Hello to everyone!  I hope your Christmas was pleasant and feel sorry for any of you living in the terrible floods going on in Britain right now.  That's just awful.

I have two litters right now.  One litter (5 pups) is 8 weeks old (we are required by our regulations to keep the puppies until they are fully 10 weeks old), and the other litter (3 pups) is 5 weeks old.  So three weeks apart in age, to the day!  I have lately (since the younger puppies were about 4 weeks old) been attempting to integrate the two litters, as I did once before with two litters 2.5 weeks apart, and although the mothers are fine with it, it is not working out too well.  The older puppies are so rambunctious that the little ones initially felt obliged to "defend themselves" and quickly learned to fight the older ones off.  This surpised me, and now it worries me.  At first I thought it would be good for them to gain the self-confidence, but now I worry that they have simply learned bad habits.  Of course, I am keeping everything under observation, and the 3 younger pups have a separate sleeping area with their mother.  But they seem to now "enjoy" fighting (my interpretation) and to think that this is what relating to the older puppies - and at times even to each other - is all about.  Naturally, I am doing my best not to let such situations occur, but maybe some of you might have some good suggestions and pointers for me.  My puppies live in the main room in my house, in a large cordoned-off area with beds and toys and such which I can open or close at will and with direct access to the garden.   I do not have a large house with many different rooms and a huge garden which I can divide up into different sections.  I've got a bit under two weeks to go now until the older puppies will leave (they are all reserved), and I want to avoid these kinds of negative experiences recurring as far as possible.  Any suggestions welcome and appreciated.  Thanks!

I integrate mine if the little ones will cope with the big ones...but I have toy dogs where the size/weight difference isn't so marked.
The last combo was one 10 week old ( his siblings had left) with some 6 week olds. They needed strict supervision but the big one would have been lonely without this.
I wouldn't have combined the whole 2 litters as the size difference would have created a real bully situation.

Pups LOVE to fight, my sweetest adults were wild Devils as pups.

I often take out a 'picked upon' individual for some respite as I can't stand the thought of one being tormented.

I'd suggest this really is a matter for using common sense.   If the older/bigger lot are appearing to be mugging the younger/smaller lot, then don't have them together!   I don't know what breed is involved here, but with my Bassets, 3 weeks difference in age would mean a significant difference in size/weight.    If possible, I'd be keeping them as separate litters - after all each litter, 5 pups and 3 pups has company within their own litter, so I don't really see much to be gained by putting them together.   FWIW.

If possible, I'd be keeping them as separate litters - after all each litter, 5 pups and 3 pups has company within their own litter, so I don't really see much to be gained by putting them together.   FWIW.

Space.  Space for the pups to use and enjoy.  The garden, the room, the various puppy-apparati to climb on (teetering wooden platforms), tunnels, other stimuli, etc.  As I said, I do not have the possibility of different rooms and separate areas in the garden.  So it is to their advantage to be together.  With my "Maltese-sized" puppies, the size difference is not that extreme, though definitely there.  But yes, the bigger puppies "bullied" the younger ones, and now the younger ones find it "cool" to start altercations themselves.  I've thrown two litters together in the past several times with no problems at all, that's why this time I am surprised.

I integrate mine if the little ones will cope with the big ones...but I have toy dogs where the size/weight difference isn't so marked.
The last combo was one 10 week old ( his siblings had left) with some 6 week olds. They needed strict supervision but the big one would have been lonely without this.
I wouldn't have combined the whole 2 litters as the size difference would have created a real bully situation.

Pups LOVE to fight, my sweetest adults were wild Devils as pups.

I often take out a 'picked upon' individual for some respite as I can't stand the thought of one being tormented.

I see that "supervision" is key here.  That is more or less the conclusion I had come to, but as I just wrote to another member of the forum, it would be ideal if the pups could be together in order to profit from the space and the puppy stuff in the garden.

I have only had this two litter situation twice, one litter were only 4 days apart the other as with yours about 3  weeks.

With the first two I kept them strictly apart on advice of fellow breeders so that new owne4rs would have no doubts about which litter a pup came from and thereby parentage. http://barbelka.awardspace.co.uk/wpimages/wp43df22d5_0a_06.jpg

With the bigger age gap again pups were kept strictly apart until there were just two of the older litter left http://barbelka.awardspace.co.uk/wpimages/wp29172616_0a_06.jpg after the others had gone to their hew homes so they were over 8 weeks, and then the pups were only together under supervision, and there were no issues with the 5 week old younger ones being treated gently by the two older ones,  http://barbelka.awardspace.co.uk/wpimages/wp26833e16_0a_06.jpg who were both gone in another week or so.

So generally for the good of the pups development I'd never mix two litters in the normal course of events, it's not something that would happen in nature, and on the rare occasion two bitches in a pack have pups the younger ones will normally be killed or die..

I'd thought about 'telling the difference' in terms of which puppies came from which litter, if mixed together!!   But I suppose that could be overcome by using coloured collars unless they have recognisable markings, like my puppies did.  And any size difference at the moment.

On one occasion, I did have a male puppy I'd kept from a litter we had a few months earlier and when we had a singleton bitch from another 'litter' that year, she joined the older male puppy once big enough.

> I'd thought about 'telling the difference' in terms of which puppies came from which litter, if mixed together!!   But I suppose that could be overcome by using coloured collars

Mine are always individually identified from birth, (coloured wool) it was more the issue of trust from would be buyers when the litter were virtually same age.

The youngest older resident pup I have had with a young litter of 3 weeks the pup was only a 5 month age gap, so a 6 month pup safely with three week old cousins in kitchen with vigilant Mum.

We had snow that year and she was very solicitous to the babies.