My pups are now 2weeks old.  They are growing at a tremendous rate and was wondering if I should try them with solids now as mum doesn't seem to want to feed them more than twice during the day.  My mother-in-law swears by weetabix mixed with full fat milk but was wondering what you all started with and what you found was the best time of day to start?

Thanks for any help you can give.

If the pups are growing well and putting on weight steadily, I'd guess mum must be feeding them more than twice a day. I usually start weaning at about 3 weeks with scraped beef. They soon get the idea when little balls of the meat are put into their mouths and will then eat it from a dish. I keep on with just meat for a couple of days and then meat with mixer biscuit (pedigree small bite) for a couple more days. One they are eating the biscuit happily I put them onto a premium puppy food moistened with a bitches milk substitute (Whelpi, Lactol, Esbilac) and slowly reduce the milk until they are eating dry biscuit. Procare - http://www.procare-petfoods.co.uk/ - is the only UK company I know that does a Puppy Weaner. I haven't tried it, but have used Procare Puppy and liked it.

If yo are sure they are only get two feeds a day from mum, or if their weight gain is falling off, you can wean at 2 weeks. Alternatively you could supplement by bottle feeding them a bitches milk substitute for a few more days.

Good luck!

Thanks Jas.

I checked the bitches milk last night and the only teats that seem to have milk are the back two.  I have a tin of lactol in the cupboard as I was fully prepared in the event of a large litter and my bitch needing help.  Fortunately it was not needed. 

I was just a bit concerened about the fact that they are so big for the average size puppy of the breed and that we would need to start weaning sooner rather than later.  I will leave it a couple of days to see how things go and then try. 

I know it's going to messy especially if it's going to be like weaning a baby.  I think I am going to need your luck and will keep you posted as to how it is going.