Hula 24 hrs prior to delivering her babies.
Hula loving on and tending to all 7 of her babies. Such an awesome momma.
Wow, ok, so let’s see if I can get through this as short and sweet as possible. I want to share the birth with y’all, but I am so sleep deprived right now it isn’t even funny. More than just a normal litter because these guys are trying to take me out with stress and anxiety.
So Hula’s litter arrived during the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Feb 18th. 7 beautiful babies. 3 girls and 4 boys. I was nervous, as usual, particularly because she went into active signs of labor a bit earlier than I was expecting. I’m usually a nervous wreck when my girls go under, but particularly when they seem a bit early, even if only by a day.
7 Tiny Frail French Bulldog Puppies
She was restless, her temp dropped below 98, she was nesting, and she had milk. For all these reasons we had to get in touch with our WONDERFULLY AMAZING Vet at 3:30 am. We had Hula up there by 4, and puppies were out by 4:30 am. Hula did wonderfully. What I did notice that concerned me, however, were the puppies. They were coming out 1 after another after another. She had 7!!! Tiny little Hula fit 7 babies in there and they looked pretty tiny and thin. Particularly 3 of them… so small, so frail, so thin. One little girl, in particular, was the smallest of the lot and the weakest. She did not want to wake up, she did not want to get all nice and pink like her siblings, she just did not want to be on the outside.
The last group shot of all 7 before Havana took a turn for the worse and left us. We were doing our best to have them nurse as much as possible for the colostrum.
So much so, on the ride home, she hitched a ride in my shirt to keep nice and toasty. I named her Havana. This allowed for my body to help keep her warm, and so that I was able to continuously stimulate her to wake up and get angry and breathing. My gut was telling me she was not going to make it. After so many years doing this, you develop instincts like that I suppose. I wanted to deny mine, I begged them to be wrong. She woke up by the time we arrived home, she vigorously ate, she seemed to be doing ok. Thin, but ok. I was relieved and we watched them like a hawk.
Well, even though they appeared to be eating properly, something was going on with her. Her poo was not what it should have been and I noticed one of the males, Han Zimmer, his poo was not looking the way it should be looking. Even though he was acting right, his poo concerned the hell out of me. I scheduled an appointment for the vet the following day but before we could get there sweet Havana passed away. We made it to the vet with 6 skinny but active puppies.
The Vet validated my concerns and we began tube feeding immediately. All my years of raising pups I have never had to tube feed before. I received a crash course, and it was not as terrifying as I imagined it prior to learning how to. So once we arrived home we noticed Han Zimmer acting odd… 🙁 very very odd and very reminiscent of his sister’s behavior. That same gut instinct struck me with such a hard and fast blow. I knew he was not going to make it. We kept him warm, kept him full, held him close, kept him clean, and prayed. We lost him less than 24 hrs later. I held him until he took his very last breath.
In those moments of panic, uncertainty, struggle, and pain, I once again questioned why in God’s name do I even do this. I’m pretty sure that night I vowed to quit raising Frenchies again… at least 3 or 4 times. I went to The Dark Place. We did not know what was killing our pups and I was terrified it was CHV. Obsessed with researching I dove in after we lost the first one and spoke to countless other breeders of all breeds that have had experience with it. It was pretty much a waiting game at that point.
I’ll spare you the rest of the small details but as of this post, I am feeling much more confident in their health as they have finally started to really come into their own.
We have 5 remaining puppies, Harley, Hilda, Harlo, Hova, & Han Solo. They are finally looking nice and plum as they should be. No more fatalities. Strong vigorous eaters. I am pretty happy with where they are now vs. where they were last week.
I just finished supplement feeding the pups to ensure they have received enough nutrition and hydration. This is pretty much the 24 hr scene around here this week.
The truth is, especially with big litters, you usually lose one or two. Normally the ones we lose don’t even make it home with us from the vet. When they do, it’s that much more difficult to watch them fade and eventually pass on.
In short, what I truly feel like is they came not just 24 hrs but closer to 48 hrs or more early and some of them just hadn’t been fully baked yet. For puppies, a couple of days early can be the difference between life & death.
