Birth Weight Relative to Full Grown Weight

We are going to have pick of the litter shortly. My question is a puppies birth weight, at all relative, to what they will be when they are full grown?

For example, there is one little tri girl, who is much smaller than her blenheim siblings. Does this mean that she will be a more petite cavalier when full grown?

Good question. And I don't fully know the answer to it. icon_whistling

I've heard of instances where the smallest born becomes the most rambunctious, largest one at adulthood. However, I also think that oftentimes the smallest in the litter stays small in the long run.

I'm not sure either but Cassie was the smallest of her litter and stayed petite. Honey was the first born girl and was bigger than her sister and she is a big cav - larger than most males are!

Have a look at Bruce's puppy weights in his thread at the top of his litter forum.

http://www.cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=675

You can compare how the birth weights changed across two litters as he carefully documents them throughout the time he has them. Generally they tend to more or less even out. Sometimes a really small puppy will actually outgrow the rest -- might be small because it couldn't fight as efficiently for mom's milk or meals in a pack but from then on gets well fed. I think generally, if you have 4 puppies though, their adult sizes are likely to be somewhat relative to their puppy size. But keep in mind there isn't generally very much difference in puppy size so size differences within a litter are likely to be pretty darn small anyway, just as they would be with kids in a family. Tall parents with tall grandparents tend to have mostly tall children, etc.

I sure wish there was some way of predicting adult size from birth weight or even weight at a couple months old, but in our experience there isn't.

I'd have to go back in our records to be sure, but I think the smallest puppy we ever had was about 3.75 ounces. His littermates were all average size, around 6 ounces. We saw that little guy when he was all grown up at one of the Cavalier Gatherings and he was every bit as big as the girl we kept from that litter. As Karlin says about all you can do is look at the adult size of the parents and grandparents to determine how big a puppy might be as an adult.

Our puppy at 6 weeks is 3.25 pounds

This is the rule of thumb I was told:
Go by weight at 8 weeks. Those under 4 lbs. will be 14-16 lb.
Those 4-5 lbs. will be 16-18 lbs. and those over 5 lbs. will often be more than 18 lbs. Not always, but quite often. This is in litters of 3-5 puppies which are born healthy and in normal weight, never get sick and growth normally. Big litters tend to grow more slowly and tiny litters more quickly.

My Ellie was the smallest of 5 Ruby girls. Last week I met one of her sisters at a puppy class and it was very difficult to tell them apart now.
When I take her out people always think she is a girl, I think its because her features are petite and her head is too. She just loooks girly :rah:
I dont think she will be a big Cav, but I dont mind what size she gets too, I just love her to bits :flwr:

I am sure no expert but I do think it can be difficult to predict which of a litter is going to be the smaller or larger.

I remember when our Scarlett (Boxer) had her litter of 9 there was one tiny little, second last born girl that at first I worried over. She was a feisty little thing though and did really well. By the time she went to her new home she was about the middle of the litter in terms of her weight.

As it turned out, a couple took her and the heaviest male. The couple always kept in touch with us and indeed her adult weight was smack bang right in the middle of the standard for a female, and really no different to the other females of the litter.

My Sam was the last born of that litter and he too was smallest male at birth. He also turned into quite a large Boxer at 40 kilograms and he is a very lean dog with most of his ribs being gently visible.

It is going to be interesting to see how our 12 week old Beau the CKCS is going to turn out, as he was the largest in his litter and he is still quite a large boy. I'll have to re-visit this thread again in 12 months time.