Hi Everyone

My litter is now a little over 4 wks.  I had one that was having problems but is fine now.
I tested them on their weaning mush at 3 wks and there was no interest .  for the past few days I have been a little more serious about it because mom is getting thin and they want to nurse every 3 hours.  this is a toy breed.  I got to the point where I have spooned tiny bits into their mouthes because they won't lick it off of my finger or tiny spoon.  I don't usually have this problem.  Have any of you had pups slow to catch on to their mush?   Do any of you have any ideas on things to try that might help?

Thank you
Darlene W

What are you using? I use scraped beefsteak to start with, just a tiny bit (a teaspoon for dalmatian pups, so somewhat larger than yours!) and they can't get it down quickly enough. A toy poodle breeder I know has hers on tripe by 7 weeks.

This is also the time of maximum lactation, so the bitch should be on vast quantities (at least four times her usual maintenance amount) of highest-quality food.
:)

i'm using the standard,  baby rice, baby meat, puppy formula, a little yogurt. sometimes I add a touch of cornsyrup.
what do you mean scaped beef.  is it raw or cooked?

im using scraped raw minced beef they love it :P

Toy breeds usually are a lot later than other breeders.  our Pomeranian is lapping her food up and she's nearly 4 weeks, we too used the mince, she loved it.

The meat is raw. Take a piece of steak and scrape the flat side of it with the blade of a knife - not cutting into the meat but scraping across it. This will produce a lump-free meaty pulp that pups generally go mad for. After a week or so you can progress to fine raw mince.
:)

Have you tried feeding mum in with the pups? (if she would be ok with that ;) )  if they see her eating they may want to investigate ;) you could try something they would be offered in a large low bowl so they could have a lick as well :)  the idea of tiny amounts of scraped beef is good too, just roll a tiny ball and put it on their noses to lick off ;)

Hope this helps

do you add anything else to it or just the beef.  does hamburg work or is that different?
alot of the vets here say pups can get e coli from feeding raw.  some of us still do it.  do you ever hear that?
thanks everyone  :)

No, just beef. What's 'Hamburg'? As for e coli, there are at least 157 varients of the bug (when you realise that the dangerous-to-humans one is E Coli 157) so there are 156 safe varieties ...

sorry, :)  hamburg is ground beef

I'd let them progress to the lumpier texture of ground beef when they're fine at taking the scraped, and I put it twice through the mincer first to make sure there are no stringy bits they could choke on.

ok ,  that's a good idea. 
Thanks everyone with the suggestions !
I will try this