I had my first litter 13 days ago medium size working breed. The smallest of my litter lost weight for the first 2 days and i was advised to give it top up feeds. Day 2 to day 9 i was bottle feeding her up to 15mls of lactol every 2.5hrs. Day 9 till today (day 13) i've been offering her up to 22mls every 3/ 3.5hrs following advice from the vet. Yesterday and today i've noticed her feeding off my bitch more (i also encourage) and wonder if i could cut down or out the top up bottle feeds? If so how do i go about it? Also when she feeds she has clear liquid (water) coming out of her nose spraying tiny droplets, the vet has listened to her chest and said she seems fine. She's the first in the litter to have her eyes opened, but is very round in the middle. Also her poo resembles whole grain mustard, grainy and yellow (quite loose) is this due to combinations of milk?

I have no experience here but I do hope someone answers you

if the puppy is gainig weight andacting normal i would cut out some of the bottle feeds and see if the weight increase contines  the poos sound normal with mixed feeding and maybee to much ? mums milk is best it will not be long now until weaning  i hand reared 10 a few years back its hard work do keep acheck on weight gain .weigh about the same tie each day and you want a steady gain dont get the tummy hard if the puppy is content andwarm to touch little twitchs in sleep thats all normal best of luck let us know how its going

bottle feed her straight after she has fed of mum and as soon as she refuses the bottle give up that way you will not over load her

grainy,yellow poo would point to worms for me :-(

I had this with my two pups, my vet told me to top them up but i didnt want to. I think its similar to human babies losing meconium (sp) in the first few days, mums carry on to breast feed they dont top up with a bottle as someone else has said mum is best, just my thoughts. Good luck im sure they will pack the weight on soon :)

Thanks for all the replies. All the pups were wormed this week and i've started weaning. Im now down to 4 feeds a day and pup seems to be doing really well. I stopped bottle feeding 2days ago as after feeding, a little milk started coming out of her nose (only happened twice)she was seen by the vet last week and he and i cant see anything abnormal. She now laps up her milk feeds and the problem has stopped.