I was talking to my bitches breeder yesterday and we were comparing the weights of my puppies and hers.
My bitch and her littermates at nearly 4 weeks old weighed over 2lbs more than my puppies do at the same age.
i am hoping this is because there are 10 in my litter and there was only 4 in hers? my puppies weigh between 3 and 4 lbs at the moment
My bitch still feeds the puppies but very reluctantly. I have to make her go and lie down otherwise she wouldn't let them feed. They have had some solids but they don't seem to be eating very much.
They have had some raw mince and 10 of them don't usually finish 1/2 lb between them. I just did them about 1/3rd pack of nature diet and again they didn't eat it all.
DO I need to worry that my puppis are very small.? What do people feed when weaning?. I have mainly stucjkto the raw mince as they like that best. I have some Orijen puppy food but that doesn't work very well as even when soaked it stays in individual biscuits and doesn't mash down onto a puree. How much should they be eating?

Your puppies will weigh less than with a litter of four.  Mum is more likely to feed them standing when they get to this age (in my experience anyway).
Re - dried food - I would use a blender to make it into a more slushy paste.
Difficult to say exactly how much they should be eating - are you weighing them regularly?  As long as they are increasing steadily you shouldn't be worried. 

Thanks, I think mum would feed standing up but the puppies can't quite reach so just follow her round squealing. I am weighing them and they put on about 200grams last week. They just feel a bit thin to me not as rounded as I was expecting? Good ideqa about the blender. I never thought of that. Thanks

I have had weights vary quite a bit between litters especially between small and large litters (I most often have had either 4 or 7 pups), but they are all roughly the same weight by the time they are 12 weeks give a pound or two between the sexes.

As for how much they will eat, I give as much as they will eat four times a day letting Mum have what is left.

To begin with I soak the puppy food in hot water, mash it and then add puppy milk.  It will take a couple of hours to soak down enough to mash smooth.

Hi, my friend had a litter of 4 puppies. She started feeding them her choosen dry food soaked right down to a mash and added some raw mince this got 3 pups interested but 1 pup still was not interested so she got some tripe (pet shops sell it in their freezers) she added some on a plate warmed it up n the microwave (it will smell) then she added some of the mashed food they all loved this.

Once they are really interested she started to put more mashed up food and less tripe. Over about a week and a half the pups were just on the dry food.

Might be worth a try she said it worked wonders, Good luck!

Your pups are bound to weigh less than a smaller litter would, I expect their birthweights were less and it will take them a while to catch up. But in my experience they do catch up and eventually reach the size they are genetically programmed to reach.

I think at 4 weeks your bitch will be finding feeding a bit uncomfortable - all those teeth! Also she will need to regain some condition herself after carrying and feeding her big litter so I would persevere with the weaning for her sake as well as the pups.

As for food: I find Burns minbites soak well and quickly too. But what they really like is raw minced meat - beef, tripe or lamb. I usually start by hand feeding the pups on my lap with little balls of meat on their tongues, one at a time. With a big litter this takes a while! Once they've got the hang of it you can mix in some of your complete food and then move on to putting the food down for them to tuck into. By about 6 weeks I give them a bowl each to help them get ready for their new homes. You can also try putting down raw chicken wings for them to chew on. They are certainly not too young and you'd be surprised how much they enjoy them. They won't make much inroads at first so you can then mince them up afterwards and add the minced chicken wings to their next feed.

I'm not sure about quantities. I usually give them what they will eat, if it all goes quickly I give them some more.

BTW your bitch is a good girl to lie down when you make her :-)

Thanks for all the replies. I usually feed raw so have started the pups on raw mince of different types. They seem to like this but are only eating very small quantities. Yesterday I mixed mince in with some nature diet which they had turned their noses up on its own and that seemed to go down a bit better.
I tried liquidising the soaked Orijen but that was not a success. They really didn't seem to recognise it as food at all and just fell into  it and paddled it all over the pen. I will try mixing it with mince today to see if that works any better.
I haven't tried tripe yet as I wasn't sure if they would be able to cope with it but will give that a go today.
Mum is trying hard bless her but I can see she really is starting to hate feeding the little horrors. I have on occasion split them into two groups and let the smaller ones feed first and then let the larger ones have a go which makes for a more relaxed feeding time but mum seems to think she has finished after the first lot and it takes a lot of persuading to let her lie down again for the second sitting.
I am not sure that feeding standing up will be the answer as mum doesn't want to stand still while they hang on to her under carriage and so she runs round the pen hotly persued by 10 squealing demons.

Are you making sure that their nails are short?  By 4 weeks I'm usually cutting their front nails at least twice a week and filing them to make sure that they're not shart.  They don't need to make scratch marks to be uncomfortable. :)

I am cutting their nails. I will try filing them to see if that helps. Thanks.

They just feel a bit thin to me not as rounded as I was expecting?

Is their worming up to date?

/they were done last week at 3 weeks. Due again next week. I gave them minced tripe for breakfast and they certainly loved that. Ate more than they have ever done.

Oh well... Maybe you are turning a corner now.

Good luck!