Hi all!

I have a litter of 13 days old Staffy puppies, which are all doing well and are very healthy.  When I took them all to the vet when they were 3 days old, he advised me to start weaning them at 14 days as my bitch lost a lot of condition whilst pregnant and has became very "ribby", not at all like her normal solid, muscular self (she's on the short side for a Staffy, and she had a litter of 7 big pups). 

My question is this - how many times should I be feeding them solid food initially?  I know that my bitch should still be doing most of the feeding, so would a couple of solid feeds be enough or should I give them more?  I'm going to the vet tomorrow to have them wormed, but I would like some opinions before I go!

At 2 weeks I spoon fed mine soft puppy food 4 times a day, after about the third day they were lapping it up. Then at 3 1/2 weeks I introduced softened (mushy) hard food and hand fed that. As they got older the food slowely got harder by 5 weeks they were all on hard. I had the odd one that still prefered soft food and this one I just pulled out and fed to the side, but I kept hard kibble in with them all the time at 4 weeks. Mine were boston terriers..

Good luck :) they are sooo sweet at this age :)

Edit: To add once they were done eating (which wasn't much in the beginning) I had mom pop in and let them nurse since they would be thirsty. I fed them all on a blanket and popped them back in with mom and she cleaned their faces and feet and would lay down and feed them.

Thanks, that helped a lot!

I fed them a little bit of mushy puppy food today, it was hilarious!  They looked completely confused and it's so funny to watch them chew!

Your welcome :)

Good to hear that they liked it :)

Wow you know I never did any of that :/ when I found out that my Staffy was in Pup from having an Ultra Sound I started to feed her more as advized by my Vet she was having over a Kilo of Raw red meat  and anything up to 12 chicken necks two times aday as well as dry food {Kibble} until about one week before the due date then the intake went down some and she never lost any condition the Vet was very Pleased oh how well Amber Looked She said if the Puppy wasn't there you would never of known she was the mother well until you looked at her over sized Nipples...LOL the poor thing..:)...and to this day she looks 100%, now that one of her Pups is in Pup, I might say no longer a Pup her Self:) I will do the Same thing:) it cost a lot but thats all and all what ya have to do to have Healthy Pups and Mom:)

I fed Benson as much as she would eat when she was pregnant and she had frequent vet checks.  She had such an enormous belly it was impossible to notice that she was losing weight herself.  She had 4 eggs every day (scrambled - her preference) chicken drumsticks (flesh only) her normal dried food and basically anything she wanted!  She is perfectly healthy in herself, just skinny at the moment which the vet told me was normal after whelping such a big litter (big for her, as I said she's small) and that it couldn't really have been helped.

I have just had a litter of 10 and we decided to try the pedigree puppy porridge for the first time, and I can say that I whose very pleased with the result, they all tucked in with no problems, and this can be fed from 2 weeks of age

i couldnt get the porridge, even the breeder point was out of it!!  i started at 2.5 weeks when they seemed able to 'lap', mine are now 3 weeks,all 10 are on pedigree puppy 'mush' made with soaked biscuit and lactol, they also have a whole packet of nature diet puppy mixed with warm water , i make the last meal really milky, but today they have had loads from me as their mum is poorly at the vets,

chel