I have a litter of 6 aged 4.5 weeks, all healthy and doing well. They were introduced to solids at 3.5 weeks and love their grub. However, mum is very reluctant to feed them now, their nails have been clipped and I know they do have teeth coming through so can't blame her really. She still cleans up after them.....to a point, but she is dripping milk everywhere which is something I have never seen before. I do understand that milk production is a supply and demand thing, so if she doen't want to feed them, why is the milk so prolific? She may feed them overnight ???

This happens when bitches are very "milky" and should stop in a few days as her supply decreases, just allow her to feed the puppies when she wants to and keep an eye on her mammary glands to check for any signs of mastitis, redness, swelling, hardness or a temperature/off her food. Don't be tempted to draw off any milk as this will encourage her to make more, it's one of those things that we feel there should be something we can do but it's natures way, some people recommend cutting down food/fluid intake but I would not do this.

Thanks Mixed pack, she has cut her food down herself, not a greedy girl. Just a bit concerned about the puppies as they will still want mums milk at their age.  This is her second litter and we did not have this with the first.

Whelping and rearing never seems to follow the exact same pattern, I wouldn't try to make her feed the babies just up their food and let your bitch do what she wants to, at 4 weeks plus my whippet bitch used to go to the puppy pen, whine to wake the puppies up, just look over the top and then go off again, so frustrating but she knew what she was doing, she just used to get in and feed them twice a day for a couple of minutes standing up.

Is she allowing them to feed for minute or two while she finishes up the food they leave at each mealtime? I've found that this helps the milk dry up slowly but the bitch isn't left uncomfortable with too much milk.

When this happened to my girl, I think she was on the edge of being a bit mastitis-y - it was as if, the more swollen her boobs were, the more it hurt when the pups tried to drink - but the longer she didn't let them drink for, the bigger they got, and the more it would hurt and so on in a vicious circle. 

I had to get a load of treats, and lure her into a Down, and keep rewarding her frequently whilst the pups latched on and drank.  Then she got more settled as the milk went down and I could stop with the treats and she stayed there happily and fed them and all was ok..... I only did it once or twice and then she was fine after that.

I also sponged her boobs down with some weak Dettol.