Can anyone offer me good tips on feeding two week old pups? Some of them fight me on the bottle and refuse to try the dish at all. There are six and what with my working, it is hard to get everyone fully fed.
And hey-if anyone has a trick for making mom want to feed them again, I'd love to hear that too. She pretends she doesn't have children all day long, but will go lay with them and let them nurse at night, so it's not like she hates them.
Are the pups gaining weight and thriving? If so, I wouldn't worry about it. If not, tube feeding is the fastest and easiest thing to do. If you've never done it before probably need to get someone with experience to show you how.
At around 3 weeks they should be able to lap out of a shallow pan.
Thanks Debbie.
The tube feeding pics I am looking at seem real scary but I will ask someone to show me how.
The pups are all gaining weight but the two smallest will lose as soon we stop feeding them-they are thankfully the two best about taking a bottle and both are already lapping from a dish so so far, so good.
"Thrive" is a hard word for me-I am not a breeder and have kind of fallen into mommy's aide role due to odd circumstances. I am not entirely sure what they are supposed to be doing at what age. They seem to sleep a lot? They will suck on my clothes and hands if I pick them up. They don't make a lot of noise generally, but they will start yelling when they are near the formula, although it's hard to feed them. If I fool with them a little as a group, they start walking around and mewing.
Some have open eyes, some don't.
Originally posted by alex mankowich: Thanks Debbie.
The tube feeding pics I am looking at seem real scary but I will ask someone to show me how.
The pups are all gaining weight but the two smallest will lose as soon we stop feeding them-they are thankfully the two best about taking a bottle and both are already lapping from a dish so so far, so good. Once you've done it a few times, tube feeding is a piece of cake. Two weeks of age though, they might be able to eat on their own, might not. Bottle feeding is more time consuming (but it is time handling the puppy- a good thing) and is the preferred psychological way (over tubing)to feed young puppies. Tube feeding is faster and you can measure calories in more accurately. But it doesn't have the suckling action. Can't remember why offhand, but the suckling part is considered important.
If they cry with the tube in- you're in the right place. They can't make noise if the tube's in the lungs. Just remember that, it makes it a lot easier :-)
The only thing I've ever tube fed is a calf. It's really easy to kill them doing that, especially if you don't know what you're doing. It didn't happen to me personally, but I was a witness.
If the pups can lap out of a shallow pan, why not put the formula in that and let them go at it?
I would make the mom feed her pups.. every couple hours, make her lay down.. sit on her head if you need to.. and make her feed them.. you will know that she has let her milk down when thier tails stick strait out and sorta vibrate.. I wouldn't give her a choice..
Good news today-everyone will lap from a shallow pan or a cup, some only if we hold them just so, but they're doing it. Ready to tube if I have to but don't think it'll come to that.
Not up for sitting on anyone's head really as long as I can feed them! (Them dog teeth hurt when they get ya in the butt) I'm gonna wean these puppers completely on Tuesday when they're three weeks, before mom gets hostile. She's full as a dairy cow right now but running away from them if we don't sit down with her and pet and stroke her while she nurses. She has given up the night shift now with them as well.
This bitch won't ever have another litter. What a PITA this has been. Some dogs just don't dig the mommy gig, I guess.
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