Just a weaning question really, is 16 days too early for the pups to eat food?

I have my first litter of medium gundog pups, 8 in all. They are currently 16 days old, all of them have their eyes open and they are now mostly up on all fours wobbling about and have started interacting with each other. They have all had a good weight gain each day and although I have been a bit worried about one, she is still putting on a little weight each day.  If my girl is feeding the pups when it is a meal time I just feed it to her whilst she is in the box.  She mainly has puppy kibble (AG weaning) to which I add a slosh of water but some of her meals I soak which she loves and which adds to her fluid intake. Today she was feeding pups and eating and gradually three of the pups started eating off her plate. Then the smallest one joined in and in the end all of them apart from one was eating off the plate. They seemed to know what to do without even being shown.  Surely it is too early for them to start to eat food? 

I wasnt going to start introducing meals until they were about three weeks old, but they seemed to want it.  How would you proceed from here and what would you do considering their age?

Thank you so much.

I find that my bitches don't eat enough complete food, as their mouths are so sore from cleaning pups.  They get minced steak, poached white fish, scrambled egg etc. 

And I always feed in the whelping box, so the pups tell me when they're ready, which is better than me deciding.  My pups often start licking mum's dinner before they can stand.  I don't stop them, I just make sure that I up the quantity so that mum has plenty. 

I have never had a bitch lose weight when rearing a litter, so feed adlib.  I do leave a bowl of the dry food available, but have always found that they don't eat enough for my liking.

Fortunately Ive not got any problems getting my bitch to eat now, she is literally on 5 meals a day, each one 225g of AG Weaning puppy, she also wakes me up at 2.30am for one of those meals. She is also having two scoops of whelpi and one of glucose in 3/4 pint of warm water with each meal which she wolfs down and it just keeps up her fluid intake.  Going on previous experiences with her, If I offered her that variety of foods she would get an upset stomach, I have to be careful enough with her complete diet normally. Each pup is now over 1kg in weight at 16 days old so I am hoping that she is going to be able to keep up with them for a little longer.  Perhaps I will just offer them one meal per day for a few days then.

I started my first litter weaning at 12 days because I was told their eyes opening prematurely was a sign they were not getting enough to eat,they had been gaining each day so I wasn't worried, so started them off on puupy porridge which they played in more than ate, mum got to clean up the mess, scrambled eggs with cheese went down very well, the cheese stopped it going too hard then progressed to mushed up puppy kibble and puppy dog meat and 6 meals per day, Mum had stopped feeding them by 4 weeks old, didn't stop them trying as a video on my website shows but she would just wander off, she was much the same with her next litter too.

If the pups are helping themselves I'd say they were ready.

No not too early, if they are showing an interest in Mums food, or the rate of weight gain is levelling off then it's fine to start.

I normally start mine at 18 days, but have started as early as 12 days in the past.

Just as a follow up to this, I tried them on a proper dessert spoonful of soaked mushy kibble in their own individual bowls tonight, not only did they not even need showing how to eat, but they cleared every single scrap up. Ive taken their eagerness and the fact that none of them hesitated whatsoever as a sign of readyness.  Not sure if I am allowed to post a link but will try anyway, we made a video (media student for a son lol) and you can see how they did.

Mod Edit: link removed

Actually I'm not sure if this is against TOS, as it could be perceived as advertising.  However, before admin pull it, Ive had a sneak preview.  :-)

Your girl has done them proud.  They are lovely little roly polys.  It was great to see them getting stuck in.  It certainly brought a smile to my face, little piggies!  :-)  :-)

Lovely and yes, Admin will remove it :).  Here's a tip though, stand them on vet bed next time.  I know it gets messy but it gives them a much better grip for getting stuck in.

Woops, I can never find where the terms and conditions are, I can now not delete the linky.  Not advertising as they are all sold, just wanted to show how eager they were for their very first taste of food.

How do I go about contacting admin?

>Woops, I can never find where the terms and conditions are,

Just for info, the link to the T&C is at the bottom of every page - it is in very small letters, though, so easy to overlook. :-)

Ive just sent a PM to admin asking for the link to be removed.  That T&C is huge, considering how long I have been a member I never knew it was down the bottom there.