First Time Puppies: Formula & Supplementing

There are many reasons you may want to supplement your puppy’s food intake with formula. You may have a struggling underweight puppy, or a very large litter for the dam to nourish, or perhaps your mama dog is not with her puppies for a variety of reasons. For these reasons, you’ll want to have a plan in place.

Before your puppies arrive on scene, buy some formula and bottles. It’s stressful enough to help ensure puppies arrive safely during delivery, so if you can have these items ahead of time you can eliminate the scramble to figure this out!

The simplest solution we recommend: buy a basic Dr. Brown’s bottle (yes, bottles used for humans!) and at least one can of PetAg Esbilac formula. We found this at our local farm and garden store but it’s easy to find on Amazon or a pet store. To make this really easy for you, here are the bottles and formula we used (be sure to ask a vet if this is appropriate for your breed and situation). Our Golden Retrievers had no problem latching on to this bottle and guzzled down the Esbilac formula.

You may want to try making your own formula instead. Be careful to find reputable breeders/recipes when taking this on yourself - supplementing with formula needs to be taken seriously for the health and safety of the puppies. A site we found helpful when considering making our own formula was from 7k9.com:

http://www.7k9.com/Puppy_Formulas.html

Best of luck in your supplementing and bottle feeding adventure!