I've got my girl (toy breed, due in a week) onto puppy food, 2 meals a day, just a little bit more than her usual amount as we are only expecting a small litter (if any - apart from her nipples that look large enough for giant breed puppies, she doesn't look pregnant!). I know when the puppies were around 3-5 weeks old she was eating huge amounts, about 4 or 5 meals a day with puppy food alternated with chicken / beef / fish and mixer biscuit. But I can't remember when you start introducing all this extra food. Is it once the puppies turn up, or should I start buying mince and chicken breasts now, or is it not until 2 weeks old. I think I just weighed her every week and adjusted the food accordingly, does that sound ok? I need to re-read the BOTB!! I can't wait till the weekend when they might reasonably make an appearance!!

Mine was on 3 / 4 meals a day for the week before and now the puppies (all 10 of them!) have made an appearance she is virtually on ad lib. She actually got out of her whelping box at 6am this morning, went upstairs and woke my mum in order to get extra food......she ate said food and went back to sleep for a couple of hourse. She is a large breed

Ad lib won't work for us as we have another (extremely greedy) dog! :)

Hmmm I guess that is a problem - luckily for us the one that is greedy is the one with the pups! Can you shut in a separate room or feed one in the garden or something? Presumably when yours has pups the other dog will be away from them so feeding will be easier?

George showed no interest in the last lot of puppies, but I wouldn't want to force them to spend 10 weeks apart from each other. And if there's food involved, I think he would be perfectly happy to stick his nose in and eat it! :-p I'll just weigh her every few days, I'll be weighing the puppies daily for 2 weeks and then weekly anyway, and adjust accordingly. Last time I overdid it and she got a little tubby!

My girl's due in 2 weeks, for the past 2 weeks I've been adding extra 'nice' things, basically extra protiens such as egg, fish, fresh meat. Last week I started upping her feed and put her onto 3 meals a day. I think in the last few weeks they must be getting a bit crammed, hence splitting her food over 3 meals, she'll probably go onto 4 meals soon. Her food allowance has been very gradually increased over the last week, and will continue to do so, over the next week or so.

> Last time I overdid it and she got a little tubby!

My toy breed actually gains weight when rearing a litter.  I feed totally ad lib.  It does help the recovery period when they go downhill.  Mine usually start coat loss after pups have been weaned, and I honestly believe that they need the extra nutrition, or they take so many months to get a coat back into show condition.

I don't allow any of the other dogs in the same room as a mum rearing pups, so they don't get the chance to steal grub!  :-)

I have a large breed gundog - pups are now 6 days old and she is looking positively tubby. Is this okay? I assume that during the next couple of weeks as the pups grow (there are 10!) they will take more and more out of her?

I'm not too worried about her getting a little porky as once the shooting season begins she will loose it again. She is malting a lot - I guess that this could be due to the hot weather as well. She hasn't gone of her food at all really apart from for about 1 day prior to whelping...

Your girl should be having her top ups of good protein foods already. Chicken and mince meat with rice along with puppy food, she should have began eating healthily like this from approx 5 weeks in after all she has developing whelps and her body needs a little extra of everything, to help keep her and her forthcoming pups healthy and sustained.

2 weeks after she has whelped is way too late, you need to start now albeit late and continue until the pups are all but weaned.

That's not what TBOTB says, the major load on the bitch starts the last week or two, and as my girl is only having 1 or 2, I hadn't done more than change to puppy and increase the amounts. She has plenty covering her ribs. But I've got chicken and mince and will start her with a bit of that. Last time she was getting placed in the ring shortly after the puppies left home, so I can't be doing much wrong!