Labrador Retriever Forum
I have a puppy that is 3.5 weeks old that has what I would call a minor cleft palate. He has a small hole in front and a bigger one in back soft tissue. He is thriving at 4 lbs 6 oz considering he was 12.6 oz at his lowest down from 14.7 oz at birth. I have been bottle feeding him. He is cutting teeth and the articles I have read have said to start cleft pups on hard food at 4 weeks old. I would like some input from thsoe who have raised CP puppies as to what food you put them on. I want him to have enough protien and fat but not too much calcium or phosphorus. His litter mates are 5.5 to 6.5 lbs so he is not real far behind.
Thanks in advance for your input. I have to say even though he is a lot of work, he sure is fun, and what a personality already.
God bless your heart!
I knew the moment he was born there was "something" different about him as he was hard to get unsnuffly. He was an eager nurser but could not latch on. I had checked for cleft but did not see it. I had frozen some collostrum from his dam's previous litter and started bottle feeding him that. Even with that he was getting dehydrated so I took him in to my vets and it took two of them to determine it was CP. He was so tiny it was truly hard to tell. I know one of them wanted me to put him down and the other one cried with me when I said NO WAY am I putting him down, I brought him into this world and it is my responsibility to give him a chance. I have not looked back...even when I am so tired from getting up every 2 hours to feed him. He was meant to be. Down the road he will make someone a wonderful pet...and if I do not feel comfortable placing him, he will stay we me and be the hubby's MANDOG".
I had 2 pups with clefts about 5 yrs ago. My vet is an excellent surgeon and had done a couple of cleft repairs. He felt the one puppy would require at least 3 surgeries to fix the cleft and the other would be 2 maybe 3. I decided to bottle feed the one pup with the less severe cleft and put the other one down. I didn't want to put a puppy through that many surgeries.
Molly's repair went great and she is now living with my mother. We were too attached to part with her!
I had another one years before that with a very minor cleft in the soft pallet. He was able to nurse some and when I started him on solids he was fine. Water was a little more of a challenge at times.
It seems to work better to give soft chunks of food/meat. Soaked large kibble works well.
I am sure your puppy with do fine.
Feel free to contact me if you want guidance on how to feed this guy. It's now the easier part.
Bless you for taking on the challenge, it's a hard road with it's up's and downs and sleep deprivation!!
You can feed him at 3 weeks, we soaked the food till it had fully absorbed the water but wasn't dripping. I hand fed the first few peices so that our little guy "Cliff" could easily slurp them down. After about a week or so he got a pretty good idea of how to do it but I laid the food out in a little bowl so that there was only a layer of kibbles at a time.At first he was getting about a medicine cup full of soaked kibbles. You may have to test brands out to see which ones hold their shape the best without breaking up,I tried several,Nature's variety and another that had a really dense calorie count but then just went back to using what I feed some of my dogs which was the Orijen 6 Fish.(it did need to soak for quite a while since it doesn't have any grain) We did still have to tube feed him the water.
When he came to the point where he was fighting the tube for hydration we finally started him with holding his head upright and just giving him a few drops of water at a time with an oral syringe. He will sneeze and cough a bit until he gets the hang of it or if he drinks to quickly. They make syringes that have a longer tip for this too.
Eventually we got him to drink with an elevated bowl. He did get a slight sinus "infection" (greenish nasal dicharge )that lasted just a few days when he was learning how to drink water, but it cleared quickly and after that he did just fine.
They seem to have the best personalities, I think from all the extra attention and the fact they are fighters too!!
I have no experience with clefts but did research years ago on and found this site.
Hope it helps you. She seems to have a lot of experience and was quick to respond to emails.
Good luck and God Bless you for trying to save this baby.
http://hennwood.tripod.com/cleft_pup_info.htm
Please keep us posted on your baby when you have time.
Those of you that have had cleft pups--are you now using Folic Acid? If so, have you not produced another cleft? Any downside to using folic acid? From research, it seems the dosage would be 400mcg's a day. Is that what you have used?
told that many cleft palates are caused by excessive Vitamin A in the dam's diet during the development stages - so in the diet already or being supplemented with foods like liver.
For what ever it is worth, once we started using Folic Acid, we never had another cleft. It might have just been luck of the draw for 8 years.
Gregg...I too was told after the fact that Folic acid deficiency could be the culprit.
Thanks everyone for the input. I greatly appreciate it. Lil Boo Boo is doing super and actually stuck his nose in the other puppies water this morning. He snorted and shook his head a little but went back with a little more care. Now the journey of trying to figure out what kibble he should go on.
Do you give 400 mcg a day? And do you give it all the time, or only while the bitch is bred? I know one breeder here said she gives it to all her dogs, male and female, every day.
We did the same, all Labs, boys and girls everyday.
400 mcgs?
