Checked with vet in Gin Gin about desexing ...advised less complicated (and cheaper) to let her have the pups first.
I've got an admittion to make; Roxy doesn't want to or like being a mother ... if she was human, she's one of those head cases who throws their baby in a dumpster.
1st pregnancy? .. Nothing arrived, so I thought "Phantom pregnancy".
2nd pregnancy, she took over my bed, hunted Max out. After about a week, one night I woke (about 10:30) to find a pup crying beside me and blood on the floor. Door was open so I went out and found her dumping pups around the camp site. Heard what sounded like a kitten, found a pup near the 1st dam, another in a post hole, and saw her dump one under a mango tree.
I gathered the pups up and put them with her in my bed.
She took off again and found her with 2 more pups in Gemma's birthing pit under a Hilux tray on the ground.
Put her and the 5 pups back in my bed. She took off again and I found her by torch light in another hole under the front of an old Hiace burying 2 pups. Gathered them up and put them with her. She had more pups in my bed, as I'd closed the door.
At about 1:30 I thought "I want some sleep" so I put her and 9 pups in a cab on the back of a Rodeo.
At about 3am I woke to her howling. I went out and found she's killed 4 pups - 2 of completely eaten, skin 'n all.
Vet said it's (her behaviour) is either nutritional or mental. My dogs are well fed, so she's a looney.
People have asked "what do you think is wrong with her?" .. My answer is "Inbreeding".
The bloke who gave her to me is/was into 'line breeding' ... AFAIC putting a dog over its daughter is inbreeding.
3rd litter, 12 pups, I bottle fed them and forced her to fed them every 2nd day. 7 lived, Lexi is one of them.
4th litter, morning of 18th of May 2020. She doesn't try to kill them anymore and feeds them grudgingly because she knows I want her to. 8 pups, 2 died ... it's always the big males that die on me. Some of these pups are quite pretty.
Max on the other hand is a brilliant father. He cleans them for me and is very protective. He doesn't like Roxy being near them because he knows she's killed pups before.