First Time Puppies: Mother’s Pudding
Whelping a litter of puppies is exhausting! An incredible amount of calories is needed for a bitch to have the energy and milk supply to feed hungry, growing puppies. In addition to increasing the bitch’s regular food intake, one of the best ways to increase calcium, calories, fat and protein is by giving your bitch “Mother’s Pudding” on a regular basis while she’s in labor and in the following weeks as she nurses her puppies.
We always make a double batch…it goes fast! Plan to make a double batch every other day or so (depending on how much and how often you feed it to your dog). We’ve modified our recipe but it’s close to Puppy Culture’s recipe for Mother’s Pudding. Here’s how to make it:
Recipe (double batch)
8 cups of milk - goat milk or cow’s milk
8 egg yolks (only the yolks!)
1 cup sugar
2 x 4.6 ounce packages of JELL-O Vanilla pudding (MUST be the Cook & Serve kind)
Whisk all ingredients together in a LARGE saucepan or skillet. Cook at low heat until the mixture bubbles throughout and has thickened to a soft pudding consistency. Let cool, then transfer to a sealable container and store in the refrigerator.
Notes on the ingredients:
Experiment with goat’s milk vs. cow’s milk. Goat’s milk is easily digestible by most dogs so it’s the best choice if your bitch has a sensitive stomach. If your dog can handle cow’s milk, it’s much less expensive and readily available for purchase. We also mix in about 3 tablespoons of pure canned pumpkin to each bowl of pudding for our dog as this helps with digestion of all the dairy ingredients in the pudding. The pumpkin helps combat diarrhea and settles their stomach. Last thing - make sure the pudding is the Cook & Serve variety because the instant pudding definitely gives dogs diarrhea!
While your bitch is in labor, she may not want to eat her regular food but she may lap up Mother’s Pudding! Offer a small bowl of pudding every few hours to help her with energy and calories.
Here’s how we fed our Golden Retriever bitch once the puppies arrived (keep in mind, she was 62 pounds pre-whelping, so you’ll need to adjust accordingly):
Sample Schedule
6:30am High quality dogfood (2 cups)
9am Mother’s Pudding (1 - 1 ½ cups)
12pm High quality dogfood (2 cups)
3pm Mother’s Pudding (1 - 1 ½ cups)
5pm High quality dogfood (2 cups)
7pm Mother’s Pudding (1 - 1 ½ cups)
9pm High quality dogfood (2 cups)
