Lunch on day 13

 

Some eyes are open!

....very hard to hold a wriggly puppy and take photos!!

Next official photo shoot: FRIDAY evening

I will upload on Friday night :)

Day 11

The pups all have little slits for eyes now... Two of the pups are actually peeping - Jane and Puzzle! Their eyes should be all the way open tomorrow and the rest should start then too. They are all reacting to the light when I put it on in the room!

Here are 2 little videos of supper time this evening. We will take proper photos on Friday, and I will upload them on Friday night.

All the pups are walking around much easier now. And black girl was the first to sit up! I will be adding some little toys this weekend for them to bump into and for them to start getting the feel of different items.

Video

Here you can see the pups being more mobile. Mom had just left the box, so they were performing a little.. this is a little display of puppy tantrums hehe

Blankies

The blankies have arrived! Pink for girls and blue for boys!

The babies are 1 week old!

Dewormer

This has just arrived...

The pups are due to be dewormed next Friday (22 April), and I decided to try a new dewormer. The liquid dewormer that I used previously made such a mess, and it is so easy to waste. I decided to ask a few breeder friends what they use, and most prefer Panacur. I note that it comes in a paste, so we will try it for this litter!

STARS - 5 Days old

Update

Finn and babies are 100%... Mr Big (Patch) I think may be a Bernese mountain dog... he is just humungus!


Thinking about the litter, I still recall how quickly the pups came, I didn't have much time to do anything between the birth of each pup... but today I looked at the times, and some of them were quite far apart!


18 min
52 min
41 min
20 min
13 min
72 min! (this last one was so that I could go an have a brandy at 8 in the morning!)


It has been a busy day! I popped into the local material shop and got some more whelping box blankets. I also ordered some nice embroidered blankies - 1 for each pup in pink and blue, with the Mackland logo on! I also went and got the folders for all their documentation....


If all goes well (and my lights work) then PHOTOS tonight!

Update

Finn and the babies are doing very well. She is a good mom, as always! The pups are very strong and independent - they crawl around the box at a rate of knots. This litter doesn't seem to want the warmth of the heating pad, nor the heater in the room (they move away from it). I also note that, for the first time ever, I have a litter that doesn't snuggle up! They spread around and do their own thing!

One of the boys (Patch) seems very big to me, so I put him on the scale yesterday morning to see what he weighs... at 3 days = 600g!!!!!!!!!! YOH

The 7 microchips have been ordered (from Lusahn) and should arrive well in time for their 6-week insertion. I have also ordered their liquid deworming and puppy packs :)
Finn is eating me out of house and home... already polished off a full bag of Hills puppy, and begs for more after each meal! She is eating 4 bowls of Hills puppy a day, plus an egg, and also a portion of fish or chicken.

Latest litter theme....

..and the theme is: STARS


There are a number of reasons for this theme, but firstly it was planned already - as the third in Finn's trilogy: Sun, Moon, Stars


Then, due to Maverick bringing the litter forward by a year, it was almost called the OOPS litter....


But, I decided to go with STARS again after training with Maverick last week - he truly is a star, and his kids will be too! So STARS it is!


So, all registered names will be star-related. Those getting puppies can let me have their call names as they know them, so that I can start thinking what goes with each name! Make them special, people!!

What a hectic weekend!

My suspicions rose on Wednesday when Finn started panting lightly and it was not warm in PE. I thought she may be a bit uncomfortable, so just watched her. By Thursday lunchtime she was still the same, but Thursday night I knew the pups were coming early! She was definitely panting more than necessary, so I popped her in bed with me and decided to go to sleep early as a Friday "too-early" morning wake-up was very possible... During the night she got up a few times and went outside. (She dug a tunnel halfway to Australia and my bed was full of sand) By 3am she was panting heavily. So at 3:30 I got up and made some coffee, put all my whelping tools in the room, and put Finn in the box, and sat with her. My house guest joined me at 3:45, and Sam was notified at (THE USUAL) 4am. Finn started contractions at 5am and Sam then rocked up, half asleep.
DAY 58: The first baby was born just after 5:30am! They came quite quickly except for the last one :)

 

Mom and all pups had a good weekend. Pups are strong and VERY squirmy. It was interesting to note that these are a little different to my previous BC litters - some of the tails are longer and narrower at the base, and some also have way more white on than just the tips. The bodies are not as round as well, it's the first time I could feel spines at birth. Regarding the obvious... LOTS of large body splashes!! Finn is white factored and so is Maverick, but Maverick obviously carries a LOT. I have only bred with white factored dogs, and have got a few splashes in the past, but this litter takes first prize for that! In this litter, there is Mackland's first white face (half white) and also Mackland's first "mismark" (body more than 50% white). Also this litter sees Mackland's biggest pup at birth (bigger than Rush - 410g!) at a whopping 425g!

I am very happy with these pups, though, and I think I will enjoy seeing them work! No pups will go to show homes this time, as I cannot accurately gauge how they will turn out for the breed ring, given that it is a 100% outcross and 50% sheep herding lines. They will all be in active homes and working homes!

I decided to ask the vet nurse to come in on Sunday night to take their dew claws off, seeing that these are very strong puppies. This was at 2.5 days old (I usually have her do it at 3 days). The vet insists we do it at 4 days, but that was done once, for the Agility litter, and NEVER AGAIN. The screaming was too awful!  This last litter barely squealed and it was over in a matter of seconds and totally forgotten! Mom checked all the pups as we did them and they were drinking again happily within 5 minutes of us finishing :)



If all goes well, photos will be taken this evening!

Day 58 - we have puppies!

Introducing the STARS Litter....

7 puppies (4 females, 3 males)

Females:
Black 360g
Spider 380g
Jane 345g
Puzzle 365g

Males:
Patch 425g
Bandit 340g
Bonus 300g

Black 360g

Spider 380g

Jane 345g

Puzzle 365g

Patch 425g

Bandit 340g

Bonus 300g

Day 57

This morning's breakfast was FISH on last night's pasta... followed by a dish of Hills Puppy pellets. Finn is SO enjoying mealtimes!

It is day 57, so we are preparing the whelping room.... Documents are all printed out for taking the temperatures and for the puppy descriptions and details!

Database stats

I quickly asked the database to spit out the stats of Mackland's pending BC litter. (Sorry, they have an old pic of Maverick, and I also haven't sent them his hip and elbow certificate).

As you can see there are some interesting coats possible.... but my personal opinion is that they will all be black & white. You can also see from there that it is a total outcross (inbreeding 0%)... so basically a lucky packet of genetics. It's not something that I have done before - I really believe in type to type. But yes, this was planned (albeit for 2017) to inject a pure working element into my breed line. I do not want to lose any workability by only selecting show dogs (not that I have lost it yet, but it can happen).

Also, under diseases at the bottom, you will note that this will be a spectacularly healthy litter!

Finn is 8 weeks!

Well, Finn is 8 weeks along already and looking like a pudding.... I think acting like one too. She gets up to leave the room and plops down with a thump for a rest before she even gets to the door!

We had an x-ray today - I think we could see five babies! Sorry about the bad image - it's a phone pic of the screen...

Her "egg a day" is still going down well, and either chicken or fish on her food is still gobbled at high speed. We sommer eat pasta now occasionally too!

ONE week to go!!

Food, glorious food..!

Finn is living it up currently..... she so enjoys mealtimes!

For lunch today, we had a boiled egg...

And supper was laced with icky FISH!

I was pretty excited this afternoon, I felt babies moving! I cant wait to feel some more!

Treats for training

Just an interesting little tip for new puppy owners, and for those that train their pups/ dogs.... I have always believed in feeding chicken to my pups as it's very yummy and easy on their tummies... then one of my students taught me something new!


Chicken breasts, with a teeny bit of water - cook in a covered dish in the microwave until just done, remove and put on a cutting board and halve each breast lengthways (so that you have 2 thinner slabs of chicken per breast. Then, heat up a braai pan (I call it a smoke pan) and singe on there a bit, both sides. It dries the chicken out nicely and gives a braai-smell that the dogs go NUTS for!


From there it is easily shredded while training!

Fat Finn

Finn is now getting porky! Her name is FAT FINN at the moment. She is loving all the extra attention and treats! I am beginning to think that she did this on purpose on order to gain privileges!

Her breakfast ration has increased, and she is now getting a boiled egg for lunch as well. And her add-on at supper time is usually a form of chicken - today and tomorrow it is chicken hearts and rice!

She is going for a daily walk (soon to be waddle)... I can't believe that she is due in 3 weeks!

Chilled semen

My German chilled semen box has arrived! This will be particularly useful now when costs are so high to fly pets (and people). There is no longer the need to get the bitch to the male, and if you are in a bind for time, this is the way to go...


I have used this method once before, and it was 100% successful!


A breeder phoned me one Friday night to say that she had had a smear done on her girl and she would be ready the next day. There was no way I could let Tide fly there by himself, and the breeder couldn't arrange to get to PE so quickly, so we decided to try the chilled method. I got all the necessary from the vet and semen was taken early on Saturday morning, and it was at the airport (cargo) by 7am. It was flown to Cape Town and picked up by the breeder and taken to her specialist where the bitch was inseminated by 11:30am. I believe the window for chilled semen is 8 hours, so we even had a few hours to spare!


3 Weeks later I got confirmation that the bitch is indeed pregnant - with a minimum number of SIX puppies!

Now I have my own box, so don't have to rely on the vet's box to be in Port Elizabeth if I need it!

Dog runs

OK all that know me, know that my dogs are not in runs or kennels... they live in the house with me, and sleep where they want (except Mr lift-a-leg-a-lot, who sleeps in a crate, happily). Due to recent events (see last couple of posts, especially the OOPS post) it has come to my attention that one of my boys has legs (when compared to the leaping distance of the side wall) up to his armpits and beyond...


So............ bye bye beloved chicken pen, and hello new dog run (alas). Actually it will be a dual purpose area... it will double up as a lovely puppy play area when required! The boys won't be too pleased, but with 2 bitches due in season now in April, I figured it had better get done right now. The boys will only be in here during the day when I am not at home, when the girls are in season. They will sleep inside, still, alongside Mr pee-a-lot :)


The clean-up has begun! (Oh my poor lawn with all the bits of concrete and stones GRR)

The run will still be open and grassed (once they clean it up after my tirade). It is getting a slightly raised concrete platform for a mattress and bedding with a roof over this section. There is a concrete strip under the high fencing for anyone that fancies themselves as a digger (Nadine is smart, be like Nadine)... and gates will be metal for those gnawers out there....!





Finn is FAT

I was hoping that this would be a very small litter of Finn's.... given that the date of mating was so late and the fact that she got only 1 mating. I stopped the vet scanning at 3 pups so that was our minimum number from the scan (I'm still hoping it stays that way). However..... she is as fat as a hippo and she is only 5 weeks! Normally the BC's are this big at 6.5 weeks... She's even moaning in discomfort.

EISH


Her due date is 13 April.

Rush x Tesna - Johlene Lenaers Litter

Border Collie Litter expected in George (Johlene Lenaers).
This is not a Mackland litter, but Rush is the daddy :)
...some interesting colours expected!

She can be contacted on:
lencovervoer@gmail.com  072 224 8427

We have had a little accident...

....and Finn is pregnant!

This was Mackland's planned 2017 litter, but Maverick and Finn had other ideas!

Both are tested - A2-A2 hips and 0-0 elbows, and both are CEA Clear. Finn also has 2 additional tests - she is MDR1 clear and EIC clear.

Finn is a Breed Champion, and Dog Jumping Champion, and has a National DJ title.
Maverick is a young lad, just starting out in his career. He is from farm working lines, and has a superb nature! He is working VERY nicely at the moment, and will do extremely well in Agility in the future! He is not a show dog!

Puppies would be due around 13 April.

This will be a "mixed" litter (a total outcross in all respects).

Some pictures of Finn and Maverick:

FINN

MAVERICK