WHY or WHY do all girls decide to have thier puppies in the middle of the night!! Can be in labor for two day but have to start delivery at Midnight. All went well but of course going on three days of no sleep.

It's like people who get the stomach flu, it always seems to happen at night time when you are the most exhausted. I believe bitches purposely wait until night time to whelp pups because it is when the house is the most quiet. In 13 yrs of whelping litters, I think we have only had 1 girl who whelped her pups during the early afternoon, all the other girls waited until 10:00 pm to start nesting and kept me up for 2 days worrying about when oh when will the first puppy come.

Yep same here... always at night! Ugh. On the rare occasion that we do get a daytime whelping, it is only after staying up all night "thinking" you are going to be whelping then so you are absolutely exhausted anyway. LOL.

We used to raise pigs and they are the same way. The saying was that a sow's gestation was three months, three weeks, three days... and three o'clock in the morning! We always fed our pigs first thing in the morning when we did all the other chores but an old timer taught us that if we fed the sows after 1:00 in the afternoon instead, it would switch everything up. Sure enough, we started farrowing our piglets in the late afternoon after that! I wonder if the same would work for dogs... like you could ever convince a lab to wait until the afternoon to eat!! LOL.

The call of the wild for that quiet dark den to whelp their puppies.

Much has to do with barometric pressure and weather conditions.

I guess I'm strange, most of my litters have been whelped day-time. (Don't shoot me haha). I was awake expecting a pup for quite a long time, usually overnight anyway. Either way, we're awake and waiting, be the whelping day or night. For ER purposes, I prefer daytime.

It's usually over 3 days from the start until I finally fall asleep next to Mum and her litter on single size, blow-up mattressess.

I thiink some of you will agree.

It is very instinctive, it goes back 100's of years, just like in the wild. Animals whelp at night in darkness, safely in a den preferably underground to fill safe. Eat all afterbirth to leave no scent trail to give them or there offspring away. Afterbirth may be the only nutrition for days, as they will usually not leave offspring for days. It all about survival.

OK next litter before they are due I am going to have the house of darkness so maybe they will whelp during the day...lol
Last litter we had it was my dream litter 3 days before time to whelp no signs of labor we had been doing our walks morning and night temp had not drop I left for 45 min.1:00 in the afternoon came home 5 puppies already here and had 6 more no more than 30 mins apart finished before dinner all healthy and happy. Wow that was wonderfull and we were Lucky. Wish they were all like that..

Oh Judy! I'll take one of those whelpings please!!!

Because that's when we get tired and leave them alone for a while!

Actually, I heard a theory about that a long time ago. Supposedly, if you breed during the day, they will whelp at night and vice versa. I usually don't have time to assist in any breedings until late evening anyway. My puppies are usually born during the daytime. When I send my girls off to be bred, they usually end up whelping in the middle of the night. I find it very interesting.

about a week before the due date I start staying up into the wee hours, napping during the day in the afternoon. It seems to help after the whelp when I end up in that sleep pattern of constant napping, no real sleep for 3 weeks.