Happy Birthday to Me

Ivie has given me the best possible birthday present ever!  These babies are so dang precious.  I think she might finally be starting to have more milk but still not nearly enough for these little porkers.  I am having to supplement them with a goat's milk  three to four times a day.

I have also come up with a system.  The puppies are being weighed twice a day ( I will embellish on that later) and depending on weight gain or loss from the last weigh in the top 5 gainers go into a box during feeding time and the ones that are not gaining as much get to have fresh nipples based on the lowest to the highest.  In other words the one that gains the least gets the biggest teat with the most milk.  After 10 minutes those 5 go into the box and the others get to have their time on mom.  While they are eating I start to top off the first 5 with a goats milk supplement.  I tell you this is like a science project but much more important.  My method seems to be working.  At this morning's weigh in, it was the first time I didn't have a weight loss and the two pups that gained the least were Yellow and Green at .9 ounces which is huge compared to some of the previous gains.  and the biggest chow hounds are Pink and Purple each gaining 1.8 ounces.  That is a lot in 12 hours.

Every time I feed I check their color rick rack to make sure it isn't too tight and last night had to change out a bunch of them.  I have a feeling I am going to go through quite a bit in the near future. My collie breeder friend had given me some small collars but I didn't like the snaps, I think I am going to play with them today and see if I cannot get them loosened up because it sure would be easier and I think they could probably wear them next week or maybe tomorrow at the rate they are going.

I also need to trim their little toe nails, man those things are sharp.  Anne said to do it in their sleep, easier said than done.  These guys are constantly moving and trying to trim moving targets is not easy.  You think about it there are a lot of little toe nails that need to be clipped.

The other fun adventure is weighing them.  I have a kitchen type of a scale and at first I had put a little plastic box on it and then put the puppies in the box.  Well that was a lesson in futality.  They would just climb over the sides.  So now I have a Zappos Shoe box on top of it.  The sides are too big and they cannot climb out, at least for the time being.  I am sure that day will be here before I am ready for it.  Once they are in the box they cannot be still for the 2 seconds it takes to get an accurate weight.  So I watch the weight go up and down and once a number pops up 3 or 4 times that is the one I go with.  Not sure how accurate my method is but it seems to be working.

As I look outside on this beautiful sunny day all I can see is my grass getting longer and longer.  Not sure when or how I will ever get it mowed but I am starting to see friends offer to come over and help, so maybe that day will be soon.