Nimue, whose puppies will be 7 weeks old on Thursday, is still nursing them regularly (several times a day as well as in the night), and she eats tons of food.  But no problem about feeling her ribs, she is in no way overweight, and I love to see her eat with gusto!  Her poops are perfectly normal in consistency, but in volume just amazing!  OK, that's understandable.  But the last two nights she has pooped in the pen during the night, and I have gotten up to an unbelievable situation in the morning (5.30h, yawn...), I'll spare you the details and let your imagination supply them for you.  The puppies poop plenty during the night as well.  But this morning one of them is not feeling well, has diarrhea and I believe has even vomited some slimy foam (I didn't see her vomit, but I found a couple of indications of this).  She is subdued and obviously not herself.  I shall be calling the vet in an hour (it's only 6.30 now).

I'm having some trouble, as I often do, figuring out what exactly to feed everyone.  I base the food for my dogs on Orijen, but for a while the Orijen in Nimue's food seemed (via the milk) to upset the puppies.  So I switched to a high-quality canned food for her and the puppies which is chicken and rice, therefore gluten-free.  Nimue and the pups have been on this for several weeks now.  I add lactose-free yoghurt sometimes, or lactose-free cottage cheese and sometimes some hard-boiled egg yolk, occasionally some minced, left-over chicken.  I'd be interested in your comments, although I don't really see how I could make a sudden switch to another type of feeding.  I have often felt kind of stymied about the food I should feed my puppies.  The minute I add anything new or - heaven forbid - make a basic change, I have all kinds of problems.  What do YOU feed during this transitional period of weaning?

I didn't post this on the "nutrition" board, as it is not about nutrition in general, but only pertains to puppies and weaning.  I suppose this question might engender a huge discussion about the benefits of this over that (from BARF to who knows what), and this is not what I am looking for.  I am just curious as to how others bridge this period in their puppies' development.

By 7 weeks old my girl was hardly feeding her pups at all and had not been in with them overnight from 5-6 weeks old.
At this age the pups would be on 4 meals a day of kibble soaked in goats milk with some organic puppy wet food (I used a brand called Lily's Kitchen last litter but have also used naturediet)

My bitches are usually pretty fed up by 7 weeks and only do a couple of lightening feeds a day, puppies reared on high quality puppy kibble with nature diet, I used my pet stores own brand puppy kibble which has an almost identical ingredient list to several of the high price named brands, no complaints from the puppies. I feed the bitch puppy kibble until the pups have left home and she is back to pre baby weight, if she dropped much at all, then it's back to basic diets

> By 7 weeks old my girl was hardly feeding her pups at all and had not been in with them overnight from 5-6 weeks old. <br />At this age the pups would be on 4 meals a day of kibble soaked in goats milk with some organic puppy wet food (I used a brand called Lily's Kitchen last litter but have also used naturediet)

This is how we were with our litters.   Having mum away from the litter by around 6 weeks was all part of the weaning process.   We didn't let our puppies go home until they were 10 weeks (other than if we knew the new owners and they were experienced, in which case I would agree for them to go by 8 weeks - and also with a big litter where most benefitted from a more one on one attention).    By that time I'd know they were ready for the outside world and much as they'd miss their siblings, they'd not miss mum.    Our dams would go back on their normal diet pretty much by that time too - if necessary with more than usual if they needed to regain condition.