Good evening, everyone. I'm Khe Kramer. I'm a veterinary practitioner in South Africa.
I'm also a veterinary specialist in animal reproduction, and I do some, lecturing at my university as well. But essentially, I'm a a GP as well. And I wanna teach everyone my colleagues of practical neonatology for the small animal practitioner.
Right? So our learning objectives are introduction into neonatology, neonate resuscitation and periarterial care. Knowing the most common congenital defect, we'll be looking at that and then also getting to know the most important infectious diseases in canine and feline neonates, the care of the ill neonate and then some issues that we have at at weaning time and transitioning into the new home.
So just some personal things here. Here's my little pet. I like the small ones as well as these big ones here.
The first one was a Chihuahua, and this is a typical South African breeder. It's a bitch. 86 kg, ruby, Massive, bulky breed.
All right. And here's some of my staff members. And again there you see a mastiff type.
I think it is. So let's fire it away with paediatrics now. Veterinary, canine and feline paediatrics is really in its infancy.
And for us practitioners, it can be very frustrating because we've got little literature as well as resources to rely on. Generally, veterinarians are very, very weak in neonatology, and therefore clients have become accustomed to poor results and actually poor servers, and they often don't bother to present their neonates to to vets. One thing about if you endeavour the neonatology, you have to equip yourself.
You have to have all the the bells and whistles and incubators in order to do a professional job. You also have to encourage breeders to present and examine as many as possible sick, dying and dead puppies and kittens, for the establishment of accurate diagnoses and get used to, this and get into the hang of things. It is definitely a fact that a more enthusiastic approach leads to higher success rates in your diagnoses.
Higher survival rates. But most importantly, you're being able to propose preventative protocols because often when you have a sick puppy, it's already almost a dead puppy, So prevention is better than cure. You've got a chance of preventing others in the litter or in subsequent litters in their breeding enterprise to become ill and, and and obviously succumb to whatever issue there is.
It is extremely important that you do post mortems on as many little animals as you can. In this case here on the left, we've got a I think it was a, a herpes virus on the right there. I don't know.
But anyhow, get into the habit of performing, post mortems, collecting samples for, for culture and antibio grammes as well as for histopathology. N, PC, R. What often happens when you start doing this with, kittens and with puppies, you will find that, you know, people will start developing.
you you yourself will start developing a lot of confidence, and your clients will also have confidence in your abilities. And puppies and kittens are, often the stock that we that we learn on as private practitioners. And once you've become familiar with, with the canine and feline neonates, then you will be gain confidence to deal with other members of the candidate family.
In this case here, we've got the very, very rare, wharf. We've got some Fenwick foxes there. We've got on the bottom left Got African wild Dog Bay at Fox really awesome to work with All these animals and the Gen General principles are by and large the same for the for the members of the cant family Likewise with the with the members of the F family Got a little tiger here.
We've got a kaca links a tiger cub and a lion cub. And again, the simple principles all apply to, to all these neonates. So the the the the confidence and the experience you have gained in in, kittens and in puppies will, stand you in good stead to deal with these other family members as well.
And then, of course, we've got some other creatures that don't need necessarily be within the canine and feline family. But you have got a little baboon. We've got a a skunk, a meerkat, a kink au.
And I think there's a, a Genet as well. Right also. And that's another part of our activities in my practise that we help with some captive breeding programmes such as the very, very rare small little African, black footed cat.
And they are a real challenge to breed in captivity. There are some critical periods that we have in the neonatal, neonatal period and neonatal disease. So in the immediate postpartum, period round about birth, there's a number of things that can go wrong.
Then also the first week, then from week 2 to 6, which is just before weaning or around about at the time of weaning. And then we're going to end with the weaning period those critical periods we will be talking about. OK, So in order to identify whether something is pathological, we first have to have a very good idea as to what is considered normal, right?
And you'll see that the the vast majority of the, of our lectures today all rely and revolve around the canine neonate the puppy because a lot more is known about them. They're also more common to have problems and can be a lot more challenging than the than our little kittens. And, they definitely form up form the largest proportion of our of our neonatal patients.
We have to you can in in a in a, a normal puppy will feed every two or so hours. But if we do hand rearing, we don't feed them every two hours. We feed them approximately every fi, 4 to 5 hours a normal puppy will sleep.
When it's just drank, they gain weight. And this is one of the important things that we have to have a scale must make sure that you know what their birth weights are and that you then take serial weight, measurements every single day. All right.
A simple formula of gain weight. What to expect would be, plus minus one gramme for every kilogramme of adult weight. So let's say you've got a GSD that weighs 36 as an adult, approximately 36.
But these are just the general guidelines. The bottom line is, as long as there is weight gain, even if it's a lot less all right, A. OK, we're doing well, and a normal puppy will move vigorously when touched.
It's also part of your a P, a score that you can do just after birth. And there we've got two little puppies there and they appear nice and content and they are sleeping. They're not moaning.
They're not not moving around. They've just had a a solid meal, and now they're just sleeping and growing. So what does a sick puppy look like?
Well, they cry. They continuously. They are weak.
They are poorly responsive to touch. They lose weight, they don't gain weight. All right.
And unfortunately, a sick puppy doesn't give you any time, All right? Within 12 to 24 hours of presenting ill within the first week or so, those puppies will be dead. And very often, a very frustrating issue that we have with, these neonatal, is that they?
When you take samples, they will often die before you get your results back. So what does that mean, then? That you have to do you have to start off with some form of preventative and empirical treatment before you really know what the true diagnosis is?
And here's a little video clip. Some sound effects there. Yeah.
This is a typical cry by syndrome and puppy. Indeed. There you heard it cry, cry and die.
Right. Let's go to our next slide. Mm.
The problems at birth and the congenital disease. Let's tackle those issues. Yes.
One very, very important thing. Timing of Caesarean sections. Right.
So puppies and kittens may be born by a spontaneous vaginal delivery or natural birth natural parturition. But they could also be, born or delivered by Caesarean sections. And what do you have if you have a a too early delivery, like in this case here and this puppy, you can very clearly see that we've got a premature individual.
How can we see that? Well, we can see the sparsity of the hair surrounding the feet and the muzzle. Right?
Clearly, you can see that there's this. There's prematurity at hand here, and this puppy survival rate is vastly reduced. A new This is a newborn GSD puppy with ample hair on his legs.
You can see that in, in contrast to the previous one. So this puppy is a fully mature puppy that is gonna be breathing normal and has a normal survival rate. Likewise here, same puppy with a facial, facial hair and and the ears are properly covered with hair.
Yeah, we've got a full B, full term bole puppy. Likewise, there's just one difference what you get with toy breeds that often, even normal. And if they fully mature, they seem to have a little bit less hair than the bigger breeds.
OK, so there's some differences. OK, so here we've got some compromised foetuses. And, these are the result of either a dystopia case with natural delivery or with a dystopia case and then a, emergency caesarean section being performed on the top left.
Here. We've got a yellow canary there called the Meconium stain puppy. OK, and then right at the bottom, there's a puppy that got stuck on the left bottom and you can see the cyanotic changes there to the, to the face and on the right hand side here, right bottom.
We've got a little cone head there because there was an obstruction there and its head got stuck for a long time. These puppies essentially got oxygen deprived, and when they get oxygen deprived, then they are severely compromised. And, or the survival rate is most certainly less.
Also, get something called meconium aspiration sy syndrome, and that is a well recognised syndrome in humans and less so in, in puppies. But if you have substantial, meconium staining, you'll often see also that their mouth has got, a lot of mcon. They swallowed it and sometimes inhaled it as well because of oxygen deficiency.
And, you know, the survival rate over the first seven days is most certainly reduced. And this typically happens in dystopia, prolonged birth and, emergency Caesarean sections. Another, another compromise that you can see is these these puppies that have Verdin stain in that Verdin is a pigment, originating from the, from the placenta.
And when the placenta starts detaching, the puppy becomes oxygen deprived. And in this case, here, you can see this, this puppy here, that's green Verdin, pigment all over it. And then you can also see its muzzle.
It's got a cyanotic colour. And look at the white little puppy just above it. It's got a pink, normal colour again.
That little puppy there is is compromised, and his survival rate is gonna be a lot lower. And his chances of picking up some sort of infection or so particularly septicemia, is a lot lot higher. You mean a compromised.
We're gonna look at some congenital pathologies, and, here we say that we, as veterinarians, are very often, you know, complicit in propagating genetic issues. This is one of the most, popular breeds in the world, the French Bulldogs. And we're doing, you know, artificial insemination there that can't breed normal themselves that can't deliver normal.
They've got a variety of issues, and as much as we love them, they've got lots of issues. So we, need to take some responsibility for all of this, And we have to work hard at, genetic improvement of our stock and not be complicit in propagating, genetic issues. All right.
And here we go. This is why the whole world just basically adores him, including myself. But the cutest little friendship pup.
Something that we all have to pay attention to and many times, general practitioners that are not so familiar with, with, dealing with breeding animals. And, and, yeah. And pregnant animals that you have to be careful.
You can easily be caught. You see a pregnant, you see an animal, That is, limping or so, And it requires some sort of an anti-inflammatory. And inadvertently you give this.
And then only later do you find out that she may or may not be pregnant. That's extremely important. Non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy are a huge problem.
We've also got this issue of some dogs having folic acid metabolism issues. And, again, there, there's a friend she is at hand, a lot of the other Bracha. They've got a very high incidence of cleft palates and deficiencies there, may increase the prevalence of cleft palates and therefore, we often supplement them, particularly in the 1st and 2nd trimester of pregnancy.
It is believed that even before pregnancy, and during heat, if you, supplement there as well that there may be benefits. The number of drugs that you have to avoid is, obviously all vaccinations that are live live vaccination that are not registered for use in pregnant animals, then our sulphur drugs gris, metronidazole, corticosteroids and a variety of others are problematic during pregnancy. And C can cause serious anomalies in the, in the foetuses.
The thing that we often get in, with, with, tickly dogs. But also in in cats that we can have a low birth mass puppies. And there's a variety of reasons why we can have, low birth mass mass and puppies and kittens, and we'll touch on some of them.
So generally, you know, what is it? Defines difficult to define. But they are 25% below the average for the breed.
That would be considered a a lower birth mass and likewise within. As we have in humans as well, there's certain birth rates which predispose you to a variety of problems if you, if you are below a sub minimum, All right. Generally, with low birth mass, you're going to find it to be in an individual thing.
You won't fight an entire litter being, being affected. And you get extremes. Of course.
On the top, right there. You have a puppy that, weighed. I think it was something like 85 gramme, hugely problematic in the particular breed.
On the right hand side there. I cannot remember the thing. I think these were Rottweilers, and you see one huge and one very much smaller puppies.
Those puppies are a disadvantaged in many, many ways and one of the other ways, even if they are not weaker, They might be pretty strong, but they're just small. Just remember, there's no way that this pup can, compete for teats or for milk. you know, with its litter mates, particularly if there's a number of them, so you have to give particular attention to them, right?
Here's another example of some extreme variations and here and this is this is one litre. Can you have a look and see the entire litter there, You know, from big to small, quite drastic. Changes there again.
The higher birth weight have got a much better nerves. And that's another thing. Is that these the, you know, the the higher weight puppies, They have much, much better glycogen stores in their liver.
And, they're much like, much more likely to survive and to withstand, you know, some, missing a meal or so. Whereas these small little guys, they cannot even miss one meal, they'll become hypoglycemic and die on you. All right.
And then there's a variety of other congenital abnormalities, and we'll just try and show some of them just for interest here. We've got some cranial clefts. They are also involved with the folic acid and metabolism, particularly so in the in the B teria breed, but also in miniature pinchers, then top bottom right there.
We've got hydrocephalus and the Chihuahua, one of my favourite breeds. And here we go. We've got cleft palates and a Pilates, and, and also then, you know, the hair lip, and then we've got on the bottom left there.
We've got a congenital inguinal. Hernias can be highly problematic. Well, here's a picture of a, of a cleft palate that we, that we've surgically corrected.
But let me tell you, that is besides being a huge, surgical challenge, and with sometimes many revisions required, it is highly problematic to try and keep these, these animals alive and get them to weaning age. If you've done them early. And just remember, this is a congenital defect.
You may not breed with these animals. They need to be sterilised. All right.
Another thing is, as a veterinarian is myself dealing with a lot of Theo Geneology cases. Caesarean sections. So what do we see?
We see a lot of these ANAs aa puppies. Scientific name, for it is really as hydrops foetal. It's also known as walrus and, Bulldog, Puppy syndrome and so forth.
You know, it's mentioned there's a bulldog puppy syndrome, but it's most certainly not restricted to the bulldog breed alone. We see this a lot in a number of other, Racal breeds, but I've even seen it in this is, for instance, a Yorkie, Yorkie puppy. So essentially, I've seen it in the 30 plus breeds.
It's not restricted to any breed in particular. It's just that the prevalence is so much higher in the brachia Felix. And we also get different grades of, hydrops FIS.
In this case here, we've got a MI form, and in some, not all of them are doomed to die. But most are indeed. This is another thing that we see a lot.
And these type of things are This is a case of an Phalle where part of the, of the, abdominal content develops outside the abdominal cavity, and these things are often misdiagnosed as the hernia. So this is not a hernia or, you know, if they're born naturally, they would be misdiagnosed as hernias or a puppy that became eviscerated by the by the the dam, the mom. But that is not the case at all.
These, intestines in this case here, developed on the outside and, yeah, usually problematic. These puppies have virtually no chance of survival. And even if you try and surgically correct them, it's extremely unlikely to, to fix them.
Then most of them will die. And also a lot of them actually have other defects that are at that time still undetected. Hypospadia some neuro genital defect in the in the embryonal development of the Neurogen Ital tract polydactyl where they have more feet and limbs and no, here's another one.
This one, He has got an seal on top of that. So clearly all these puppies get euthanized immediately after birth. That would be the ethically correct thing to do, right?
And then we get a variety of peat, disorders here and he here we see a couple of them, the one in middle centre top is one that is extreme and is extremely unlikely to correct itself. I may just point out that some of these feet deviations and leg deformities are a result of positioning within the uterus. And, I generally give these little guys a week or two to see if they can correct themselves, because frequently, indeed they do, Not all but they they often do.
And here we've got some kittens with all sorts of defects. And, and, and, you know, foetal death. Yeah, and we've got another one there with a cleft pallet, a massive cleft pallet.
And I wouldn't even attempt to try and fix this one. It's too big. And then we get these really gross type of, of of feet of, foetal abnormalities.
This one here, you know, you just basically can see some some ears. There's no eyes. There's no, there's no mouth.
There's absolutely nothing. There's got, like, an elephant trunk there, you know? Absolutely.
Growth gross type of defects. Just terrible to see. They happen but are fortunately extremely rare.
And then we get some some other defects which, usually become evident. Only after a period of time. Usually when they start eating solids, Here's a, assistant, right.
Aortic arch and darters RD a, huge problem. His puppies start. regurgitating the moment they start taking solids, and you may not, confuse that with the mega oesophagus, which can also happen in very, very young individuals and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
And all sorts of other, heart defects are all known to occur in dogs and cats, for that matter. And here's an ethical issue here. You know, when you when, you know, for 100% sure, and like some of those defects you saw, you know, even for the most astute veterinarians, they would not try and fix any of these type of things at this young an age.
And, if you can pro prognosticate predict the survivability. And that is much easier said and then done. And in adults in conditions and pathological conditions in adults, this is much easier with young adults.
It's, it is very, very difficult. Often it is impossible to prognosticate in the puppies and kittens. I also say that if you don't ever try you, you cannot know.
So because otherwise, you get into the habit of giving up, right? But as you know, we gain experience, and with the wisdom of hindsight, that's human factor. You know, we start up ending to know which of these conditions we can, we can attempt to fix and which not.
OK, obviously we never, ever breed with any of these individuals. OK, but, anything like that has to be done with, client consent. I'm going to mention some of the general, paediatric principles.
And we often speak about the 4H S. What are those? 4H S.
They are hypothermia according to the temperature hydration, the fluid balance, hypoglycemia, glucose and energy demand and hypoxia, oxygen demand. So those are the 4H S which have to be addressed. And we have to keep them in mind as we deal with our little neonates.
And what we get is we have. If we have hypothermia, we often have indigestion. You get ilios of the gut.
All right. You get fermentation, bloat and death hydration. Very simple.
They dehydrate very quickly if they do not take in fluids. And what is that cut off period there about four hours between meals. Longer than that, we start getting compromise hypoglycemia.
Likewise. When they don't drink, they don't only dehydrate, but they will also become hyperglycemia and the smaller these neonates are. And you get this particularly in toy breeds and even young adults as well.
Hypoglycemia can be a huge problem. And what we find in particularly with the toy breeds, is that they've just got these tiny livers and they just do not have sufficient glycogen, reserves in their liver. And, hence they suffer from hyperglycemia very, very quickly and would die.
Hypoxia. Hypoxia is an issue that we get with compromised res, Airways. And that can very often happen if they've got, like, econ Aspiration syndrome if they've been compromised.
You you saw those yellow and those green little puppies. And if their lungs aren't mature because there's some level of prematurity, but also with respiratory conditions or respiratory infections or heart conditions, we can all have hypoxia. So we're dealing first with hypothermia in the first week.
It's extremely important to realise that your little puppies and kittens do not have the ability to thermo regulate. So the dam in nature would, within a den would provide that, you know, be the source of the heat and provide, you know, the thermoregulation, the the comfort zone for those puppies is around about 34 to 36. But anything above 34.
36 is, in that vicinity is is is good. By the second week, we can drop a degree or two, as indicated by the third week. Even more.
I just want to mention also that if you use incubators where the heat source is a light, OK, be careful and be. Make sure that the box is is, is big enough so that they can move towards the light. If, if they're feeling cold and they can move because that's what puppies and kittens do, that they can move away.
If your if your box is too small, they cannot escape. The, the the heat source and the and your and your and the heat is too high, you know, Then they can't. they can't escape, and then they will actually cook.
So be careful of that. Your incubator has to be ventilated, but you don't have to worry too much about the, Ambien, the humidity. And we we do get a very, very fancy, incubators, but ambient humidity in most areas is perfectly fine.
And there's a an example of an incubator with some, the heating source. The light is just there to see It's got a, it's got an element to heat the the air. And it's obviously also got extractor fans there for ventilation.
All right, I'm showing you now puppies that are nicely spread out. This is the correct temperature. These puppies you can see are in comfort zone, all right?
They're not, attempting to move away from each other because they're too warm. They're just lying snug against each other. But they're also not, hurdling on top of each other, like in this one.
Can you see this temperature is too cold and these puppies are all crawling around and they're not happy. They're not sleeping, and they're very cold, and they're trying to trying to all get together and and huddle together because of the cold. As I said, if we have hypothermia, we've got Alius.
And if you have gut stas in the puppies, there is a whole bunch of very pathological se Sequels that will happen, causing death. OK, hypoxia, quickly, after birth. After Caesarean section.
Spontaneous, spontaneous vaginal delivery. And you're assisting there. You have to clean the airways per minute after birth.
Some people wish to shake them. There's controversy as to whether that's right or wrong. I still shake them, shake out the the phlegm from the, from the airways.
And we just do so carefully we rub them vigour vigorously. Hypoxia also occurs if you have prolonged birth or with, anaesthetic protocols for Caesarean section. You know that, suppresses the cardio respiratory, system of the puppies.
Puppy maturity is extremely important. If they're born too young, sects are insufficient, and they are going to be hypoxic. They're going to appear cyanotic.
You can give them oxygen support. That is a great thing to do. So make sure that you give reversal agents.
You can give adrenaline respiratory stimulants, but one just has to be careful with the dosages there. Ok, here's an interesting one that I've learned from some colleagues of mine doctor Helen Paulson, and they frequently, apply acupuncture. I've never done it myself.
And I'm certainly gonna try this in, in the next cases where I feel it's necessary. But, acu acupuncture trigger point, and then you can go and read up all about it. And here are some of those, sources that you can use.
And here you can clearly see a puppy that would require quite, intensive and quite vigorous and prolonged. Neonatal resuscitation. There is a puppy that is severely meconium stained there.
And see that what happens during when this puppy is already hypoxic before it is even born. They start defecating within the amniotic, fluid in the bag and they start inhaling this and they are just terribly compromised. And this puppy is there's gonna be a lot of work here, a lot of oxygen support, cleaning up of the puppy, cleaning its airways, shaking it vigorously.
And, you know, trying to get keep this puppy alive is gonna be a challenge. And here's an acast core system, and we basically just use this, in, in in research for for anaesthetic protocols and and for many other purposes, it's a It's a great scoring system that helps you to compare apples with apples. When you're doing research hyperglycemia and all neonates.
I'm talking about? No matter. Words canine, feline, whatever.
You know, they've got poor reserves in their glycogen. We as adults, we have, you have a number of of, sugar stores. We've got some we've got, you know, the blood glucose levels, which are should be within the normal range.
Then we've got a liver and muscle glycogen, right, And we can mobilise them in in cases of, problems, and And deficiencies, when you've an animal is hyperglycemic and and particularly, dogs. They will show up pistono. They'll, flex their heads backwards.
They'll be weak. They go into a coma, and it's followed by a rapid death. And go here.
Keep on mentioning your toy breeds. Those are the ones that are most likely develop it even in young adults. And even at weaning age, you can get this hyperglycemia set in, but particularly after, after, after, soon after birth as well.
Ok. And, hyperglycemia. Hydration.
Yeah. So this stick neonate is likely to have gut Stasis. We mentioned that they have ileus.
They have poor absorption from the gut, all right. And therefore, we often give so it is not the greatest. You just give them oral supplementation there.
But we also give them drip underneath the skin, subcutaneous five millilitres per every 100 gramme. And, you know, we add some glucose to that mixture. Some people like to give them intraperitoneal.
I'm not a big fan of that, because particularly when they started to develop, some some gas and some bloat. Then there's more pressure on the diaphragm and, compromises. You know, their ability to to, to, oxygenate.
And I prefer to give it subcutaneous. Yeah, some people also they give it, into O, which is absolutely awesome. No problem.
But then you must know the technique and also be very careful of your fluid rates. Whereas if you give it subcutaneous, you do not need to worry about a rate and you don't need to have staff watching this the whole time. We need to talk about the first meal in puppies, right, and in kittens.
And what we need to know is that we you need to know that you know they need colostrum. And colostrum is the source of antibodies because very little, antibodies are acquired, via the placenta. It's all via the milk that they get it.
And the antibody rich milk first milk is secreted over the 1st 24 hours, and that is called the colostrum. OK, And what amounts do we need in in, in puppies? We need a single dose of one millilitre per 100 gramme.
Now, all as veterinarians used to be told for many years that the time span in which this can be absorbed is the 1st 24 hours more recent. research has now shown that this time period is much restricted. It's closer to 6 to 8 hours after birth.
After eight hours, there's still some value. But it's limited, all right. We can still use Colo in the first couple of days, but only for intestinal con, conditions, because it's got some local antibody effect.
But those antibodies will not be available to be absorbed anymore, because the gut lining would have closed to the absorption of those, clos antibodies. So there's several sources of antibodies for that puppy because it's deprived. It's got no immunity.
So the ideal is the mother's own colostrum. Second best would be another dams colostrum and that we have in a colostrum bank, just like they have with herbivores, we could use, eho colostrum with, herpes antibodies. That's a different topic on its own.
If those are not available for whatever reason, we can use, dam serum or plasma. And then we get some milk places that have some colostrum additives such as, antibodies from, from egg yolk that are specifically prepared. And then you get colostrum from other species.
OK. And as we go down, I think they become less effective and less, ideal. And then there's probably some gimmicks which are likely useless.
Yeah, until proven otherwise some colossal, colossal substitutes. And here, if we have large breeds, you know, we've got the advantage that we can actually, milk out the colossal, just as we do with the herbivores. Clearly, you're not gonna do that in Chihuahuas or in little, Yorkies or very small breeds.
This is a master breed of bull bull, and we're gonna be able to do so very easily. And I love having this colossal around. And we freeze them in tubes.
They last about, a year in the frozen, state. Just a normal minus 20. We must please cool them down slowly.
Do not put these things in microwaves when boiling water to defrost, because then you're going to denature the protein and it's gonna be rendered useless, right? And we feed it also at the dose of one mil per 100 gramme body weight. And please do so within the first six hours of of birth.
We generally do it within the first two hours after a Caesarean section. OK, as I said, you can read and you've got a whole handful of them very, very, very handy. OK, the serum.
We're not gonna go into the preparation serum or plasma will know how to do that and pretty much the same principles you apply there. You can store it for 6 to 12 months and, very, very useful if you don't have anything not nearly as great as Philo, but most certainly better than nothing. All right, And, again there, as I said, one mil per, per 100 gramme.
And we feed them this bar. Ross, there's no need to do via any other route because it is available at that point in time, right? That was regarding, the first feed of this puppy, which should be a source of antibodies.
And we gave all those sources, right? But now we're going to feed the neonate as well. And there's a variety of reasons why we'd be feeding neonates.
We might have. We spoke about those weak ones, the underweight ones, the ones that have got, you know, much bigger litter mates that are being pushed away. You might have orphaned puppies, and there's a variety of reasons why or even a a dam that had died for whatever reason.
And these little guys need to be fed. Right. So here we've got, like, a proper litter, and these puppies are all suckling very, very, very nicely there, because mother's milk is best.
And that would be our first choice. . In all cases, but in cases where this is not possible, we are going to substitute all right.
And the second best substitute here would be a foster. And this is a very interesting case of a Chihuahua. That is like, fostering a Phoenix Fox.
All right. And then we've got good mothers here. And that's another thing.
You know, we have some bad mothers as well. And, what does bad mothers do while they neglect? And they don't feed their puppies properly.
Or they may indeed, cause inf fantasise infanticide, as was the case here. All right, so there's gonna be neglect. We can use behavioural modification drugs for these individuals, but nevertheless, they're highly problematic.
Here we go also. As I said, size matters when fostering. You cannot have this type of scenario here.
This puppy is going to dominate. It's gonna push all those other ones away, and the other ones are just gonna get weaker and weaker, and they're not gonna get anything. And they are likely gonna pick up, infections or die from starvation.
A good thing to see is check whether a sucking reflex is intact sucking reflex. Those puppies can ideally you drink from a mother or a foster mother or from a bottle, for that matter. OK, but if they are too weak, they need to be tube fed.
And let me tell you, it's extremely easy to tube feed the general principle applies there as well. If you just like in horses, when you tube feed them, you flex their necks their necks down. Then it's virtually anatomically impossible to make that pipe proceed into the trachea.
It will always follow the route of the oesophagus. Make sure that you use an appropriate feeding tube that can, it's nice and soft and can bend and twist around and turn in the stomach. No, goes into the into the trachea.
It will not be able to to twist around. So then you will feel that it stops abruptly, whereas in the tummy it does not stop abruptly because it starts twisting on itself. And, you can keep on feeding a tube a lot longer than what the puppy is.
And here's one of the tubing feeds. But there's very many shapes and forms and sizes as long as they're the right size and they are nice, soft and pliable. Milk replaces are extremely important.
And, they are not equal, and without mentioning brand names or anything like that, I will just generally tell you that the more expensive ones are the better ones. Milk replaces that often clump when they are being mixed of poorer quality. I add some, fat rich of those tinned foods, and I've unfortunately mentioned her name here.
But there's many, many, many of these moves that are absolutely awesome. I add them to 5% and a lot of people think that you cannot do so from day old. But we we've been doing that for many, many years.
Call it anecdotal or not, these puppies do exceptionally well, and they last longer between meals as well. Please make the correct concentration. Follow the instructions.
If it's too dilute, you're not gonna have weight gain. And if it's too concentrated, you've got an asthmatic diarrhoea and you can actually have dehydration. You can have the opposite effect.
Make sure that you all the hygienic principles of feeding your feeding paraphernalia are observed just like you would do with babies. Look at this right. This is basically looks like a a feeding station for for a for a human baby.
But apply the same principle. There must be no milk residues which act as bacterial, feeding grounds. And rancidity, occurring All this type of thing happening, you know, apply hygienic principles.
OK, so how much of these, of the milk replace? Are you going to, use? So now they A general rule is that puppies are not suckling, you know, they consume 20 to 25% of their body weight, and they would do so over a period of 24 hours.
And how many times will we feed them when we hand rear them? Well, six times. OK, so that translates into, approximately three and three comma, 5% 3 comma, 3% of their body weight being fed in one in one go.
Do not feed them much more than that, because their stomach capacity is around about that. That, that amount. Yeah, let's just go to the previous one again.
So just remember that if you're gonna tube feed them, you're gonna feed them a set amount. And if you're if you're thinking that they're still drinking from the mom, so they're getting some milk there as well, then you could easily, you know, overfeed them. And the danger would there be even if you're in the stomach and you feed them, you tube feed them and they've already drank a couple of millilitres.
And you now add another three comma 3% of their body weight. You can exceed the stomach capacity, and you're gonna have regurgitation and potentially aspiration. So if, puppies are drinking from, we give them about half that amount and then just, you know, give another half of that amount again when they are crying an hour or two or three later, indicating that they are hungry again.
OK, so here's like a little feeding chart on average, like kittens, we pretty much stand 50 to 80 gramme, depending on, on on on breed. And they would get round about 1.6 to 2.6 3.5 mil.
And the really large ones and puppies roughly get three comma, three mils per every 100 gramme at, at every feeding time. OK, so we've mentioned the story about when they're not cycling and when they are cycling, give the half that amount every 2 to 4 hours until they start gaining significant amounts of weight. All right.
And I said we've also got agalactia, and it's poor, milk production in the in the bitches. And there's individual differences there. We often find that, you know, some bitches take some time before they start producing milk.
After birth, that happens after vaginal delivery. It could also happen after Caesarean sections. All right, so, the quality of nutrition prior to parturition also plays a role.
You often have these dogs that had these massive pendulum, abdomens, and that usually resolves the cell soon after delivery. But then, you know, there's this question that they get enough cloer in the in the meantime, because those bitches often suffer from, from, a galacia. All right.
And then we also have some bitches that have postpartum anorexia that last far too long. Often, it's, you know, called the pial blues may even, not eat well at all. And we've got some drugs there that we can use in order to kick start the, the lactation.
My, my preference is most certainly Esper or, Suy. Acetylpromazine would be my second go to and, metacarpi lesser. We mentioned the value of weighing these puppies.
You cannot have little guesstimates when you're feeding puppies and neither When treating them either you need to know. You know what weight they are, and we need to know that they are gaining weight. Then we know all is well.
OK. Likewise, Please use small syringes and accurate, dosing requires very fine measurements. And, in small syringes.
That's what it's all about in neonatology. Now, let's get into some canine neonatal diseases. All right, so here we've got some challenges with, as general practitioners, OK, because all sick puppies look the same.
I showed you those little videos where we have the cry cry die syndrome. The puppy just cries and it dies. And often veterinarians become, frustrated because they have this inability to change this fatal outcome in these little guys.
And they also have the inability to diagnose accurately. That's why I said that we have to do as many post mortems as possible and exhaustive tests. And unfortunately, a lot of these tests will be un, rewarding.
And that leaves the breeder with more veterinary costs and more dead puppies and still no answers. And hence they get discouraged through this whole process to, you know, to visit veterinarians. Right?
So, we have to, like, change that attitude, get involved there. Do lots of post mortems gain confidence, gain experience so that we can start diagnosing more accurately and know what we're doing with these little guys, right? Another thing that we have with, with neonates is that the onset of disease till death is usually measured in hours and not many days, as in adults.
So you don't have a long time. And often as I've mentioned before is that you know, the value of that debt of that sick, puppy or kitten is often going to be providing an answer either through post mortem or exhaustive testing for the other, individuals within that breeding colony when they litter. OK, so now, within the in the first, couple of weeks from birth till about three weeks of age to the breeder, all these conditions appear to be one syndrome.
You know, one of these syndromes are called the fading puppy syndrome. Right? OK, basically, essentially as a sick puppy or kitten, it's gonna have a poor sucking reflex.
Gonna start losing weight, can have a might have diarrhoea. They develop ill very, very quickly. Also, remember that if they have Theia that they you know, develop, ileos.
And what does an ilio pup do at starts? Bloating. All right, we're going to start developing cyanosis of the mucus membranes and even of the of the, abdominal wall.
You'll start seeing the skin start doing this horrible purple bluish colour, and these puppies will do the cry cry dye thing. OK, The low birth mass puppies we we mentioned about you get them large litters. We get them when you have limited uterine space and placental insufficiency.
In these cases, herpes is a big one. A big DD for, for low birth math, individuals. And then a lot of them would be idiopathic, right?
You follow the gen General principle, but don't spend too much resources on these little individuals. You know, all the all the normal care and the feeding and all that. Not too much of the other things, because rather spend those resources on individuals that have a much better chance.
Hm. Then you generally just get weak puppies and there may be a variety of reasons. For for that and being, underweight and all that small is one of them, amongst others.
But sometimes the exact causes are not known. This puppy just appears to be weak, all right? It may just be temporarily hyperglycemic or hypothermic due to, you know, hypoxia as well.
Dystopia, internal neglect. And again, as I said, neglect of a couple of hours in a in A in a puppy. It's like a lifetime to an adult, and they succumb.
All right, as I've mentioned, eliminate competition within the litter by allowing to have the weak pup suckle alone. Right? Yeah.
Be careful. This is a massive slide that indicates that 70% of neonatal mortalities are associated or caused by septicemia. Just remember this statistic 70% extremely high.
All right, so we have to spend some time on neonatal septicemia. OK, so puppies have these immature immune systems. We know all about that.
And during the first weeks of life, if you have Collosum deprivation, you've got huge problems. And we mentioned that they need to get in this colos ideally under, eight hours within eight hours after birth, no later than 8 to 12 hours and definitely not the 24 hours that we were taught pups that are exposed to chilling dehydration. Hyperglycemia are extremely likely to pick up, an an infection, immune compromised.
And then things happen quickly. Omphalitis, enteritis. There's all sorts of, ports of entry for those bacteria, infection from the dam, either through her having a uterine infection, having, mastitis, maternal oropharyngeal secretions or the environment.
And one of the big culprits in, in our environment is wooden boxes these wooden boxes that they suck up and soak up water, particularly if it's pressed wood. We cannot, effectively disinfect these areas. And then we've got offending bacteria such as E coli strips, stas pseudomonas and other gramme negatives, causing big problems for us.
So the diagnosis is like the clinical signs that raise suspicion. We often have that, you know, it affects a number of litters suggesting an infectious nature. You know, a leuco gramme that is suggestive of an infectious process, and then also, as we have them die or even euthanized in a in A in a very, very ill puppies culture, the peritoneal fluid liver, spleen lung from a recently died or euthanased puppy and we get some answers.
Will it save? You know, the immediate Liam? Probably not, because it's gonna take some time before we get the results back.
But, you know, we can act accordingly and get some sort of an idea of what type of antibiotic and what type of of pathogens we are dealing with in this in this, breeding enterprise or with this breeder. All right, the symptoms are cino the toxic membranes that we mentioned, the skin discoloration, and severe respiratory distress lung edoema. And they blo cry, cry and die.
So up to two thirds of all sick puppies may end up septicemic irrespective of what the initial cause or insult was to them. OK? And that in total ends up to, mortalities Being up to 73 quarters of puppies will, of dying puppies Will, you will diagnose an extent of septicemia.
OK, As I said, you know, the colossi deprivation is an issue. So once you've got one or two puppies that are are that you, have diagnosed with this treat the entire litter, even if they are not infected as yet. OK, here we go.
A typical you know, picture of an image of what? This, septicemia looks like, OK, the treatment. Well, as I've mentioned, the treatment is usually futile When this when we have an advanced case.
And if you have a high incidence of the same problem in litter mates or subsequent litters, we are gonna start doing our cultures. As I've mentioned before, you've got to sort these muddy, wet, damp conditions in some it is a good thing to have an hygienic wash or a a welling trim in the low, low, long cold breeze because we don't want all those, you know, fluids. Amniotic and hydro hydro.
The the, foetal fluids. You know, contaminating the hair and act acting as a good bacterial growing media umbilical cord hygiene is important. My preference there is, is, iodine preparations.
But, others prefer other disinfectants. Ok, preventative treatment of unaffected liams. We've mentioned that before, and my first choice of antibodies is the third general generation of cephalin.
And enro ffl Now, immediately when veterinarian see Endo Fox and they neonate. They get terribly concerned that it's gonna affect the cartilaginous growth and all that and definitely not registered for it. But if you lose it for a limited period of of 3 to 5 days, you know, and even in in, in P vs, we know that it's safe to do so for 33 to 5 days, as long as it doesn't exceed.
You know, a week to 10 days. And here I want to mention the age of evil, of abuse, of antibiotics and both veterinarians. But also, breeders are guilty of this and, you know, having mentioned septicemia on the one side and then you know the need to treat and to treat aggressively and treat it in, in, in unaffected individuals that are in contact.
You know, that is all all, you know, good to do. However, we get this, this practise where people start and breeders and even sometimes even veterinarians as well. They start treating veteran queens, you know, and they sometimes base them on vaginal swabs.
Or so, but, you know, basically, they just, a culturing normal vaginal flora. And they are now treating them with antibiotics left, right and centre. OK, and, they would do so for diarrhoea, for kennel cough, for a variety of things and the number of drugs that, they would use.
They're all listed there, and there's many. The list is very long, but then we start getting problems, and these problems are becoming more rife and rife as the as the decade advances. And what are the problems that we get?
Well, we start seeing resistant bugs, and we have increased manifestation of septicemia, puppies and kittens and E. Coli enteritis, mandibular abscesses, septic, arthritis and, also in young individuals. We get discos, spondylitis, a huge, huge, huge, huge problem in huge breeding enterprises where antibiotic abuse is rife.
OK, right. And here's, I'm not sure how well it depicts here, but there's a young puppy of about two weeks of age mastiff type puppy, and it's left leg. There.
You can see it's swollen, and if you turn the puppy around and we we've, opened up, you know, a, a, a joint there. There's a you know, stifle joint of its left knee, and it's filled with pus. You can see that.
All right. Neonatal tetanus spasm is an interesting condition that we also get in in a very young neonates, usually within the first three or four or five days. Well known condition in humans.
And we see it, on average, in the first two or three days in puppies, you will not see a true evidence of Umit and we suspecting that the source of the, of the clostridium tetany bug is, usually on. We get it on small holdings on little farms where the bitch runs out and has contact with, the faeces of Herbie bores equines, donkeys, goats and so forth. And then they go out and they come back to their litter, lick the litter and transmit the bug.
That's in a semitropical subtropical areas like we have here. We, we see this from time to time, and these little guys, they go rigid and they stop breeding, and they feel like, literally a piece of hard wood for up to 60 seconds. They look as hard as as a as a brick, and they're stiff, and they show absolutely no movement in their stiff fashion for up to 60 seconds.
They These little guys, they all die within hours of, seeing the first symptoms. And as I said, we often get it in farmer. And there's when dogs share, premises with farm animals, OK, And, yeah, we even do the anecdotal vaccinating of bitches for tetanus in these cases, and we give literates preventative antibiotics Neonatal anaemia.
It's a very rare occurrence in, in humans as well. And, extremely rare in dogs. It's a basically a hemorrhagic syndrome where there's a, clotting defect.
And, all human babies are are treated with vitamin K and extremely rare in dogs. I've seen it in a number of breeds. Not sure whether there's a breed predisposition, but, it basically it does happen.
And it can happen in on second of, litters as well. And we supplement these, these, puppies with vitamin K at birth. All right, here's a typical example.
The one that's nice and pink on the left side. And the pale little guy on the right side started bleeding. We mentioned the the bloating and colic pups and colic refers to abdominal pain caused by the accumulation of gas in the intestinal tract.
And this gas build up, may be caused by, you know, the milk for formulas or by, by hypothermia and the i that results or infections. And now we've got, in addition to whatever other problem it has, it's now got colic and colic pains and, on top of everything else. OK, so this is what a puppy like this looks like.
And that belly there is filled by gas filled loops, not fluids or an exudate or transudate or anything else. You can prove that by taking an X ray or doing an ultrasound in this little guy and you will see that he's got a massive gas filled intestine. All right, so and all sick puppies lose their suckling reflex.
They all end up being tube fed, and you have to feed them. The formula milk formula can be the primary cause, as well, particularly if you have in form in, in, yeah, substandard form, milk formulas and some ho homemade remedies as well. And again, we add some fat, to that, the the milk preparation here in the form of a moose.
All right. And when you have these colly pupper and bloated puppies at the first sign, we withhold formula. We don't want to provide the, you know, put anything in the in the abdomen, in the stomach.
There they can ferment even more, and we give them at least one meal with the glucose electrolyte fluid mix. All right. Can be fed orally.
And, we also, as we mentioned earlier, the dehydrated puppies injected underneath the skin at a rate of 5% of its body weight. Right at the next meal, you, we give them a the best quality possible of your milk formula. And you you can add some fat, as we said there in the form of, those, puppy Moses or kitten moose.
And, we would mix it 5050 with a glucose glucose electrolyte mix that you, one of those oral mixes. And thereafter, on subsequent feeds, we feed them the formula, mixed again with, some added fat or, or even some, some cream and one last important thing there. Please add semey drops.
Those are the, used in humans as well. This is what they look like. The colic drop, you know, add a couple of drops, it break the the the the, the surface tension and prevents gas and foam from developing in the gut because that will dilate the guts cause pain cause big problems and respiratory distress this and ultimately death.
All right, Another thing that we get within the first, two weeks of, in puppies. And we get this ophthalmics neon toum. That's where pus develops underneath the eyelids before they've even opened.
All right, so you can see this bulging out of the, of the eyelids. And, they may even exude some pus. Do not force these eyelids open.
Just take a, a cotton bud, and so just gently wipe them until they open up. And then, you know, we can flush out the, the pus there with some saline and, also, give them, systemic antibiotics. And, you know, we of we don't often know the cause of these things, but the suspected source is, is could be colos or bugs from the mom's vagina or from from, from the from the dam.
Likewise, we get this condition called puppy strangles. Got different names there. Juvenile cellulitis, juvenile PMA, subin abscesses, poorly understood.
Generally get it within the two first 2 to 4 weeks sometimes may involve the joints as well. Like we've seen before. It often affects more than one litter, mate.
OK, they're like sterile abscesses. We lance them, we drain them. And, you know, once you've done that, you've probably treated the puppy successfully already.
But we all tend to give them antibiotics and some, some even believe that corticosteroids are the right thing to do, as long as it's not long term and short terms of steroids. Neonatal dermatitis. Very often, this happens also within the first week, and this is usually with an adequate care of the maternal care.
They didn't lick them properly. There's some, some meconium that, stayed behind that acts as a growth medium for bacteria. And this is what these little guys will look like.
White scours, also known in, in, in calves. It's like typically a white diarrhoea that looks like like, literally looks like a curdled milk white as milk. And we usually see it in the first week, sometimes up to three weeks of, of of age.
So white, congealed stool that they produce the E coli is the most common. bacterial pathogen there or or culprit. And they these puppies have a rapid response to fluids and gramme, negative spectrum antibiotics.
My preference. There would be enro, fluoxetin, one of the fluoroquinolones, a short term treatment there of 3 to 5 days Max and those wooden boxes, As I've mentioned before, often the source of these bacteria that hang around there. They are difficult to impossible to clean, and you may lead to septicemia.
As mentioned before infectious, juvenile pneumonia is a very interesting phenomena that we get in large breeding establishments, and it is typically a full blown pneumonia that develops following a sinusitis with with pus running from their noses. Brachiocephalic are more likely to develop this condition. And once we see this, we have to start treating all the others.
Because very often severely affected puppies will die. And here's a typical example of what a puppy like this is an American bully. That's exactly two weeks of age.
And it's got severe respiratory stress with pus exuding from its both, both nostrils. OK, and this often follows a kennel cough outbreak. And very often, the, the dams or other individuals within that, that kennel develop kennel cough, and then the puppies develop this at a very, very, very young age.
Orella is often a culprit and for hence, you know, if we can treat them with, with a bola vaccine. Internasal one, which is registered for two weeks, is absolutely great. I have to mention herpes virus and breeding enterprises because the prevalence of herpes virus in breeding establishments is high and very often exceeds more than 50%.
And this is a A disease that keeps on slumbering, and most breeders have it without even knowing it. It is not a venereal disease. It's a you get horizontal spread from one dog to another.
OK, and this is what herpes virus does. So you've got a little image there of a post mortem, but that would be your your stock standard type of of manifestation in, in puppies that die within the 1st 3 to 5 days of herpes virus infection. But let me tell you that that is indeed a rare manifestation.
The mo more common manifestations are low conception rates. dogs that appear to have resorbed smaller litter sizes. The odd, abortion, you know, the odd still B birth will weak and underweight puppies.
You know, the so-called fading puppies, Puppies. This is a typical one where you know, a large proportion of the entire litter dies of the of the of the litter, dies yes, within the first week, and then almost get 100% mortality, but not always. And then, you know, a much rarer type of manifestation that is puppies contracting respiratory disease at 2 to 3 weeks of age.
Now, when these things happen at a low incidence and you you know, people get con, they get used to the odd bitch that doesn't conceive or a bitch that happens to have a resort because many times you don't even know. Unless they keep accurate records, they will not really, you know, know that they're having, you know, more smaller litters. And average litter sizes than would be expected.
Normal an abortion rate of about 1 to 2% would be normal. Considered normal if it exceeds 2% it becomes abnormal and herpes infected. Kennels.
You can often have abortion rates of up to, you know, 6% and 8%. But that still only means one out of 10. If it happens to one, they'll just describe it to you.
Whatever. And they won't even think they they become accustomed to weak and underweight packets. What I'm trying to tell you is that these things can go undetected without you even knowing it, all right?
And but indeed, there is a problem. OK, so if you have any of these mysterious problems or you think that you might have problems, you've got absolutely nothing to lose and vaccinate. And I would highly advise all breeders to vaccinate against the herpes virus in, in puppies.
There's no point in vaccinating studs or or puppies at all. Only the bitches that are on heat and are about to be bred. And then once you've established that they are pregnant, vaccinate them for give them their booze time, OK, and often you'll find that beers that think they had no problem.
They suddenly realise that they did have a problem because they start getting higher percentages of pregnant bitches, larger litters, higher survival rates and so forth. So, yeah, hers is a real thing, is a real threat. And here's another picture of a typical postmortem with A with a herpes affected, the pea that you can get on the intestines.
In this case, it's on the kidney and also on the livers. And then we get massive lunged deia edoema and these little guys die. And it's often said that, you know, you just need to heat up the in in incubators and so forth, Let me tell you, that is not highly successful at all, or a herpes infected puppy has a very high chance of dying.
And here we get mummies, and this is the type of thing that you will not see with natural birth. But this is the type of thing that we see with, with, section. And this is a highly like, likely to be, herpes.
Likewise, we've got all these mummies here in this litter again. This is what we get. And these little guys will just be if they were born, naturally, they would just, you know, the the, breeders wouldn't identify them, or the bitch would just consume it all with the with the placentas.
And this whole story would have gone by undetected. And no diagnosis would have been made or suspected the fading puppy syndrome. And I know we all love this type of word because you know what it is, but it's a nonsense syndrome.
Guys, nonsense. It's just a a classification of anything you don't know the cause of is a fading pup. It just basically says nothing.
You know, there's always an answer to it. Is it herpes or any of the many differential diagnosis we've already mentioned? OK, we're moving on to puppies that are now becoming older and, puppies that are approaching weaning age or are at weaning age.
OK, and before we go on there, we have to mention this whole concept of erosive disease and multifactorial disease. No erosive, disease is a disease that seldomly will affect, you know, the the host on its own, but combined it basically breaks down their immune system combined with other S logistically, pathogens and and and, pathological conditions. We start getting issues.
And these issues may be a mild Alaia, a mild worm infestation, mild nutritional diarrhoea, a mild coy infection giardia Spiro Spiro, even some bacterial overgrowth. And that is particularly rife when the owners or breeders start doing antibiotic therapy of their own. And this litter looks terrible, and the vet tries to isolate a single cause.
But you will not. You have to look at the bigger picture, all right? And failing to do so, you will not solve the issue in this kennel.
You have to look at all these all these things holistically, All right. And here we've got a huge kennel. And now this is a very well controlled kennel.
It doesn't mean that, you know you have if you have very large numbers, that you can immediately be termed a puppy farmer or whatever, it's got nothing to do with the number of puppies that have you pro produce. It's got to do with the level of, of, the care and the hygienic standards that you apply. And are we doing the faecal are we doing?
Do we have adequate deworming programmes? Are are we controlling coccidia? Are we controlling giardia?
And in this can all these things are done are done proper. And then, you know things go well. But in this case, in in cases where you have large numbers, you it is much more challenging.
That's the only thing I would say that I've got against the commercial enterprises where they push out large numbers of puppies is you really have to have your your your, your thumb on things OK and vermis is here, is an issue. And if you have lots of dogs, let me tell you that worms remain a constant problem. And one of the problems that we do have is we've got this thing called the deworming gap.
Right? And what are the principles of these deworming gap? Well, that's it is all got to do with our E.
Even with the best de worms around, we basically just kill our adults, OK? And our larval stage, stages they survive your deworming. So if you do not deworm them for numerous times in succession What are you going to get?
You still going to have a puppy that has, the the worms and this become becomes particularly cumbersome when you sold the puppy. And the new owners, are now terribly upset because, you know, they've still got worms. As if the puppy was never dewormed.
No, it was dewormed. But you've got this problem of the deworming deworming gap. And, our, de worm is only, killing adults in the later stages of the larval stages of the worms.
Right. So, be be aware of all this. And, you know, regular deworming at 2 to 3 weeks intervals is absolutely ideal until point of sale, and then later on, for the new owner until 16 weeks, which is more or less, commensurate with your last vaccination.
OK, weaning is a particularly, stressful event. And then because then that puppy becomes, goes off its mother's milk, they are introduced to a new diet, a new home. New pathogens.
It's away from its siblings. The peck order changes, and those hierarchical stresses are massive and are known to be the biggest. causes of stress, and we can measure that stress.
And that's how the scientists prove that, hierarchical, hierarchical influences are, are the are the biggest stresses because they measured the cortisol thing. And also with dominance, huge, huge, huge issues making these puppies extremely vulnerable to a variety of conditions. All right.
And what are these conditions? Well, they are nutritional diarrheas because they're now changing the food. And that is the most common complaint by new owners in recently sold puppies.
Then also, another cause is self-treatment using a variety of concoctions and antibiotics and so forth. Now, fortunately, these, nutritional diarrheas are usually self-limiting, but they can be frustrating. And, you know, particularly early on, you have to differentiate, differentiate them from more serious causes of diarrhoea.
OK, ok. And there you have to do your faecal look for considered giardia and all these type of things. Coccidiosis are the first one we're going to touch touch on and coccidia is a com mens and particularly in wet conditions.
Now we're gonna have these puppies getting affected. And why? Where do they come from?
Well, they originate from the dam and we've proven that by some some articles, that I was author of, amongst others. And what we get is get per partial stress and the dam start shedding. You know, these Siss in the in it still the pups pick up this infection.
And then the pups may get a primary coccidiosis and even severe illness, anti coccidial during pregnancy and afterwards are indicated, and wet conditions increases your chances in survival. Of the sis and, and infection rate increases infection rates. Anyhow, keep your eye on canine coccidiosis.
It's an issue. And we've got some very neat drugs in some countries that are registered for its use. antioxidants, right.
Giard aces. And to a much lesser extent, trichomoniasis is also can be a primary disease or part of an erosive condition. All right, and, it can spread very, very, very fast.
You have to give them extended treatment. Protocols using fenbendazole metronidazole. OK, tricks can be a heck of a lot more.
More, more challenging to treat. OK, but before we go on, I just need to tell you one thing about giardia ais guys when you are treating giardia, in your, in your puppies, please. Yeah, you have to treat the entire litter.
And even adjacent litters are saying big, bigger breeding establishments. But also, you have to disinfect. Q a CS are are highly effective.
against, giardia. But also, you have to wash these puppies because often we find that, you know, breeders and even veterinarians, you know, think that, you know, the giardia has become resistant to treatment. No, it has not.
What actually happens is that these animals, if you don't wash them, you don't treat the environment, they just get reinfected. And we know from research that up to 3, 30. cysts can reinfect that that animal infection starts all over again, creating the impression that your treatment didn't work.
So holistic approach there, treat the environment, treat wash the puppy, several times, and then treat the treat the individual as well as as well as in contact. Literate har Avios in puppies. A huge and massive problem in recently, weaned puppies.
And we all know what these these symptoms look like. Typically, it would be this insane. Emeric diarrhoea with a severely dehydrated puppy.
A terrible condition. OK, so Pul virus, The curse is still around. It's still a serious problem in many countries.
We know that there is evidence that up to 15% of puppies that were vaccinated up to 12 weeks of age right are still not protected because of interference with, with the maternal, internally derived antibodies. So particularly in high challenge areas, you know where there is a a poor herd immunity, meaning that much less of 70% of the population has been vaccinated against P virus. OK, and if you get an infection in those circumstances, the puppies may contract the disease as early as six weeks of age.
It's also got to do with, the, the viral load that these puppies get infected with. And, you know, the higher the viral load, the earlier these puppies can get infected, all right, And those under those circumstances, it's most certainly justified to vaccinate these individuals already at four weeks of age. Now immediately, I know that there's going to be practitioners out there that are gonna think, but this is something that they you know they've learned is is is terribly wrong because there's gonna be massive interference.
Well, we've got, vaccines registered for the use at four weeks of age. They are specifically designed high title vaccines to overcome, you know, maternal immunity. And they have a much better chance than your other vaccines to, to induce serial conversion at a at a young age.
Anyway, you've got nothing else to, to to to lose. And if you have a situation like this, you often have outbreaks of puppies, you know that. Get ill, from as early as 6 to 7 weeks of age.
Right? Antibody testing is something that we start doing more and more and more. We do so in puppies that are 11 to 12 weeks old of age.
And that may aid in identifying vulnerable individuals, before, before so if you want to To increase the chances of, selling an individual that is less likely to succumb to parvovirus. And this is particularly useful in clients that have already been terribly traumatised by the loss of AAA a parvo pup in the past in cats, we are talking about the curse of upper respiratory tract tract disease and kittens. And I know that with, you know, whenever you get, given lectures or so you know, the canine will always and all the literature and the and the information that you get on the canine will totally dominate.
You know, our cat, species here and, cats and and information on the on kittens is a lot more, spars. And, you know, this this webinar was no no exception. So we just want to touch on some, some feline issues.
Upper respiratory tract disease would be a biggie, OK, typically known as snuffles upper respiratory tract disease. And we've got the carriers and we have to test and identify these adult carriers within your, in your, in your cat population. And they can be shedders and we have lots of situations where we have rescue animals.
We have non vac vaccinates within the shelters. Please make sure that when you've got a breeding enterprise, that you've got a closed cattery concept, OK, and then I've got this huge problem with, ventilation so often find, particularly in colder climates, that what these breeders wanna do is they wanna, like, you know, the colder it gets, the more the more, isolated. And the M, the more enclosed These, these, keeping areas or the or the areas that cat becomes, and then you start getting ventilation.
Very serious ventilation issues. And that is, another problem. You get pneumonia up, build up those irritate the mucus membranes, the respiratory tracts, and you just have the spread of of our respiratory viruses and which becomes a devastating issue.
And then we've got, you know, you know, typical signs like, these eye ulcers are conjunctivitis. Ulcers? Here's a, a thing.
And these the pathogens here, you know, the snuffles complex can be caused by calicivirus. There's often, mycoplasma involved as well we're talking about, chlamydia and then also the famous old herpes virus. OK, yeah.
We've got some other kittens that have all been, things been affected. Ringworm, also a problem in, in, neonates not deadly at all, But it's extremely frustrating to breeders. Ok, you have to, prevent further spread.
We can use a variety of products there. The ferol is one of them. And give preventative topical treatments with, with, econazole.
We can also treat them preventatively with, gris micros. Good. Ectoparasite have were a huge problem in the past.
But let me tell you nowadays, we've got superb products that are long acting that are, are extremely effective. So E, I sarco Kyle. Yellow fleas and all those things.
Yeah, my first advice there. Please do not introduce them in your colony whether you're being cats or dogs, you know, keep them out. But when you do treat them aggressively with these wonderful, wonderful, preventative, measures that and and products that we have nowadays, and, but you're gonna do so for an entire season.
And if you have many individuals, this is going to cost, you know, many, many dollars or euros wherever you find yourself. So many, many months of treatment. All right.
With cats, we also get strep infections and breeding breeding colonies, and we have to identify the carriers there. They might be difficult to to, to identify. We What are the symptoms that we're gonna find in a cat where you have strep infections.
Well, we can have, similar to dogs. You know, with herpes, we're gonna have failure to conceive, and we're gonna have to start doing cultures. We gonna have resolutions, have abortions again there.
We have to do the cultures, as we've explained, in the in the puppies and likewise with herpes again pup kittens dying within the first two weeks or so again doing cultures there to prove or disprove, you know of steps being involved or not, when you have these strep infections and I've mentioned the strep because of the most common issue in, in a in breeding setups in, in catteries. The preventative treatment of, using antibiotics, based on cultures, guys, not based on suspicions. And, just doing this at random all the time, because otherwise we are going to propagate.
You know, this, antibiotic. Antibiotic resistance bugs again, these super bugs. And we're going to be dealing with other issues again, like septicemia and so forth, despite your antibiotic wide use, because we're gonna have resistant bugs.
Some antibiotic choices I've mentioned there, which are safe, safe choices in both cats and, and and pups and kittens. Ehm mycin deny and amoxicillin clavia. As I said before, I often use also the fluoroquinolones for a a limited number of days.
OK, so the strep infections and known infections in 2 to 3 weeks before labour is inspected, you can treat these, these individual, queens. . 2 to 3 weeks before breeding is expected Also, and in some cases, it might even be necessary to, treat the Tom as they may also be strep carriers.
In my country, there is a huge anti vac, component, particularly with feline leukaemia. And I can't give a lecture, you know, to fully explain all the intricacies of a feline leukaemia. All right, but some take home, messages with regards to pone chema for breeders.
All right. Most cats will contract the disease within the first year after the first year. Their, chances of developing a progressive disease is very, very, very, very a lot smaller.
So, Therefore, if you want to save some money and we only want to vaccinate you know, for a limited period, that is perfectly fine. It's important to vaccinate them within the first year of life. OK?
And we'd vaccinate them at nine weeks, 12 weeks and then again at one year's year of age and thereafter. You're pretty much done with feline leukaemia unless you're in a high risk situation where they the cat's got a a lifestyle that, is more likely, to, to, lead to contact with other cats. They are indoors.
The the the risk is really very, very minimal. When you have a cattery, you have to test them all before introduction. And just also remember, there's always this thing that a lot of veterinarians think that you know, vaccination is going to interfere with testing, and so forth.
All nonsense. Right. Some take home message messages with F IP.
OK. And as I said, we run out of time. Cannot, you know, deal with any of these issues.
in great depth. But in breeding stock, you have to make sure that your breeding stock is isolated from your general population within a cattery and ideally also isolate different litters from each other. Now I know it's They've often got these communal breeding rooms.
They're not ideal. It's definitely better to have all their litters in separate rooms. Totally.
You know, geographically isolated and no direct contact from one litter to to another. OK, because those are all breeding grounds for the spread of this feline coronavirus. And if you have this very close contact, then you have a much higher chance of getting, huge infections and having, a higher mutation rate.
OK, so litter trays are considered the largest source of of infection. So we have to clean them, often and make sure that there is no cross infection from one litter to the other. So, in order to combat F IP and the pre the the prevalence, at least try and limit F IP FIV is a lot easier in my, in my In my opinion, many toms are likely to introduce a condition if they are not 100% indoors.
Don't wrongly assume that a cat is negative. Make sure that you test the cat before introduction, all right? And it's essentially an easy disease to control because of, you know, the accuracy of testing and being able to limit the disease.
In that fashion, Alright, I thank everybody for your attention and for this absolutely wonderful opportunity to share knowledge. Go Well, guys. And I hope you all develop into budding neonatologists.
Thank you, guys. Goodbye.