What Should You Feed a Pregnant Dog?

It’s Simple to Produce Tiny Carnivores

Raw feeding a dog that is pregnant is easy. Just give her more of everything. It’s making miniatures, and they need the same supplies as their mother. So give her more bone-in meat, muscle meat, and organ meats.

There are many different types of meat for dogs to eat, including muscle meat, cartilage, and fresh bones. Organ meats are also suitable for them and should make up about 10-15% of their diet. It is important to include variety in what you feed them because different body parts provide other things like muscles or bones.

What To Feed a Pregnant Dog at Different Stages of Pregnancy

At the beginning of the pregnancy, nothing much will change in your diet. You might want to eat more food high in folic acid (heart muscles).

Week 5: Increase the Quantity

Increase her meal intake by 20-30%.

Week 6: Increase Fat, Decrease Bone

A puppy’s belly will shrink as it grows. You must decrease the size of its food and increase how often it eats. Watch what it does and if it is hungry or not.

When the puppy is a bit older, you can start adding more fat to her diet by choosing red meat instead of white meat, including more beef.

Week 8-9

The food amount should be about 50% more as the baby grows. In week 8 of pregnancy, the food content is low because there is little bone.

Week 9

This is the last week. You will see that your dog will eat less food. So, start to reduce the amount of food you give them. There is a day or two before your dog goes into labor. They may not want to eat anything at all. Don’t worry, and don’t force them to eat anything. Read this article to know more about when your dog is going into labor.

Eating Post Birth

Once your dog begins to eat again, you can give it calcium. Often, dogs do not eat bones, so you might need to change the meat to minced meat with bone in it. You can also give it a wing, a chicken back, or a neck, which will help produce milk naturally. Don’t forget to put in lots of water.

Less Bone Before Birth but More After

Calcium is a mineral found in bones. The parathyroid gland takes calcium from the bones before birth to aid in the formation of your new puppy’s skeleton. It also helps increase the contractibility of the heart and uterus wall. Birth control (oxytocin) works with calcium and parathyroid to control contractions. If you feed too much calcium, parathyroid can go on vacation when you need it to work during labor.

Do take note

To keep the mother from having seizures after birth, you’ll need to feed her a lot of calcium.

Nursing

After your dog has her puppies, she will need to eat more. She will have 8-12 to take care of; sometimes, it can be more than 12. So she needs to eat good food to grow upright and strong. If the mom eats terrible food, her puppies might not grow properly, and she might die. This is most likely during the first four weeks of nursing: before the milk comes out or after it stops coming out.

Here’s what you can do :

Change your dog’s food to exceptional puppy food with the right mix of proteins and fats. If your dog has eight or more pups, ensure they get enough weight by weighing them. If some of the pups are not gaining enough weight, you will have to feed them with a bottle each day.

She may want to eat more if you’re giving your dog food in small portions. This is true for any dog, though it might be especially true if you don’t like the food. It’s essential to make sure that she can take in enough calories. Feed her 3 cups of food each day before breeding and 2 cups after breeding.

Potential Problems

Diarrhea

If your dog has diarrhea while nursing her puppies, it could mean that she eats a lot of food to get the nutrients for her puppies. It might be because the food she eats isn’t digestible, so she has to eat more, and later on, her intestines will push out what was left.

You can feed your dog more icky food, and they will still be happy. If you have a lot of puppies, you can provide them with dry puppy food or active dog food with 30% protein and 20% fat or wet food with at least 7% protein and 5% fat.

Eclampsia

A problem called eclampsia can affect dogs. Signs of this are muscle spasms, seizure-like activity, and stiffness of muscles. Dogs with this problem might have low serum calcium or blood glucose, or magnesium levels in their blood. The mother dog should eat food with calcium and vitamin D supplements for the next 24 hours. The puppies should be taken away from her for at least another 24 hours to ensure they do not become ill.

Examples of Good Quality Puppy Foods