# Large Litters



## amjrchamberlain (Mar 8, 2005)

I was reading the other thread on big litters and saw lots of larger litters being mentioned. It got me wondering...

For those of you that have large litters (for our purposes, over 8 in a litter), do you try to place the extra puppies on a nursemaid? Hand whelp them? Leave them with the dam? Or cull?


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## Amaruq (Aug 29, 2001)

Tika's litter was 11 strong and she had an AWESOME Mom that took excellent care of all of them. When they were 4 plus weeks of ages we split the boys and girls into separate "dorms" and rotated Bax between each dorm and her having her own time. We also rotated the pups in and out so they all intermingled but basically split the group in half for her to suppliment as they were weaned.


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## angelaw (Dec 14, 2001)

I keep a closer eye on the pups and weigh in grams so I know exactly who isn't gaining much sooner than if I weighed by ounces. Alot of females won't take pups from other females. I had a friend that tried to use one of her other dogs to nurse a pup, dog killed it. Stephanitz mentions something about that if I remember.

Diesel had 13 last year. I supplemented those that needed to be, and alot of times, it varied as to who was gaining, who was losing. With litters that are that large, I tend to wean a little earlier.


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