What We Feed The Pups

“You sure know how to plan a meal!” --- Stan Laurel, Them Thar Hills (1934)

Weaning the puppies off their mother is a little more than just dumping out some dry kibble and expecting the pups to eat it. The pups vary on when they’re willing to start eating solid food. Generally speaking, sometime between weeks three and four they will be ready. Occasionally there’s a special case, like big pups without a mom, that we try to entice earlier.

We ultimately want them to eat dry kibble because that’s what the majority of owners will feed when these pups go into their adopted homes. At this stage the pups don’t have enough teeth to chew kibble and we have to introduce that idea slowly as their back teeth come in between weeks five and six. To start out we use a 50/50 mixture (by volume) of Esbilac® milk replacer and dry food. The dry food gets soaked in the formula until it is completely soft, then pulverized with a stick blender to make a creamy gruel. There are special weaning foods available, but we don’t find any advantage in using them so we don’t bother unless someone donates it to the Shelter. We always use Esbilac® because we have never had a problem with it. The dry food is Science Diet® Small Bites because that's what the pups will eat when they go back to the Shelter.

The food is warmed to between 90°F and 100°F to come close to mom's body temperature. We start out feeding each pup separately on a paper plate. If they take the food easily we move them to a “flying saucer” shaped communal feeding pan. If they won’t take the gruel we add a little more water and try again. Not all of the puppies are always ready to be weaned at the same time. If one’s not ready we just try again at the next feeding. Once they are all eating gruel we slowly alter the blend to 100% kibble, but we soak it in a little hot water instead of milk replacer. Then we reduce the amount of water until they are eating dry kibble. The whole process takes about a week and a half.

Although they will be eating solid food the pups will still want to nurse. But the demand will be less on Daisy so she will produce less milk. The process of drying her out can begin and that’s critical because she can’t be spayed or go up for adoption until she’s no longer producing milk.

If you missed it, here’s a replay of the first feeding from this morning.