I totally agree with Chattiesmom, the weaning process should be slow but I do
introduce mine to ground up dry food at around 4 weeks, as soon as the puppies are able to start walking. I put Chicken Soup dry puppy food in a blender and grind it until it is very fine. I put this ground dry food in a bowl in the x-pen with the pups along with a bowl of water. The puppies will go over and start licking the dry food. As the puppies get older they will start eating more and more of the dry food and mom will slowly dry up. Usually by 8 weeks the pups are nursing very little. All my moms have always had plenty of milk so I never felt it was necessary to make the mush. Some breeder prefer to wean them on mush. Either method will work but I have found the dry food method works best for me and it is a lot less messy. I let the mom continue to nurse the pups pretty much as long as she wants. |