Setting up and maintaining your Yorkie whelping box is important to keep your mama and her puppies safe. We’ll give you our best tips.
What is a Whelping Box?
A whelping box is a safe place for puppies to be born and to live.
It provides a safe and warm environment for the puppies to live before their eyes and ears are open and before they learn to stand and walk. During this time period, this should be their home in which they stay exclusively except when being handled by the owner for brief periods of time.
Once they are older, the whelping box can be used as a bed area from which the puppies can go and explore a larger fenced off play area.
Where Should I Put the Whelping Box?
The Whelping Box should be placed in a quiet place away from the chaotic areas of the house. There is no need to place it in a room off by itself, but it should definitely have space between it and the noisiest areas of the house.
The area you choose should be warm and free of drafts. It should be in an area where you can control the temperature, either cooling it down in the heat of summer or warming it up in the winter.
The whelping box should be placed close enough to an electric outlet so that you can use a heating pad or lamp to warm the pups.
How Big Should a Whelping Box Be?
As a general rule, the Whelping Box should be about 1 ½ to 2 times wider than your mama is long.
The Whelping Box should be big enough for mom to lie down and stretch. There should be extra room for the puppies to lie down and do the same as well.
If you are including rails around the edge of your box, there should be extra space for the rails as well.
Dangers of an Incorrectly Sized Whelping Box
If the Whelping Box is too small, the puppies may accidentally be smothered.
If the Whelping Box is too large, the dam may not be able to care for puppies as well. A puppy may wander off and get cold.
How Do I Keep a Whelping Box Warm?
Since newborn puppies cannot regulate their own body temperature, you need to make sure that they are warm enough. It is more dangerous for them to be too cold, than for them to be slightly to warm, but you don’t want either extreme.
Supplemental Heat
You should provide supplemental heat for puppies so that they can stay warm. You can use a heat pad or a heat lamp for additional heat.
The heat pad or lamp should be placed in the center of the pen, this will encourage puppies to stay in the center of the box. If the supplemental heat source is at off to one side, the puppies will gather around that edge and will have more of a chance of being accidently smothered by mama. .
Beware of heat lamps. Do not put heat lamps too close to the puppies because you don’t want to burn the puppies.
There should be no electric wires or components that puppies have access to. Know that if it is in reach of a puppy, it will be chewed! Heating pads can be placed under a plastic bin whelping box. This will provide warmth for the puppies, but give them no access to the cords.
Maintaining a Warm Temperature
Breeders vary on how hot to keep the whelping room itself. Some breeders put a cover over the whelping box to trap heat in. Others use both a heating pad and a heat lamp. Others maintain a higher temperature in the whelping room. As a general rule, for the first 3 days try to keep the whelping room at 85 Fahrenheit (30 Celsius). For weeks 2-3, you can slowly lower it down to 82 Fahrenheit (28 Celsius). When they are 1 month old, room temperature is fine.
Let your puppies help you figure out the right temperature for the room. If they are huddled together and crying they are probably too cold. If they are separated from each other and crying, they are probably too hot. Also, if mom appears to be too hot, you may have it too hot in the whelping room.
What should a Whelping Box Be Made of?
The Yorkie Whelping Box should be made of material that is easy to clean. You should be able to clean every part of it from the floor to the walls.
The floor of the whelping box should be waterproof and solid with no cracks in it. The floors ability to repel water will be tested as the puppies get bigger and eliminate more and more! Because of the constant soiling, the floor must be easy to clean.
Some breeders use a piece of linoleum or a rubber mat for the floor of their box.
You can buy pre-made Yorkie whelping boxes on-line.
DIY Yorkie Whelping Box Options
Because of the Yorkie’s small size, some breeders buy under-the-bed plastic bins for a Yorkie whelping box. These bins are wide with short sides. These bins are wide enough for mom to stretch out with puppies. In addition, the walls are short enough for mom to be able to hop out the box, but tall enough that the puppies cannot wander out.
Some breeders use a cardboard box as their Yorkie Whelping Box. Although you can’t clean a cardboard box, cardboard boxes are easily replaceable. Rather than clean, simply replace the soiled cardboard box with a new one. You will need several backup boxes ready to go if you go this route.
What Bedding Should I Use in Whelping Box?
Clean bedding is an important part of the Yorkie whelping box.
You can use whelping pads, mattress pads, towels, sheets, newspaper, or pee pads.
Whatever you chose, you want it to be soft, warm, easy-to-clean, absorbent, and not easy for puppies to chew and ingest.
What Not to Use
Do not use blankets, towels, or rugs in such a way puppies can crawl underneath the folds or layers and become trapped. Make sure that all bedding is tucked in with no gaps that puppies can crawl through and accidently suffocate.
Any bedding that is used should not be made of material that produces small rough dust: this includes hay and straw. The rough dust can be an irritant to the puppies’ delicate eyes, lungs, and skin.
Before Whelping
Before your dam has whelped, it’s a good idea to layer clean bedding on top of each other in the Yorkie Whelping Box. When the bedding becomes soiled during whelping, you can pull off the top layer, leaving a clean layer of fresh bedding underneath.
After Whelping
Some people use shredded newspaper as the bedding in the whelping pen. Please note that if you use this, the ink from the newspaper can rub off on the puppies. Also know that the puppies will chew on the newspaper. Shredded newspaper is good however because a puppy cannot become trapped under it.
Some breeders use blankets or towels. If you use these, you need to be careful how you lay the blankets and towels down. You do not want a puppy to find an opening, crawl under it and not be able to find their way out.
Some breeders use pee pads. This method is also more costly than other options.
What should I put in a Yorkie Whelping Box?
Exit
Every Yorkie Whelping Box should have an exit that the mama can easily pass through, but that is too high for puppies to cross over. It is important that the mama have a place that she can retreat to away from the pups. If she has a place that she can go to for a little time off every now and then, she will be a more patient, loving, and caring mother.
Rails
Rails around the edge of the Whelping Box is a helpful safety feature for the puppies. These rails are also called pig rail, guardrails, box rail, or bumpers. The newborn puppies are small enough to fit underneath the rails. When the mama Yorkie stretches out, she will lean against the top of the rails, but the rails will prevent the puppies from being smothered between mama and the sides of the box.
Features for Older Puppies
In your Yorkie whelping box, a potty station should be set up around 3 weeks. The potty station should have a distinctly different type of flooring (pee pad, newspaper, etc.) so that the puppies can easily distinguish between the areas. This will not only help you with pen clean up, but will also help begin the process of house training the puppy as they naturally don’t want to soil their sleeping/den area.
Around 4 weeks of age a play area can be added so the puppies have more room to explore. By 6 weeks the puppies are getting a little more active and you may have to expand the area.
Go back to Yorkie Pregnancy