As the kitten gets older, feeding it milk may give it diarrhoea, and it is best avoided. If your bitch is eating a good balanced diet, she will not need any extra food or supplements for the first five weeks after mating. If she loses her appetite during the last seven to ten days, encourage her to eat. A special concentrated diet, which you should feed as several smaller meals daily, is helpful at this stage. It may be difficult for the bitch to eat large meals because of the pressure the puppies put on her stomach.
Many bitches lose interest in food during the last couple of days prior to whelping.
The day before she whelps her rectal temperature may drop slightly and she may start looking for a place to have her puppies. You should provide her with a large, quiet and comfortable whelping box early in the pregnancy so that she is accustomed to it. By the third to fourth week of lactation she may require up to four times her normal quantity of food. Her food should be fed in several meals. It is very important for her to have ample amounts of a high quality food so that she can feed her fast growing puppies.