Not Again! Farm

I have spent the day turning my dining room back into a nursery.  With the pups due this week, it’s time to move Elle into her whelping pen and start puppy watch.  This is always an exciting and nerve wracking time.  I still have to work so I worry the whole time I am gone.

Thankfully, after all these years, I know and recognize the signs of impending labor and usually have anywhere from a 4 hour warning to a 10 hour warning.  Only once in all these years have I been surprised and that was by Kory this summer, but then we were all a little stressed at the time.

The pen has to be moved into the dining room and disinfected  again.  Then the whelping box/bed gets disinfected again and goes into the box.  I put several layers of newspapers in the bottom of the box.  She will need them when she starts nesting.  She will get her blanket or sheepskin over the newspapers so that she will be more comfortable.

She and Kory both look like they are going to pop.  Elle’s poor belly looks like a cantalope.  I always feel so bad for them in the last week or so but it doesn’t seem to bother them as much as me.  Elle can still jump up into her second story crate for dinner.  I swear she was born with springs.

So I will be on pins and needles all week.  It gives me a whole new perspective on child birth and a lot of sympathy for expectant fathers.   Cigars anyone?