Whew...puppy update

Ok, it's late, I'm tired. Here's what's up on the puppy front:

We have a total of 12 pups, though those first 2 were dead before we got involved. So, there are 10 pups in my laundry basket, in front of the woodstove. Noisy little buggers, but cute and seemingly healthy so far, but then what do I know aside from cuteness.

Mom isn't taking to them as of yet. The last 2 pups were a bit on the larger side compared to the first ones. Cotton seemed to struggle alot more with those, stress more, etc. than the others. They were rather 'green' literally, when born. This, according to the Vet, is generally caused by accumulated bilirubin and stressful birthing. Well, we had the stressed birthing here, so I guess I won't worry about green tinted pups too much.

Cotton kept the pups laying up in her flanks, but she would not let them nurse. When they tried to creep in and latch on, she froze, growled, and moved away from them...or moved them backward. Same thing when we tried to coax her into nursing them. We brought the pups, all 10 of them, inside for the night. We bottled some milk replacer around 7:30 and will do so again around 10, 1 and 4 then see if perhaps after an night of rest, Cotton is more motherly toward them. the Vet did say it wasn't altogether uncommon, especially being a first-timer and having such a large litter like this, that her discomfort, hormone levels and stress would keep her from nursing at first. And, good thing, with pups anyway, is that as they have not nursed yet, the colostrum will remain in mom, sort of waiting...we might get it into them tomorrow morning -- prayers for that would be nice!

I have been chatting with some folks at the Homesteading Today boards and most of them gave the same advice before I finally received a call back from the Vet offices. Made me feel alot more at ease with all of this as the Vet seemed to be taking a banker's holiday...neither of the 3 local vets were answering phones today! grrrr....

I also found this -- Neonatal Puppy Care PDF -- and it's printed off and taped into my homestead notebook. LOL...originally set up and readied for the coming goat birthing, but might as well include the Great Pyr pages there as well :o)

I'm off to bed. Jennifer is feeding right now. Dewey, obviously tired from his long drive and 10-hour work day, commented on how cute the puppies were and that they could be house dogs.
He's not crazy, really he's not.
He's just tired.
He's not thinking straight.

I mean can you even imagine having 10...TEN...Great Pyrenese dogs in a 1440 sq ft home with a family of 10???? It gives me the shakes just thinking about it. I need to go to bed now.