do wish however that they had a mom...