Older bitch was bred over a period of a week every other day. She has a history of being difficult to time and catch so went to stud dog after she had LH surge. Ultrasound now shows 4 pups. 1 pup is huge and the other 3 much, much smaller. Has this ever happened to anyone and what was the outcome?

Worry about larger pup being ready to be born much sooner and either triggering labor when others are not ready or big pup does not trigger labor and then dies as placenta detriorates while others are still "baking"?

Plan is to ultrasound in a week to see if there is still a big difference in size.

Suggestions?

What did your vet say?

Vet is not a repro guy. Does not know what to think but agrees with repeating ultrasound.

So what would some you long time breeders do in this situation?

Years ago I had a two pup litter with one puppy being ginormous. I sometimes think you get these giant puppies inside a uterus that has plenty of room (small litter). Then again I had a friend that had a perfectly normal large litter of puppies with one giant that required a C to remove. I'm not sure that different conception times are the complete answer to why some puppies get so big inside, but I would certainly repeat the ultrasound and try to determine whether or not that puppy should be delivered vaginally.

Judging from the day(age) they were ultrasounded, did your vet feel the one was too large, or were the others too small?
I have seen ultrasounds of litters that were smaller than they should have been for that age. When we redid the ultrasound the next week, they were gone as she had been in the process of reabsorbing.
Hope you find all is normal next week.
Julia

I have had a couple that looked smaller and they did resorb, as Julia has said. I have had litters that when done on day proposed by vet (not sure if that was day 28 or not) and they were large, but all 5 pups were large for the day. This bitch is always ready to deliver on day 60-61 .

Many, many years ago I had a litter with two puppies - one huge and the other small. My vet said to wait until she started into labor and then do a C-section, as he wanted to get the smaller puppy out with as little trama as possible while doing right by the bigger puppy.

As with the others, the small puppy was being reabsorbed. The large puppy was fine.

Good luck with your litter.

JanisG

Hi.. there's nothing you can do but hope for the best. You won't really know until they are born. My average birth weight here regardless of litter size is at least 16oz at birth/many over and up to 21oz at times and I've had some that were only 8 and 9oz at birth. They are so tiny compared to their siblings. Some lived and were fine/some didn't. A fit bitch can indeed push out those big ones even up to 20oz and more. I've never had a singlet birth yet but have had a few 2 pup litters and moms delivered just fine.

I would also like to add that it is such a wide misconception among many about the age of babies due to spread out breedings. A bitch does not conceive pups of different ages if breedings are spaced several days apart....The time of ovulation and then fertilization of the ova, determine the 'age' of the conceptuses, regardless of the number of matings and the number of days between the matings.

Best of everything w/ your pending whelping~

Dr Hutchinson said in one of his seminars smaller puppies have a smaller placenta~larger puppies have larger placentas. I don't know if this has anything to do with the size of the puppies at the time of the ultra sound just remember him saying that and thought I'd pass it on.
Wish you all the best.

I had a bitch once that had 3 puppies, 2 normal sized ones on one side and one really large one on the other. We knew he was a bit larger from the xray done a week or so before, however she had trouble and I brought her to the emergency clinic for a csection, they decided to try to give her Oxytocin to get him out,I didn't find that out till later and I was furious, and he didn't survive. He was a perfectly formed, normal beautiful yellow boy that weighed 2 and 3/4 pounds.