Nursing puppy with a surrogate mom

[Crookedcreekranch]

Hey fellow breeders have a question.

I have two brand new litters born 2 days apart- one of 8 pups(1/15) and one of 10 pups(1/13)-yes two good size litters!

Both bitches are experienced and good mothers. The question I have is the one with the 10 is a more "restless" mom she doesn't just lounge in the whelping box letting the pups snack at random or at will. I often times (as with her two prior litters) have to sit beside her and say "Stay" and she eventually settles in, but not if I get up and leave her ( which gets old fast) So when she does feed the "herd" all charges at once and 10 pups is alot to feed at one time. I have taken some out (this upsets her) to feed separately, also I supplement the smaller ones while she is nursing with the Leerburg goat milk formula using a bottle. They are all gaining weight and not really any major problem I will add. So I am being overly cautious probably.

Now the other mom with 8 is more mellow, or tolerant and lounges with the puppies, I rarely hear them protest and they are plump and "all is right with their world" content and peaceful, scattered about their mom sleeping. The were big puppies at birth born at 58 days.
Now I have taken one puppy (from the litter of 10) at a time and given the mellow mom that pup to nurse and she immediately took it in and nursed it with no problem.

Question is should I just leave 1-2 puppies with the mellow mom full time instead of bringing them back and forth(from the mom with 10 pups) , in essence letting her just take over a couple puppies into her litter until they are old enough to begin eating solids? She can easily handle the additional puppies and is more than willing to care for them so no worries there.

The two moms are not near each other and I would not ever place them near each other of course.

Any thoughts?

[angelaw]

I personally wouldn't leave a pup with another mother, only under supervision. I've had friends that did the "surrogate" thought everything was going well, surrogate pup was dead the next day.

[WVGSD]

I second Angela's caution. A friend of mine put a puppy from one litter in with a second nursing bitch and all looked good. The puppy was killed by the surrogate mother during the night. The outward appearances were good and the puppy was still killed.

Shannon

[shepherdbydesign]

A year ago last december I had a litter of 4 and a breeder friend had a litter 2 days later and her bitch didn't have mailk so she brought them over and our Cira which is a very mellow mom accepted them as her own.

Like Angela said be careful. Each mom is different