Acid Milk

Lawrance D. Mahomes

Occasionally a bitch produces early milk (colostrums) so acid that it disagrees with, sometimes kills, her puppies. The symptoms of the puppies are whining, disquiet, frequently refusal to nurse, frailty, and death. It is true that all milk is slightly acid, and it should be, turning blue litmus paper immersed in it a very light pink. However, milk harmfully on the acid side will readily turn litmus paper a vivid red. It seems that only the first two or three days milk is so affected. Milk problems come also from mastitis and other infections in the bitch.

This is not likely to occur with a bitch that throughout her pregnancy has received adequate supply of calcium phosphate regularly in her daily ration. That is the best way to deal with the situation—to see the bitch’s correct nutrition in advance of her whelping. The owner has only himself to blame for the bitch’s too acid milk, since adequate calcium in advance would have neutralized the acid.

If it is found to late that her milk is too acid, the puppies must be taken from her breast and either given to a foster mother or artificially fed from bottle or by medicine dropper. Artificial feeding of very young puppies these days is more successful. Sometimes the acidity of the dam’s milk can be neutralized by giving her large doses of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda), but the puppies should not be restored to her breasts until her milk ceases to turn litmus paper red.

If it is necessary to feed the puppies artificially, “Esbilac,” a commercial product, or the following orphan puppy formula, may be used.

7 oz. whole milk

1 oz. cream (top milk)

1 egg yolk

2 tbsp. corn syrup

2 tbsp. lime water