My female is pregnant and I need to know if there are any differences in feeding the raw diet to a pregnant bitch. I want to do what’s best for her and her puppies.

 Excited in Anticipation

 Dear Excited,

Congratulations on your upcoming litter.

The best model I have seen for feeding pregnant bitches is outlined in Ian Billinghurst, Grow Your Puppies With Bones. Here is my way of doing this.

First of all, you don’t want to increase the fat content; you want to increase the nutrients, all the nutrients, in the diet.

For the first half of the pregnancy, the bitch eats the same amount as normal for her.  Around the half way mark, you gradually increase the quantity of food.  Around the sixth week, you cut the portions in size (as the puppies grow, she has less internal room to cope with food at one time) and increase the number of meals to three and then four a day. The increases are gradual but by the eighth week, she is getting about 1 1/2 the quantity that she got before she was pregnant in four meals a day.

To increase nutrient density: gradually decrease quantity of raw meaty bones like wings and necks and increase the following foods: muscle meat, eggs, heart, liver, kidneys, brains, etc. These are all packed with nutrients that are important to growth. If you still feed a BARF type of mush, reduce the veggies and fruit substantially and make the mush primarily with meat, eggs, heart, liver, kidneys, etc. You can add supplements including kelp, vitamin E, multi B and vitamin C. I do not feed cod liver oil when they are pregnant.

Billinghurst says: DO NOT FEED A PREGNANT BITCH INCREASED QUANTITIES OF CALCIUM. Especially during the last third of the pregnancy. Increased calcium can interfere with her milk production and it can lead to serious problems.

During the last week, the puppies do not grow much in weight but they do a lot of finishing. During last week of pregnancy, the bitch will want less to eat, so during this week, gradually reduce the total amount of food so that by the time she whelps, she is getting about half what she was getting during the preceeding week. Also increase the quantity of veggies and furit and almost totally eliminate the bones and reduce the meat and offal to make a slightly laxative diet. This helps her to clear all bowels out of her system so that the puppies coming down the birth canal are not competing with intestines packed with hard feces.

Some bitches don't eat the last day or two, and most will only eat about 1/4 of what they got the previous week. At the end and for the first few days the puppies are on the ground, she will draw on her inner reserves of nutrients.

Do let the bitch eat the placentas: perfectly normal. Yes, it may give her very loose stools, but that won't hurt her at all.

Once she starts eating after the puppies are on the ground, you can give her more calcium. Do not do this with supplements. Use the recipe that Billinghurst gives for a milky treat twice a day (you can make it with 1 cup of whole milk, one teaspoon of real raw honey, one or two teaspoons of flax seed oil, one raw egg and mix it all together in the blender; usually if they are being fussy about eating, they will drink this, and it seems to help stimulate their appetite).

Sometimes they are off their feed for several days. You might want to use a mush made of ground raw meaty bones. Once she is feeding her puppies, she needs wings, necks, carcasses, and these can all be ground to make sure she is getting enough if she doesn't want to eat bones herself.

The bitch also needs a lot of fluid after the puppies are born. She needs the fluid to help make lots of milk. So in addition to the milk recipe, give water, and if necessary, flavor the water with anything you can think of to get her to drink lots of it (meat flavoring, homemade meat soup broths, etc.).

Jubilee