Anyone have a first time mother who does NOT want to eat the poop from the babies? She wouldn't do it when they were first born (which is not all uncommon), then she did it sometimes after a week of age and now at 3 weeks on she is not touching any of it nor has she for the past 5 days or so. Pups are fat and healthy so she is obviously doing well with nursing and she licks them to urinate, but what a poopy mess. I have never had a mother like this. She is a very spoiled co-owned bitch which I think is adding to the issue. Anyone had a bitch who was better the second go around? Very frustrated and this may be her last litter!
I have a bitch who didn't clean up after her first litter. All puppies healthy. Second litter she would hide after feeding them, then she was getting where she didn't want to feed them at 3 weeks, and she is not spoiled. I'm just glad she fed them and I didn't have to take over that task in addition to cleaning up. Good luck with the mess.
In another week you can enlarge their area as they will be getting around pretty well by then. In one corner of their space, put a potty area using either pellets or shredded newspaper. They will get the hang of it very quickly.......within a few days you'll see them waddling over to pee and poop and you'll be free of your clean up job. Sounds like you have a super mom. I'd give her a pass on the cleaning at this point.
Are you starting to supplement the pups with gruel? Most bitches will stop cleaning if the pups are on supplemental food. I don't start giving my pups supplementing feeding until about 4 or 5 weeks as I know mom stops cleaning up after her pups when they no longer recognize their milk waste.
