First of all, have you cut the puppies toenails? You should have started cutting them a couple of weeks ago. I just use small fingernail clippers and just clip off the sharp ends.
As for the food, yes, you need to start offering them food. In my opinion, Beneful is one of the worst dog foods on the market, it is loaded with grains and soy. I recommend a high quality food like Canidae, Chicken Soup Puppy or Solid Gold Wee Bits.
I 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 small 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. |