Along with my snakes, I also dabble in dogs a bit. I bred my Apricot female English Mastif to my friends Male Brindle English Mastif a couple months ago. On April 1st she had her first litter of puppies. It was a bitter sweet day (and night) as she had 5, but only 2 were born alive. The third one was going to be a stillborn and was already getting stiff once it was delivered (regimortis...sp?). The hard part was that the third one held up the delivery of the last two and they were also dead when born due to the time that passed between the thhird and the forth. I (along with a friend of ours) tried EVERYTING we could for 15-20 minutes on each pup. I took them right from mom and was giving them mouth to mouth and LIGHTLY pumping their chest, but with no luck. I guess Mother Nature has a reason for everything.
On the bright side we were fortunate to have these 2 AWESOME Brindle males. They were both 1lb. 3oz. at birth and one is up to 2lb. 0oz. as of this morning.
With the small litter, and the fact that they were all males, we will not be keeping any of them. I wanted to hold back a female, but maybe next time.
Anyway, just thought I would share something that was a bit different than the other critters we all love (snakes) and show you Mom and her two pups.
Below was Mom two days before she gave birth. She was catching some rays before the long workout. She was in labor (from beginning to the time the last one was born for over 36 hours).
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Brian Oakley
Phoenix, Arizona
BrianOakley@cox.net
