After attending Myra Harris' seminar not once, but twice (and wishing like hell I could have gone to see her this weekend in Calgary!), I have changed my bitch's pregnancy diet slightly.
In Myra's seminar she talks extensively about the parathyroid gland (read more about the parathyroid gland here) and its role in maintaining the body's calcium levels. When the calcium level in the blood stream drops below a certain level, the parathyroid gland releases, obviously enough, some parathyroid hormone which triggers the release of calcium from storage areas in the body, namely the skeletal system.
While most people think of calcium as "being important for bones and teeth", its biggest function in the body is maintaining muscle contraction (read more about the science here). If there is no calcium circulating through the bloodstream, there is no muscle contraction.
So...how does this apply to pregnant bitches?
What is labour??
Yes, you're right! Muscle contraction...lots and lots and LOTS of muscle contraction!
I feed my dogs a raw diet and a portion of that diet is raw meaty bones. The problem with feeding raw meaty bones during pregnancy, according to Myra, is that when you feed excess calcium (which bones have a plethora of!), there is always calcium circulating through the bloodstream as the body digests the bone. When there is always calcium circulating through the bloodstream, the parathyroid gland gets to take a break from doing its job. It gets lazy and sluggish. It goes on vacation...
So...you've fed a bunch of bone (or extra calcium for those of you who supplement during pregnancy) throughout the bitch's pregnancy. The parathyroid hormone hasn't worked in how many days/weeks/months...then the bitch goes into labour. WOW! That's a lot of muscle contraction...need more calcium...need to contract uterus to deliver puppies...
BUT!!! The parathyroid gland is still on vacation...it misses the 6am wake up call Monday morning its first day back at work. After the calcium that has been circulating in the bloodstream is used up there is none left because the parathyroid gland has been allowed to grow sluggish or inactive.
No calcium = no muscle contraction.
No muscle contraction = uterine inertia.
Uterine inertia = c-section.
So...the grand experiment! While my dogs are still on a raw diet, I have taken Porsche and Lily right off of raw meaty bones. They are eating organ meat, ground muscle meat, eggs, veggies and tripe, with tripe making up the majority of their diet.
I will be honest and say that a large part of me shudders to think that perhaps my bitches aren't getting enough calcium to make healthy babies...but then I give my head a shake and remember that tripe and liver and veggies all contain calcium. Not as much as raw meaty bones, of course, but that's the point, isn't it?
The hope is that by reducing the circulating calcium in their diet, I will be able to keep the parathyroid gland working hard throughout the pregnancy so that when the girls go into labour they will have more than enough access to calcium in their bones to deliver all of their babies naturally!
That's your biology lesson for today...I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I think I should have been a biology teacher! :)
I did this with CJ on her first litter after some friend who attend her seminar said she advised to do this at least a week prior to whelping. I stopped giving her raw with bone in it a little less than week before she was due. She whelped all seven puppies in 3 hours, 10 minutes.
ReplyDeleteOn the second litter I forgot to do this and she whelped six puppies in 6 hours on the nose. She did have two big breaks; one after puppy #4 for two hours then puppy #5 came, then another 2 1/2 hours later the final puppy (#6) came.
Perhaps me forgetting to stop the raw with bone had something to do with the length of time it took her to whelp? Not sure.
She did not drop like she did the first time and her labor was considerably different from the first one. Coincidence? I am unsure...
I was also told that giving organ meat in the first three weeks of pregnancy can cause defects in puppies. I was told this after this time frame had passed and I know I had some raw with organ meat but can't quite remember if CJ got some. She may have. I only feed her one raw meal a day as well. My little girl in the litter has a harelip so hard to know if it is truly genetic or due to me feeding CJ organ meat during those first few weeks of pregnancy.
Hey Cindy...
ReplyDeleteIt's actually not "organ meat" that you necessarily want to avoid, but rather an extreme amount of liver. If you feed to much liver you can overdose on Vitamin A...however, you'd have to feed a LOT of red meat liver to do that. Fish oils, like cod liver oil, for example are a no-no in the first three weeks because they're so high in Vitamin A.
Liver is actually essential to feed in the first three weeks of pregnancy (at least a small amount) because that's where a bitch gets her folic acid from to *prevent* deformities like cleft pallets and harelips. Unless, of course, you supplement folic acid separately like women do when they are pregnant.
As liver is also extremely high in calcium, I have decreased the amount of liver I feed during gestation as well. As Lily still has two weeks to go and I can already (easily) express milk from all her breasts, I don't think she's suffering from her slight diet changes. :)