When you are weaning your litters is this all you feed or do you feed a variety at different times of the day? Also do you add and raw chicken or other meat to it?

Everyone is different but for me weaning is the one time that I don't mix and vary puppies food.  From the start of weaning till around 6 weeks they are on the complete puppy food I start off with the puppy porriage then within a week they are generally on Royal canin , at 6 weeks I introduce chicken wings. At 8-10 weeks for the puppies I am keeping only I then start them on the variety food they will be getting. chicken , tripe etc

Hi Blue
I was interested to read this - I do completely the opposite :)  I feed a variety of foods right from the very beginning when I'm weaning pups - meats, milk, eggs, some packet meat (Forthglade), some complete, some chicken wings etc.

Puppy Porriage? Is this a special porriage for pups?

Hi GG1
Some of the manufacturers sell a puppy porridge - a version of their puppy food.  Usually you're just meant to add water to it and then feed it to the pups.  Otherwise you can just soak some of the puppy food in plenty of water and then it will end up with a porridge like consistency.

Yes I do add different things to their diets but not at the same time as RC and certainly not at beggining of weaning

I have had great results with the pedigree puppy porriage. I hate all their other foods  but the porriage is really good. I start with this for a few days, then add a little really cooked chicken to this, then after about a week -10 days I soak RC.   They love it.

I made my own puppy porridge ;) using the puppy complete biscuit soaked with a replacer milk like Whelpi, whizzed it up in the food processor to a sloppy consistancy, over time, made it less sloppy until it was fed normally.

Ditto, but I don't even whizz it up just soiak it until it can be mashed and then add the puppy milk.

I used to ridgelover but this is the method that now suits me and I feel I get the best results from.   I felt that the volume of say scrambled egg against the complete nutritional wise to volume just wasn't enough.   I love the sturdiness of my pups on Royal canin to be honest.    I did forget to say that I do give a bit of cooked chicken to young pups also still but only small amounts.  They start the chicken wings at 6 weeks , not just for the food benefit but the teeth..

I went away from Complete foods altogether a few years ago but in the last year or so I give complete food as a breakfast  and their nightime feed is meat/tripewith mixer, or a bunch of RMBS etc with veggies.

Hi Blue

I hope you didn't think I was making any sort of criticism - I wasn't at all :)

I also have moved away from complete - my adults now mainly get Forthglade and biscuit and sometimes meat, offal, veg and bones.  However, my recent addition, now 13 weeks, had been raised on a complete and she's still mainly on that - at the moment :)

Is it goats milk you feed the pups ridgielover? I thought that cows milk was bad for dogs?

Oh no honestly I knew you were not being critical RL  :-) honestly.

I dont do the food debate either as each to their own. Some seem to do well on what others " claim" to be junk.  Same with humans.   I can't bare some of the overly opinionated food threads at times :-)   ( I'll get beat up for that you know) :-D :-D

I tend to tweek the balance of food between my dogs, some seem to do better with a 60/40% complete to natural and others suit 25/75% I just adjust to suit them.  :-)

I give mine goats milk, some say it doesn't do any good but my pups love it and it doesn't upset tums so will carry on :)

I agree with Blue about food threads and stay well away, mine all do well on complete, they are happy and I'm happy which is all that counts :D

I used to give my pups cows' milk, with some evaporated milk added, but then started to give goats' milk, can't say I noticed any sort of difference.  I know a lot of people say they don't need milk after weaning, but each to their own.  I still give mine cows' milk sometimes - I've never seen any signs of upset tums and they love it. 

One of my boys had a really nasty bladder infection some time ago and I now give him a couple of large milky drinks a day to help to keep his urine dilute.  Of course, the others have to have some too ... (except for Tanzi, who has alergies, she has to have soya milk!!)

This may get lock or threaded now as we have went down our own wee route ;-)

I give my bitches when they have had puppies a little dash of skimmed milk in warm water 4 times a day for about 4-5 weeks. It is the best method I find of keeping them full of fluid :-) I have never had any problems with it.

My breed is very prone to eclampsia. I used to give Coli-cal D calcuim once a day but I think the dash of milk is enough and works out overall a better choice. The down side of the liquid calcium, which I was cautious of, is that in wirey coated breeds it can cause the skin to sweat through over heating.  For me the skimmed milk ( just a little ;-) )  is the balance of both :-)

Food wise when pups are born I actually soak natures choice mixer or the Laughing dog complete tripe mix and then I add equal amounts of cooked chicken and hand blend it into a puree.. Mine love it. I get the maximum amount of food into them as when it is blended it seems so little they eat it all. it has really worked well for me with my bitches. Not that I have many litters but I do a little tweek each time :-)