What is puppy milk?
Puppy milk, also called puppy formula, is a food marketed as a partial or total replacement for breast milk. For the puppy, it usually comes in the form of a powder to be diluted.
As a replacement for breast milk, formula milk for puppies must therefore be able to provide the puppy with the energy and nutrients necessary for its growth and proper development.
When to feed a dog formula?
A puppy is normally fed with its mother's milk until it is weaned, which occurs around 6 to 8 weeks old. But, it happens that the mother is not able to feed her young:
- when the mother died,
- when the mother is sick, she is too weak to breastfeed her little ones and/or germs are likely to contaminate her milk and harm the he alth of the young (toxic milk syndrome),
- when the mother does not produce enough milk to properly feed all the puppies in her litter,
- when the mother pushes away one of her puppies.
It is then up to the owner of the animals to take over from the mother by feeding the puppies with a bottle, with a formula milk for puppies.
Colostrum in the first days of a puppy's life
During the first 48 hours after the birth of the puppies, the "milk" secreted by the female dog is particularly rich in immunoglobulins which provide immune protection to the newborn. This particular secretion is called colostrum.Industrial formula milk does not contain it, but it is possible to obtain colostrum from a veterinarian or a breeder to give to puppies when the mother cannot breastfeed her puppy after birth. Ask your veterinarian for advice, if necessary.
How to choose a puppy milk?
There are many industrial puppy milks on the market, but their formulations are not always optimal.
In order to choose the best milk for puppies, it is recommended to choose a quality product whose composition is as close as possible to the bitch's milk composed on average of:
- 75g/L protein,
- 33g/L lactose,
- 95g/L of lipids,
- 2.4g/l of calcium,
- 1.8g/L of phosphorus.
Choose a formula milk composed of more than 30% highly digestible animal protein for the puppy, low in lactose (less than 20%) and devoid of starch, a complex sugar that the small animal is not still able to digest.
Also make sure formula is supplemented with fish oil. It must indeed provide the dog with enough EPA and DHA, long-chain essential fatty acids from the omega 3 family, very useful for the brain development of the puppy and which are naturally present in the bitch's milk.
What can I replace puppy milk with?
When you don't have formula milk to feed unweaned puppies, it's tempting to want to fall back on cow's milk. However, as with human babies, cow's milk is not well suited to the needs of the puppy. And for good reason: the bitch's milk is almost 3 times richer in lipids, more than twice as rich in proteins and calories as cow's milk. It also contains twice as much calcium and phosphorus but contains less lactose (milk sugar) than cow's milk. For all these reasons, it does not cover the energy and nutritional needs of the puppy but can also cause digestive disorders such as significant diarrhea in the latter.
The same goes for sheep's and goat's milk, with a composition quite similar to cow's milk.
Plant milks such as soy milk also do not contain enough protein, fat, vitamins and minerals to meet a puppy's nutritional needs. Their proteins are also poorly digestible and incomplete in essential amino acids.
It is also not possible to replace puppy formula with human baby formula because it does not contain enough essential nutrients for the puppy.
You will therefore understand: nothing replaces formula milk specially formulated for puppies.
But, if you need to feed a puppy urgently and you don't have any, you can still make homemade puppy milk while waiting to find some by mixing 200ml of condensed cow's milk sweet mixed with an egg yolk.If this mixture is too thick, you can dilute it with a little spring water. Store this mixture in the refrigerator and use it within 24 hours. Please note that this mixture is a “recovery” puppy milk which should never be used long term to feed a puppy because its composition is not complete.
If you still want to make homemade milk for your puppy, ask your veterinarian for advice so that he can give you a balanced homemade milk recipe adapted to the nutritional needs of your little animal.
How to feed a puppy with formula?
To bottle-feed a puppy with formula milk, it is necessary to follow certain hygiene rules before feeding your puppies. It is necessary to sterilize teats and bottles after each use and especially to wash your hands well before feeding or even handling small dogs.Do not prepare the reconstituted milk too far in advance, at the risk of bacterial growth harmful to the he alth of the puppies.
For the preparation of the bottles as such, all the instructions for use including the instructions for diluting puppy formula and the quantities to be given are indicated on the product packaging. Just refer to it.
The powdered milk should therefore be rehydrated with lukewarm or hot water (ideally spring water), as close as possible to the moment of breastfeeding, taking the preparation to around the body temperature of the puppy, i.e. 37 to 38°C.
As for the quantities of milk to give the puppy each day, they are also indicated on the packaging of the formula milk you have selected. But usually a puppy :
- less than a week will need 7 to 8 feedings a day,
- from 2 weeks: 6 feedings / day,
- from 3 weeks: 5 feedings / day in addition to a little solid food to start weaning,
- 4 weeks: 4 to 5 feedings/day + solid food,
- 5 weeks: 3 to 4 feedings per day + solid food,
- 6 weeks: 2 to 3 feedings per day + solid food,
- 7 weeks: wet solid food with formula.
The older and heavier the puppy gets, the more milk it will drink during each feed, along with the capacity of its stomach. The volume of milk ingested per meal (in ml) is estimated at around 5% of the puppy's body weight (in g). As an example, you will find below a table which gives an idea of the volume of bottles to give to the puppy according to their age and their birth weight:
| Number of feedings per day |
Volume of milk (in ml) according to the weight of dogs at birth |
|||
| 350-500g | 500g | |||
| 1erand 2e day | 8 | 12 | 15 | 20 |
| From 3eto 7e day | 6 | 20 | 30 | 40 |
| From 8eto 16e day | 5 | 35 | 50 | 70 |
| From 16e day to weaning | 4 | 60 | 70 | 120 |
Source: Guide to dog and bitch reproduction: from breeding to the sale of puppies - Alexandre Balzer and Annabelle Loth, Med’com editions
Weigh puppies daily to make sure their weight gain is steady and normal.The newborn puppy grows exponentially. Right after birth, he normally loses a little less than 10% of his birth weight but then he records a weight gain of 6 to 4% per day so that he:
- doubles birth weight in 1 week,
- triple in 3 weeks,
- multiplies it by 5 in 1 month,
- multiplies it from 10 to 15 in 8 weeks.
If your puppy is not gaining enough weight, it may be that his diet is not optimal in quantity and/or quality or that he is suffering from a he alth problem. Talk to a veterinarian without delay!