Her pups are now a little over three weeks old and as healthy as can be. They totter about on stumpy little legs and have the funniest little short tails which they carry erect when they walk about. But my question is related to feeding them. Jenny is in good nick and has actually gained weight since she's had the pups and she is an excellent mother. When do I start feeding the pups? I usually started the other litters who were born here at about 4 weeks or earlier if the bitch was in bad nick. But they were all large dogs, not ickle hamster ;).

So when is the best time to start feeding them?

theres no harm in tring them! :) if their ready they'll eat it ,if it was me id do some food for them and see :) so glad all is well with mum and pups!! x

I usually start to offer food from 3, sometimes 2.5 weeks if they look ready, so certainly start now. 

I find that, as long as the dish is close enough, my toy breed actually start licking at Mum's food at around 3 weeks.

Oh yes, and then they progress to crawling through it, and licking it off each others bellies!  :-)

> I find that, as long as the dish is close enough, my toy breed actually start licking at Mum's food at around 3 weeks.
>

Ditto, I always feed Mum in her whelping box until this point and I know then when to start the pups off.

my pups were 18days old (large breed) when I started to wean them and took them a few days to get the hang of it then there is no stopping them