This is not our 1st litter but have not ran into this and hoping someone else has. Puppies not even 1 day old with thick white poop tinged in the normal goldy/yellowy color and lots of it. Bitch has surplus milk even though there are 8 babies. Hoping it might be just overfeeding. Of course, vet not in today but calling first thing Mon am. Thanks for any help.

Consider coccidia. It can be present at birth. Anything other than a normal looking stool is suspect at this age. I doubt if it is the bitches' milk; it's not in yet.

Are the puppies warm enough? If they are not warm enough to digest the milk, it will come out looking like this (sometimes it looks like cottage cheese/curdled milk).

Just a thought.

Good luck!

Dianne Mullikin, EMT-B
Los Angeles, CA

Thanks Diane - that's just what it was looking like, curdled milk. I turned up their heating pads a notch and added a heat lamp. Temps are around 98 degs.

ARGH! You are going to cook those poor puppies! TURN THE HEAT DOWN! You are also going to stress the mom and the pups! Keep it under 80!

I think she meant that the puppy temps are 98 ?

I keep part of the box at about 80 to 84 the first few days. They have a warm pad and a white light (not infrared) and if they get too hot they can move away.

The whelping box should be between 85 and 90 degrees the first five days. An infrared light in one corner works well for me with the box in the house (house temp about 72 degrees). That way the bitch can stay away from the heat and puppies can be close to warm mom or as close to the heat source as they need. Of course, labs being labs it's not long before those little guys start 'complaining' about the heat. I'll raise or lower the light depending on how the babies are acting and after five days they usually don't need the added heat anymore especially if they are in climate controlled indoors.

If I kept my whelping box at 90 degrees my poor bitch would not be able to stay in there with her pups. My girls do so much better at room temperature and snuggle up to their puppies to keep them warmer with their body heat. Anything over 80 degrees and my poor girls pant and dig up the blankets to try to cool down.

Good grief, if I kept my whelping box that hot my puppies would be screaming bloody murder, on day two I have to put a fan on them during the warmer months here! They can also get sick from the heat.
Aloha,
Jackie

The puppies get those white/yellow thick stool when the milk has a high content of fat. It is good news!
Cottage cheese like (Yellow with withe curds) stool is undigested milk. They'll be fine either way.
The puppies can get some diarrhea from it, but i'll pass by itself when their little intestines can handle so much fat. After day 5 they should not have diarrhea, and if they do, it can be coccidia or bacteria. Before day 5 you wont have problems with coccidia.

White poop that looks like Crisco is a bile atresia- no bile being produced for the digestive system. It will either resolve or not. Good luck with it- just support the pup as best you can, make sure he nurses enough. hopefully the liver will jumpstart in the next day or two. The key here is you have some gold tinge to it, which is a good sign.

Do not cook the puppies or mom for that matter. mid to high 70s on the floor of the whelping box is just fine.

Yes, I meant the puppies' temps are around 98 . . not the box. Temp in the box is 78-80. I keep the heat lamp pointed above the top rim of the box to warm the air at the top of the box. With the heating pads and mom warming the air at the bottom, they seem quite content. The curdled milk poop seems to have passed . . thank goodness. They all gained 1 to 1-1/2 ounces since they were born late last night. I truly appreciate everyone's input. Your quick responses were wonderful. TY