Whelping Items Checklist

From Jane Anderson's excellent site LearnToBreed.com. Unfortunately the site is no longer in existence.

Whelping Items Checklist

as collected from information supplied by a number of experienced dog breeders

• whelping box - of a suitable size to suit your bitch and number of pups
  
• several hot water bottles in addition to the electric heating pads (you never know when you may lose your electricity)
  
• a heat lamp with infra-red bulb - although some breeders do not recommend this
  
• clock (to note the times of births and time in between - if you have to call the vet he will want to know this information and if you have noted it down it is much easier to make sense in a crisis)
  
• rectal thermometer
  
• several clean or new cardboard boxes
  
• iodine (for tummy cords) - although some breeders do not recommend this
  
• sterile scissors (three to five minutes in boiling water)
  
• flashlight (how many first born puppies are born outside because mum thought she had to go potty????)
  
• Lots of towels
  
• scissors
  
• baby scale
  
• Notebook and pencil to take notes
  
• vets number if it is different from the office
  
• Crates IN THE CAR in case you need to leave ASAP
  
• Another person available to help you if you need to go to the vet.
  
• magazines, books, for when you can't go to sleep at 3.00am
  
• Coffee
  
• Hot coffee
  
• more hot coffee..ah..they are all out and healthy
  
• tweezers
  
• hemostats
  
• unwaxed dental floss
  
• baby suction bulb
  
• heater/heating pad
  baby bottles/nipples
  
• milk replacer - just in case
  
• feeding tube/syringe - just in case
  
• hand towels (as many as you can get your hands on, it won't be enough!)
  
• yarn/ribbon in different colors
  
• pediolite (sp)
  
• cotton balls
  
• newspaper-a mountain of it - or straw. My bitches whelp in straw.
  
• baby nail clippers
  
• a good washing machine
  
• synthetic fleece material to line whelping box
  
• Puppy Wormer
  
• baby diarrhea medicine
  
• Karo syrup (a drop of diluted Karo on the tongue gives instant energy to a pup in trouble)
  
  
• Instead of hot water bottles, empty plastic soda bottles. They're free and work as well. When pups get bigger if they're too hot, fill the bottles about 80% with water and put them in the freezer. Hot pups love draping themselves over ice bottles. Or try cold cans of beer, etc.
  

  Other tips

  This is a collection of tips from breeders that you might find handy:

  I use different colored cotton ribbon that I buy at Walmart by the yard. I cut it into lengths ABOUT 12" so I can change them every day. This way I track each pup right from birth on, always referring to him by that color collar.

  I give the whelping dam vanilla ice cream as a pick-me-up. She loves it and will always take some.

  I keep several books on whelping close at hand, too.

  Keep a collar on the bitch and a leash handy so you can walk her outside in between pups. They love to whelp under porches.

  by Joan Ayers Cohen
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