at the moment my girl lucy is feeding the pups for about 5 mins in the morning and in the evening we are planning to cut this down to once a day over the next few days but my vets reckons they shouldnt be feeding off her at all now but lucy seams to want to feed them at the moment they are in a large playpen and lucy has worked out how to get the gate open and will let herself in to feed the pups if i let her how ofter should they feed off her there are 6 pups and they were 7 weeks old yesterday

Very few vets have any practical experience in breeding.  The bitch knows best, all mine have free access to tehri pups whenever they want, and by the tiem they leave they may give them the odd nip from the milk bar, and often a last suck before they leave.  This si the natural way, and if your bitch is healthy then let ehr rear her pups as she sees fit.

As Brainless says mums know best.  When she has had enough she will quickly let them know try not to worry.

Karen

As the others say, let mum decide when she wants to be with her pups. She'll no doubt be allowing a quick comfort suck the day each one leaves. That way her milk supply will decrease naturally and safely.

Ditto - why should vets think they know more than the bitch? I really do believe that "mother knows best" and let her guide me as to what she wants and needs.

thanks for all the replys even though the vets said they shouldnt be feeding from her still i did explain to him she will go into the playpen where they are so they can feed like i said she worked out how to open the gate about 2 days after we got the playpen out so she has as much access to the pups as she wants so i will carry on letting her do her own thing and feed them when she wants to

Yep there is a difference between pups not needing Mums milk and wanting it, and some Mums are happy to keep giving a little even up to 12 weeks others will have pups completely weaned by 6 weeks.

As everyone says, rely on the mum's instinct.  She is obviously very maternal.  Let nature take its course.  I have had the pup I have kept from a litter still having a cursory suck in passing on the mum's teats at 12 weeks.