Taz had her pups early this afternoon. She had 3 boys and 2 girls. Four of them were 7-8.8oz and one smaller one was 5.5oz. Taz did an excellent job for a first time mom. She popped these pups out in a bit over 2 hours. She also has a lot of milk since the pups already look like their tummies are going to burst. The pups are very feisty and get vocal when they can't find mom for their meal that they want right now. They will mostly be tri coloured. Will get head shots in a couple of days.
Love the picture on the right below. Its as if she is trying to count her pups ... 1, 2, 3, another one, another one. My goodness what have I done? Are these all mine? There's hundreds of pups here, must be at least ten.
JRRanch Taz
Leewinds Winston
Jan 5, 2007
The pups are 2 days old here. They weigh between 6.8 and 10.5 oz. The little one has gained weight fast and is growing so much we can't pick her small size out as readily in the bunch. Mom has lots of milk and these kids gained weight right away. Most times pups will just maintain their birth weight or gain slightly in the first day.
Tonight they will get their tails and dew claws done. This only feels like a pinch to them and the pain is gone immediately. The worst case is one will give a yip and that is it. The dew claws are done to save them the pain of having them ripped off digging when they are older. The tails are left at a length that will be about a hand width when they are older. This provides a nice handle to rescue them from a hole during the hunt should they get stuck. These procedures serve a very practical purpose to allow these guys to do what they were bred for, hunt.
We will start the Bio Sensory stimulation tomorrow.
Jan 7, 2007
The pups are 4 days old now. Thanks to Bente and Marie for the little puppy bed. The kids love it. They only use it now when their whelping bed sheet is being changed but later when they graduate to the x-pen they will sleep in it there. The pups are all growing steadily and they weigh 8.5-13.3oz now. The little one is gaining steadily but it appears that she will stay smaller than the rest. That is not a bad thing with JR's since it makes it easier for them to get down holes when they are hunting. On the other hand some of the large boys who are on the tall side of the breed standard have difficulty getting down a hole so a small well built pup is what we are looking for to improve our lines. We feel lucky if we get one pup out of each litter that meets our criteria to run on for show, hunting and breeding.
Jan 12, 2007
We have had a very difficult few of days with this litter. They all started crying a lot a couple of days ago. We found that if we massaged them as if we were burping them they stopped crying for a while. The next day they cried more and we tried massaging them with a warm cloth and they would immediately p&p. This told us that mom was not licking them enough to get them to p&p and it became painful for them. For the first 2 weeks the pups can't p&p on their own unless stimulated by mom. We guessed that the reason mom was not concentrating on her job was that we were distracting her too much. The room their whelping pen is in also has our computer and we spend a lot of time there. We stayed out of the room for a day and only went in to let mom out to do her business. That solved the problem. We then switched this litter to quieter room and all is well again. Thank goodness the pups progress was not affected by all this as they gained steadily over the couple days it took us to figure out what was happening..
Jan 16, 2006
The pups are almost 2 weeks old now. Their eyes are just starting to open and in the next couple of days they will all have their eyes open. They are getting around their whelping pen very well already and when their eyes open these guys will be a real handful. The girls are on the right and the boys below. You can see the eyes of the girl on the right just starting to open. The small girl is the one with the tan patch on her right eye. She is progressing steadily but is still much smaller than the rest. She weighs 15oz. and the biggest boy weighs 24oz.
Jan 20, 2007
All the pups eyes are open and they can hear now. They are getting up a bit more as they walk but still stay pretty close to the ground for balance. In a couple of days they will be moving much better as their eyesight improves and they get confident about where they are going. By the time they are 3 weeks old (in 4 days) they should be running around their whelping pen and beginning to play with one another. Taz is doing a great job as a first time mom now that we have given her more privacy with her brood. She has lots of milk and the pups are growing real fast. They can't fit on our scale any more but we don't need to monitor their weight now since they are all so fat and healthy.
Jan 25,2007
The pups were 3 weeks old yesterday. They got their first worming medication. All of them are very fat thanks to mom's ample supply of milk and TLC. Today they took their first trip out of their whelping pen. There was not much action as expected for the first time but in a couple of days they will be used to this and will start to move around more. Then we will have a hard time keeping them under control and will have to use the x-pen in about a week. The little girl is doing great and she was the one moving around most the first time out. Their confidence increases very quickly at this age and in a couple of days we will get more pictures. They won't be hugging the ground any more but will be starting to trot around.
Jan 30, 2006
The pups are getting bolder on their trips out of their whelping pen. The older pups in the picture below are very interested in these little ones. They line up in their x-pen and watch them closely. Thats the little girl, showing no fear, and walking right up to the bigger pups.
In a few days they will be getting an x-pen of their own and spending more time away from mom. You can see that they are standing up more and showing more curiosity about the new big world. They should be getting teeth in a few days and then we can start them on some puppy food. The first few times we mix it with some pablum and water. They will then progress over the next couple of weeks to puppy food with water to soften it a bit. By 6 weeks they will each get 1/4 cup of puppy food with a splash of water twice a day. The next pictures will be taken in their x-pen in the kitchen.
Feb 5, 2007
The pups are making great progress now. Every day they get more confident. This is their first time in the x-pen and they handled it well. They will get their first solid food tomorrow. They play for about 10 minutes then sleep for an hour. Each day they will spend more time in the x-pen until in a week or so they will spend the entire day here and only go back to their whelping pen to sleep at night. The individual pictures are of the boys. The girls are together in the other picture and it shows how small the little one is. In spite of her size she doesn't take any guff from her larger siblings. The last picture shows them crashed after their play. They really know how to relax.
Feb 12, 2007
The pups new experiences are coming fast and furious now. A few days ago they were weaned from mom and spend their whole day in their x-pen. Today was as warm as it is going to be for a while so we took them outside to play. They were surprised by the cold at first but quickly adapted and started to explore. The big boy had the easiest time getting up the snow mountain on the deck but eventually they all gave it a try. They lasted about 10 minutes and then it was back for a nap.
Feb 13, 2006
Way too cold to go outside to play today so we let them run wild in the kitchen. After a few minutes we put the other litter in to play with them and they got along very well. The young litter wasn't intimidated one bit by the bigger pups. The blue ball has treats in it and if they roll it along the floor they randomly fall out for the pups to eat. This game kept them busy for a long time. Then they slowly found soft places to relax in the next pics. The picture of the little girl (Bella) shows how feisty she is as she poses proudly for her new owners. In the picture below her Wilson shows off his assets for his new owners. After about 20 minutes they all ran out of steam and the big pups went outside for a p&p and these kids went back to their x-pen for a long winters nap.
Feb 14, 2007
Just realised we didn't take a picture of them starting to eat real food. This is how they started on the right except in this picture they are eating yogurt as a noon snack. We fed them yogurt for a couple of days to get their stomach back to normal after giving them worming medication. We worm the pups at least twice before they go to their new homes. The first time we worm them is at 3 weeks and we repeat it 10 days later.
Feb 15, 2007
We watch the little girl closely to make sure the bigger pups don't pick on her. I don't think we need to worry though. She looks out for herself quite well as the pictures below show. We put a new bed in their x-pen and she took immediate possession of it and wouldn't let the others kick her off. We have noticed a few times the bigger pups try to pick on her but she very quickly backs them off. She can be very tough when necessary but mostly tries to avoid confrontation wisely.
Feb 16, 2007
Here is the big girl playing on their new toy. The other 2 pups in the picure are from the older litter. Mrs JRRanch went on her monthly puppy toy shopping spree and couldn't resist this thing. You probably noticed that their x-pen has more toys than pups. The toys get exchanged for clean ones every day or so. This means we need a lot of toys and a lot of work for the washing machine to keep their beds and toys clean.
The pups get most of their exercise in the kitchen the last several days because it is too cold outside for them to stay out longer then it takes to p&p. Next week it is supposed to warm up so hopefully we can get some pictures of them on a walk down our farm road. Both litters play together and the older pups get along well with this litter. They all get a good exercise chasing each other around the kitchen. We put up gates too keep them in this area and avoid falling down stairs and other things such as little surprise piles behind the furniture.
They wake up around 6am when they are immediately put outside to p&p. Then they are fed and put out for another p&p. When they come in they get about 15 minutes play time in the kitchen and then out for p&p again. Then they are ready for a nap. The sequence of outside, kitchen, outside, nap is repeated at least 3 time during the day as well as many more times just outside for p&p and returned to x-pen. They are fed their second meal about 6pm as well as outside , play etc. They go to bed around 10pm. We will soon be putting them to bed in their crates and should be almost crate trained when they are ready to go home.
Feb 21, 2006
Finally some warm weather. Took the pups on a trail we tramped in the snow for them. Thats their daddy Winston, with the red collar, showing them some of his tricks. The other dog is Tick who loves to teach pups how to hunt/dig for moles. The little girl is in Mrs JRRanch's arms to warm up. They had already been outside for more than 1/2 hour and she started to shake. A little warm cuddle and she was ready to go again. After their walk in the snow we put them back on the deck for a nap in the sun. It is very warm on the deck in front of the glass of our patio door. Looks like we will be able to do this several times a day if the weather holds.
The kids are sleeping in crates now and soon will be in separate crates for eating and sleeping. They will be ready for their new homes soon.
Mar 6, 2007
Most of the Taz pups have gone to their new homes. The only one left is the little girl in the middle (Sizzle). She will be going to Las Vegas next week. The rest of the pups are from the Emmylou litter. The boy top left (LUC) and the girl bottom (Emma) will be staying here and hopefully enter our show/breeding program. The boy top middle (Cooper) will be going to his new home Saturday. The girl top right (Fuzzy?) will be going to New Mexico next week. We will be taking a small vacation and delivering pups to New Mexico and Las Vegas next week. When we get home the house will seem deserted with only 2 pups running around. It is sad to see them all go because we get attached to them but we are happy for them with their new loving families.
