# Weaning puppies - how much etc



## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

OK now loads of us are well in to this weaning thing and to be honest it is being very hit and miss at this end. 

I have established that mine will generally eat what I put down for them but I really have no idea how often I should be feeding them and how much.

I am using soaked kibble with a bit of puppy naturediet or cottage cheese or mince or scrambled egg and I am also feeding them whelpi. I know the mum is feeding intermittently and still has quite a lot of milk although I do hear some 'smacking' sounds which is supposed to indicate a lack of milk. They have gone off weetabix now.

According to the food bag it is 50-100gms per day for pups 1-5kg so here that would be around 240-300gms of food (for 6) or possibly more per day which I assume you either divide in to 4 meals or leave out for them to graze putting more down when the first lot is finished. The whelpi is 100-200mls per day (per pup) over 4/5 meals or 40-50gms powder per kg of weight diluted at the right rate. The whelpi will stop when the tub is finished as I don't think they actually need it and will be fine on water next week.

I'm guessing that is an either or and you adjust according to which you feed, both together would be a huge amount of food for the tinies to eat, they are probably eating about 1/3 or the quantity of either of them at the moment so I'm either underfeeding them or overfeeding them! 

I give them a dish with the whelpi in to share and same with the food and they graze as they wish with the mum looking on wanting to eat it all anyway!

What do others do and what do they advise since the jolly old books are not that helpful if you have healthy puppies?

_All advice welcome, remember some of us are on our first litters and are learning all the time_

Thank you for your kindly advice in advance


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## Small~Fluffy (Mar 13, 2009)

*This is a tricky one as you have such big pups compared to mine.

We were told that by 7-8 weeks she should be on 5 meals a day.
But she only has a heaped teaspoon per meal, an when she's finished she walks away.
We do scrambled egg & mashed pre'soaked weaning kibble at breakfast, then lunchtime she has chicken breast/kibble then tea is chicken again an supper is just warm mashed kibble very watery.

We don't add any whelpi as she is still drinking from mum regularly.

She gets 15mins to eat what she wants, but have to make sure she hasn't recently fed from mum.
We are aiming for 8am 12pm 4pm 8pm 12midnight. An will stay with mum overnight until she is 9 weeks old.

Im not sure you could overfeed them as most dogs stop when they are full, but do you feed them all out of seperate bowls so you can judge who is getting what.

I think if you go by how much kibble they should have then deduct for any meat/egg etc

Hopefully others with bigger pups will be of more help *


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Bumpity bump - no one feeds their puppies when they are weaning?


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## crazycrest (Feb 13, 2008)

Also a difficult question for me to answer, but sounds like you are doing fairly well at the moment, rule of thumb is feed every 4 hours except for real tinies where they can't keep their blood sugars up, this really just includes poms, chihuahua's, yorkie's & the like! 
If your pups are feeding well & eating what you put down within minutes, then up it a bit the next meal & see how they go, I doubt you're underfeeding
& if you were overfeeding you would have puppies with loose poo's.
Hope that helps :biggrin:


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## dexter (Nov 29, 2008)

i do it by quess work lol. Its hit and miss.I always end up giving more than they need letting mum finish the bowl up. My pups never seem to want 5 meals so i stick to 4 meals a day.


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

crazycrest said:


> I doubt you're underfeeding
> & if you were overfeeding you would have puppies with loose poo's.
> Hope that helps :biggrin:


Some are and some aren't! the biggest pigs aren't, the ones who don't seem to eat as much are and then vice versa and they always leave food ....... better ones in the morning than at the moment 

Trying to feed about every 4/5 hours


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## crazycrest (Feb 13, 2008)

reddogs said:


> Some are and some aren't! the biggest pigs aren't, the ones who don't seem to eat as much are and then vice versa and they always leave food ....... better ones in the morning than at the moment
> 
> Trying to feed about every 4/5 hours


Can you split them up for a couple of meals & see exactly who is eating what?
Maybe feed the smaller ones first & see how much they take,
then the bigger ones! 4/5 hours is ok as long as no less than 4 meals :thumbsup:


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

I'll see if I can, I've got two bowls of the same size now so that's a good idea


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## PoisonGirl (Oct 24, 2008)

Weaning my lot was a bit harder, because mum gave up feeding them not long after 2 weeks 

I started off with whelpi then gradually adding a bit of soaked dry food, so at first it was just like soup. Then adding a bit more.

I got a puppy feeding dish from my pet shop until they were a bit bigger and then used Ikea puppy dish(20p each!), one each so I could see who was eating how much.

I was feeding them every 2 hours at first, then by the time they were 4 weeks, every 3 hours during the day, 1st feed at 6 am and I was feeding 6 meals a day, they were sleeping from midnight til 6.

At 6 weeks they were having 4 meals a day and it was just soaked dry food, no whelpi. 

Trying to feed 9 puppies and keeping each to their own dish is quite hard! I ended up having a line right from the kitchen to the back door!

xx


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## Changes (Mar 21, 2009)

dexter said:


> i do it by quess work lol. Its hit and miss.I always end up giving more than they need letting mum finish the bowl up. My pups never seem to want 5 meals so i stick to 4 meals a day.


Hi Dexter 

My pups have been having their own food for just over a week now this is what I am feeding, not sure it will be helpful though as I am raw feeding.

I started off giving them a small amount of raw tripe with a splash of goats milk (goats milk & cream with added vitamins) on the first day of weaning roughly (2 weeks and 5 days)

I slowly introduced some chicken mince and then beef mince while continuing with the puppy milk

They will be 4 weeks tomorrow and are eating four meals of raw mince and three milk cartons a day, they stop when they have eaten their fill and Fey finishes what is left.

They also chew on Feys chicken wings or lamb rack although they aren't managing to eat any of it yet.

They are still suckling from mum at least three times a day,

I will be introducing some ofal next week a bit of liver and some heart and hopefully they will be fully weaned by 6 weeks.

Today the pups haven't eaten half as much as they did yesterday, but I am sure it will all even it self out as fey and Drym are the same, some days they can't get enough and other days they walk straight past.

they have played a lot today and slept a lot too my eldest daughter came today and she was shocked at how much bigger they are from a few days ago, which tells me that we are heading in the right direction 

Keep smiling


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Feeding kibble not raw, yesterday morning all bar one had nice poos by the evening we had mostly sloppy

but they are not eating everything and the ones who are worst don't seem to be the ones who eat the most and I am certainly not putting down as much food as they should be eating between them.

So what to do? shall I stop wetting the kibble and let them eat dry in case there is too much water? just give them the kibble and not add even the small amount of wet food, just give them wet food with no kibble?

They are 5 weeks old so I would have thought they are eating properly now. They are all healthy and putting on weight at a steady rate and evenly across all 6 so there isn't a problem per se just a smell and mess 


Small Fluffy - you are lucky with only the one fragrant one


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## Small~Fluffy (Mar 13, 2009)

*Are you feeding kibble plus wet at each meal?

We aren't doing that, she has soupy kibble for breakfast then soupy kibble + chicken or egg etc. then back to soupy kibble only an keep going that way. so half the meals are kibble only.

I was reading yesterday that before 6 weeks they may not be great with weaning but as mum stays away more & more they have to eat to get what they need.

Our girl barely goes in during the day now, but feeds her evening & overnight.
So pup eats her food during the day then from mum to top up at night now.

(Still living poo free  ) I can see us sat here in 12months still wondering if she'll ever need us to pick up behind her...*


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

I think mum has finally decided that feeding all 6 is bad news as she is grumbling at them whenever she is silly enough to get in to the box/pen that they are in.

I think we cracked the food thing made the kibble less soft and fed them less today and the latest batch of .... is much better, no additions to the kibble except water. We'll see tomorrow.

Can't wait until Molly's 12 puppies are being weaned - if they take after their mum they'll be too posh to eat 

Be glad you girl is happy to clean up, ours is and tries to but we beat her to it or she'd be eating a rather large quantity of ........ don't want to think about it really and even she can't keep up with it bless her she just gets attacked if she goes in with the pups


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## vizzy24 (Aug 31, 2008)

I have just seen your recent pics on changes thread and would just like to say how utterly gorgeous and yummy and healthy they look. I am on my way to steal 1 or maybe 2 lol


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

They are scrumptious have been out in the garden today

Question people

I thought I had the food thing sussed but this evening we have squits again - is it because they are getting too much food or because they have been out in the sun today?


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## crazycrest (Feb 13, 2008)

reddogs said:


> They are scrumptious have been out in the garden today
> 
> Question people
> 
> I thought I had the food thing sussed but this evening we have squits again - is it because they are getting too much food or because they have been out in the sun today?


reddogs it could be a mixture of both or one or the other, would you mind if i asked what kibble you're using? pm if you'd rather! They could have also been picking up bit's & pieces from the garden x


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Burns and welpi separately not together

rather think it's eating the grass .....

you wouldn't think anything was wrong judging by the tumble tots going on at the moment

chasing round with newspaper to catch the liquid  mmmmm! I think it's one that is bad - well I know it is but not sure if another one is too. Normally I'd starve but they are too little for that

sorry to be a pain, I knwo you've had a long few days


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## crazycrest (Feb 13, 2008)

How old are they now ? I'm guessing about 5-6 weeks going by what you're saying about the garden! I would be inclined to stop feeding the whelpi now,
they really don't need milk at this age reddogs & this could well be contributing to their squitty butt's x x


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## james1 (Sep 21, 2008)

youve got to be nackered!! sorry i dindnt give any congrats ive been a little busy  well done to you and mum and dad and pups, hope the feeding is going smoothly


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Yep I did think about the milk thing and decided that they weren't going to get much more but I will stop it now, they had some at breakfast but that was because I had one that didn't want to eat but that is the last. Let's hope that just soaked kibble will sort things out as it was a bit unfortunate this morning when we came down!


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## Small~Fluffy (Mar 13, 2009)

*Hi Reddogs

You will be VERY happy to know we now have poo!!! :tongue_smilie:

She has also decided sloppy grub isnt to her liking, so just lightly pre'soaked with the odd dry piece of kibble an she drinks fresh water from the bowl.

Though took her a bit to realise she didn't need to put her head so far in!! 

Her teeth are like needles an my god can she bite :yikes:

She certainly runs ring round us...
But is such fun :laugh:*


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Hurrah - now multiply by 6 and add runny tummies!

Oh yes those teeth - a couple of ours are real biters, the others just bite 

I've taken the water bowl out now, too much swimming going on here!

Just managed to get them outside to clean up the inside pen although one little one is feeling quite under the weather today so she's stayed inside to get some peace and sleep - poor wee thing not a happy teddy at all and has decided that it's that horrid food that makes her tummy hurt so isn't eating  (unless her mummy lets her)


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

We ended up at the vets this evening as one of the puppies was really not happy, she emptied herself early this morning - looked just like tea coming out of her  and went to sleep, eventually having tried to get her to suckle on her mother a couple of times with no result and her really not moving a lot I rang a more expert person than me and by 7:00 this evening we decided that she needed the vet so off I trundled.

The vet checked her over, temp was at the high end of normal and her nose was dry so she got a jab of anti-b's for any infection she had managed to get (no idea where from but hey ho they've been out in the garden so could have eaten anything) and she got some electrolytes and pro-biotic stuff and by 10:00 she was much better and starving hungry so had a big feed off her mummy.

I always wonder if they wont get better on their own but she had been asleep for about 9 hours so it was worth the trip to the vet as she has certainly improved this evening - poor little mite she must have had a really poorly tummy.


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## vizzy24 (Aug 31, 2008)

Hi redddogs Glad the little one is getting better they must be such a worry and s and f glad your little one is giving you parcels shall we say lol


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## crazycrest (Feb 13, 2008)

reddogs said:


> We ended up at the vets this evening as one of the puppies was really not happy, she emptied herself early this morning - looked just like tea coming out of her  and went to sleep, eventually having tried to get her to suckle on her mother a couple of times with no result and her really not moving a lot I rang a more expert person than me and by 7:00 this evening we decided that she needed the vet so off I trundled.
> 
> The vet checked her over, temp was at the high end of normal and her nose was dry so she got a jab of anti-b's for any infection she had managed to get (no idea where from but hey ho they've been out in the garden so could have eaten anything) and she got some electrolytes and pro-biotic stuff and by 10:00 she was much better and starving hungry so had a big feed off her mummy.
> 
> I always wonder if they wont get better on their own but she had been asleep for about 9 hours so it was worth the trip to the vet as she has certainly improved this evening - poor little mite she must have had a really poorly tummy.


Well you did the right thing going to the vet & I hope your problems will now be solved, good luck with the poop patrol reddogs x x x


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## Small~Fluffy (Mar 13, 2009)

*Hi Reddogs
Im sorry to hear she had to go to the vets 

Sounds like it was the best descision given her condition.

Hoping she is feeling 100% today *


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## reddogs (Feb 6, 2009)

Well we certainly seem to be over the worst and fortunately only one was bad enough to go to the vets but we have given them all the electrolytes and pro-biotics to get them back on track.

Poor little things I can only think they picked something up off the grass


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## vizzy24 (Aug 31, 2008)

Glad they are all doing ok and no more poorly poos Yuk


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