Hello after another trip to the emergancy vets tonight I have to hand rear 3 puppies. They are a week old and have been getting used to lactol for the last 48hours. On the carton it says it should be fed every two hours is this correct. Someone said every three hours would be ok but I want to make sure as I dont want to put the puppies in danger.

Hi, if they are just a day or two old, or very tiny, then every 2 hours is a must.  IF they are over a week old and gaining weight daily then they can be moved to 3 hourly, with careful monitoring to make sure the weight gain continues increasing.

can 3week old pups go 4h plus weaning with nature diet?? ive weighed pups and not much weight has gone on them since 2weeks old ,mum went 3h without feeding them and she still hasnt got any milk, roll on 1 more week when pups can take milk from dish they can lap food but milk alittle to watery for them yet so looks like bottle or should i up the food ?
xx

Hi White Lilly I am hand rearing a litter of toys. I was told not to attemp to wean them by my vet until 6 weeks. However against his advice I weaned them at 3 weeks and they havent looked back. Two days into weaning they were chewing on the bottle instead of suckling so I just left RC Starter mousse with lactol down and they havent gained as much weight their whole lifes. The hard part for me was getting them to try it.

> I was told not to attemp to wean them by my vet until 6 weeks.

I think there may have been a misunderstanding.

Some people mean wean as in totally off mum/milk.

We mean the process of getting there which can start, if need be, as soon as their eyes are open, but normally starts around 2 1/2 - 4 weeks, 3 weeks on average.