Hi All,  I am new to this forum and i am looking for some advice. I have found this board very useful in the past and have often reffered to loads of threads for any other info i may have needed but cant seem to find anything on this apart from soaking the dry food in chicken broth, (propably not looking in the right place) and i am just a tad worried as i dont want to upset there tums. I have spent just over a year now boffing up on as may breeding related book/websites i can find and have found j m evans & kay white books to be excellent.  This is my first litter and i have 8 very healthy pups, they started weaning at 3 weeks on Hills Large Breed pupy food soaked in boiled but not boiling water with a little full fat goats milk, blended to a porridge, gradually stopped the blending to a mash and now at 5 weeks feed it just soaked, and have been adding a 1/4 of a pack of Naturediet and the goats milk in water 1:4 ratio (not in food) since 4 weeks, they have 4 meals a day of 400g (dry weight) They will be six weeks this Thursday and the amount of food they are eating has reduced in the last couple of days, but they are gaining weight, slowly. The dam is still feeding them, however i beleive this to be "comfort eating" as she doesnt lie down as she did and walks off quickly, the pups nails are kept on top of to prevent the dams under carraige from getting hurt, But he food thing is worrying me can anyone give me some FRIENDLY advice?  Pups have been wormed on drontal at 2,4 and will be 6 & 8 weeks, the dam is also wormed.

I would be grateful of a speedy reply!

P.s Can anyone tell me where i can buy "The perfect Puppy" by J M Evans & Kay White, have looked every where and can only find  the one by Gwen Bailey

Hi! It sounds as though you're doing everything fine, but I'm very dozy this morning and can't seem to find what you're asking about your pups! :o Could you explain for a very tired women?

And I thought Evans and White wrote 'The Book of the Bitch', not 'The Perfect Puppy'.

Hi Jeangenie, Thanks for your speedy reply, the question is why is the food intake from myself reducing and is there anything i can do to help increase it again, Yes i have the book of the bitch and doglapedia by JM Evans & K White, I found a thread in here saying to get the perfect puppy by the said authors...........this is why i cant find it, ill have to get the G Bailey one then.!  Yes have learnd all about tired since having the pups, hard work, min nervous breakdown at the start, well worth it loving every miniute, wont want to let them go tho!  Carl

Hi Carl! I can only really tell you what I do when I have a litter, and you can see if that makes sense to you! At that age I only feed the pups two meals a day of complete food (just soaked in water); the other two meals are fresh mince, or fish, or scrambled egg, with plain puppy meal as mixer, with of course a bowl of water always available. You may find that they need something else to 'float their boat' again.

Sounds like you're doing a great job though! :)

Great, Thanks for your advice, ill start off with the egg first, how many eggs do you feel i should feed a litter of 8 Ridgebacks? Does it matter if its lamb or beef mince? and would this be boiled/steamed and how many grams?  Thank you again for your adivce.

Crumbs! (*casts mind back*) I bred dalmatians, so I'd guess they're a similar size pup to yours ... at 8 weeks I suppose they'd be having an egg each in the scrambled egg (don't put too much butter, though milk's okay) for a meal. I used to give the mince raw usually, though sometimes I'd warm it through. I'd use all sorts of meat - beef, lamb, tripe, chicken, white fish (sometimes raw, sometimes boiled); don't ask me about grams! I gave a lump between golfball and tennisball size per pup, mashed with mixer.

However if yours aren't used to many different foods it would probably be sensible to just add a little of each new food (only one new food each couple of days) to their regular complete so as not to upset their tums.

D'oh! I told you I was dozy this morning! *slaps own head* I've just realised I've confused the age of your puppies with the number of them! :o The quantities I gave were for 8-week-old puppies, not 5-week old ones! Ensmallify the quantities accordingly - a table-spoon of each new food per pup at a meal, mixed with their usual, would be adequate.

Hi Jan,  Just to let you know that i have tried scrambled eggs with a little goats milk (but no butter) and they all loved it, infact the bowls were empty and licked clean!
Carl

Excellent! :) Don't give them too much of anything new at a time and they should have no problems. :)