The American Beagler Forum

Do you guys switch dog food on your pregnant females? Ive heard somepeople say they start feeding puppy food towards the end of pregnancy. Any advice is appreciated.

My little female just had 8 pups and 7 are remaining,I changed hers to puppy chow about a month before time for them,now I still feed it to her but I'll wet it down with warm water.

I switch a pregnant bitch onto puppy chow 3 to 4 weeks before whelping and continue on until the pups are weaned at 6 weeks. The only problem that I have encountered is the bitch gaining a little too much weight. At the same time, I must say that I do not run the bitch during the time that she is nursing pups. This sure makes for a nice litter of strong, healthy pups.

I use a good meat based 26/18 that I feed my running dogs with no problems. I feel like Purina Puppy Chow is very over-rated. I like to feed Diamond or Pride Puppy food to puppys, less diarria.

Black Gold all the way through the pregnancy and start the pups on it at 4 weeks of age, wet down (for the pups) with Goat milk replacer, I buy it at TSC)

I fed two pregnant bitches Sports Mix 26/18 while pregnant. One had six the other seven. All thirteen are healthy and about the same size. No runts. They will be four weeks old this week and all are eating Sports Mix 26/18 after it has been soaked with water.

My opinion is keep everything the same as you did before she was pregnant. Feed her the same feed and same amount with plenty of water . Don't feed her extra. She'll get too fat and doesn't need the extra weight.
Also run her some as well. Exercise is good for her and just keep an eye on how big she gets and adjust to her. You'll know when to back off.
I've had two liters off my female and did this with her, as a local vet recommended, and she was perfectly healthy as were her pups.
Good luck.

i ramp it up a few weeks b4 welping but want her in good running shape ( not fat) then i feed heavy after welping. dry food/wet food with boiled meat scraps and powdered milk. water at all times and lots of raw chicken. looks like i'm the odd ball, but it works for me. i have one week old pups now that look like little butterballs.

I have always fed a pregnant female heavy the last couple weeks before whelping. I feed a raw diet and start either powdered milk or a milk replacer in the mix right after whelping. I avoid puppy chow it is a very poor feed in my opinion so you dont have to look very hard to find a better product. I use a mixture of Gerber baby cereal, hamburger, milk replacer or yogurt, egg yolks and hot water. Little pricier than puppy chow but compare the ingredients and decide from there.

Wireman252 is dead on.....

I used to believe a lot of what i read including that you should increase the feed during the last couple of weeks of the pregnancy. The problem was that the last couple of weeks is when the pups put on the most weight and most of the time it resulted in the mother having more difficulty delivering the pups. So I decided not to increase the food at all unless I saw the bitch start getting skinny, which they never seemed to. Moderate exercise.......no increase in feed...............never had a problem after that.

I switch them to puppy chow as soon as they are bred an continue throughout pregnancy. I like the results I've had.

wireman252 wrote:My opinion is keep everything the same as you did before she was pregnant. Feed her the same feed and same amount with plenty of water . Don't feed her extra. She'll get too fat and doesn't need the extra weight.
Also run her some as well. Exercise is good for her and just keep an eye on how big she gets and adjust to her. You'll know when to back off.
I've had two liters off my female and did this with her, as a local vet recommended, and she was perfectly healthy as were her pups.
Good luck.

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I have fed alot of raw with quality food the entire pregnancy. I run my females as long as they show no signs of issues clear thru up until about a week and a half out. I have had great success in this with healthy pups and extremely healthy females. I also feed powdered milk after pups and add in some chick livers high in protien and iron and everyone says my pups look nice. I have not had any issues with loosing pups due to malnutrition and have brought back one litter with only two that survived on a female I bought. The vet doubted they would make it but they are now 10 months and turning it on! Good luck!!