Best Whelping Essentials
Is your dog having puppies? After several years of breeding, we have tried it all, and I'm always on the lookout for great products that hold up to multiple washes and make the whole process easier. Here is a list of some of my favorite items.
We used one of these mini pools for years! It worked out great. It's easy to set up when you need it, it's washable and it's big enough for our 55lb girls and her puppies. 4x4ft whelping pads fit prefect in it as well.
Now you might be asking me what a raised garden bed is doing on this list. Well after years of using the pool sitting at #1 we switched to using raised garden beds for our whelping box. The reason we switched is that I wanted to be able to put whelping pads on the ground and have the whelping box sit on top of it to hold it down. It also allowed me to make it taller or shorter by buying multiple garden beds and stacking them. This helped keep larger breed puppies in the box longer.
These whelping pads are 47x47 so they fit PERFECT in the mini pool. They wash great and the fabric is good for absorbing liquid. We have several of these and really like them.
I just love the size of these pads! They are 72x72 and reusable. They wash good and absorb liquids good as well. I like to use these under my whelping area to protect my floor but also really like these for when the puppies are older and move out of the whelping space.
These collars work for a single litter. You won't be able to use them with multiple litters but they work well to help you identify different puppies. It comes along with some records to help keep track of your puppy's information like weights, birth order etc.
This whelping kit comes with a lot of great items. If you are lucky your momma will do everything herself and you won't need most of these items but it's always nice to have on hand, just in case.
Once your puppies are born it's important that you weigh them and record it. For the first 2 weeks, you need to weigh them daily to make sure they are gaining weight as they should. This baby scale works perfect to weigh the puppies.
Now that your puppies are born and you have put on their ID Collar and weighed them you need to keep them warm! As long as puppies are with their mom they should stay warm but sometimes mom needs to go potty or wants a break from the puppies. This heating pad works perfect to keep them warm while mom is away.
We never want to use milk replacer, because that means the puppy is struggling or momma isn't feeding her babies but it is something you should always have on hand just in case. This is a great brand that I have used, and the puppies responded well to it.
These dog pens are a little more expensive but they are the best. Because it's panels you can use as many as you need. We like to put them around our whelping area to keep mom safe and separate from other animals and once the puppies are bigger and need to move out of the whelping area we use these to keep them in a safe space when they aren't with us.
Some people don't use gloves when their girl is whelping but I like to for several reasons. It keeps the environment more sterile. Since I need to pick up the puppies to weigh them and check them over I don't want to unintentionally pass them germs. I also like it because I don't get all the birthing juices on my hands.