My little BC boy is still ticking and I'm wondering around how much should a BC puppy of this age be gaining in weight daily? He is gaining around 2oz. a day being tubed. The brother on the other hand who is with mom is gaining almost 5oz. a day. I am working on the little guy trying to get him to bottle feed. Still comes out his nose at times if you let him have very much. Certainly is not getting enough with it alone. Still has to be tubed. But at least I did find a nipple he likes and he is trying. Another question I have is, can I tube past 2 weeks? I have been told it becomes extremely hard because they develop their gag reflex around this age. At 3 weeks can't I also try him on some watery food? Any suggestions would still be appreciated on this little fella!! I thank God each day he is with us.

At three weeks you can certainly try him on 'real' food, as that's when I start weaning a normal mum-raised litter. At that age I start to introduce a teaspoonful of scraped raw steak once a day, so (and I'm going on gut-instinct here) I'd say you could start trying to teach him to lap at slightly thickened Whelpi (or other milk designed for pups) at about 2½ weeks or thereabouts.

Good luck with the little guy.

Thanks Jeangenie for the info. I did'nt realize they had any lapping abilities at that age. Of course that's real close to 3 weeks. When you have one being tubed I wonder if you can totally wean them to lapping their own food earlier than normal. Cause at 3 weeks I'll still need to suppliment somehow. Did drink a little bit from the bottle this last feeding without milk coming out his nose. At the end of one week is tubing every 3 hours too much? This seems to be as long as he'll go. Hoping maybe we can get to the point of 3 hours then bottle a little till 4 hours then tube to make up for little amount taken in by the bottle.

When I ahve had very hungry pups I have started them as soon as their eyes were open on dupplementary semi solid feeding.  Starting with a teaspoon of gruel made from puppy formula and soaked pupy food.  As they get the hang of it I increase the amount and frequency so that within a few days theyr are on four meals a day.  At first it may only be a spoonful each, but gradually they get the hang of it and take in more, and Mum finishes what they leave, and cleans up the mess it all makes :D

Thanks guys I will be shopping the beginning of next week for stuff to start him out on. Another question. Do you guys have suggestions on what can be added to formula to thicken it? Thinking if I do that maybe it will slow down how fast my pup can drink from the bottle, thus hopefully stop him from snorting up his nose(or whatever it is he actually does) I do know if he nurses slow it does not happen. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Just don't know what you could add that would not take down the nutritional value of the formula.

I would try a little baby rice in his bottle with the formula, some use that as the first food for small puppys.

If you are going to thicken formula then you start tehm lapping it from a saucer.  Soak a few pieces of Mum high protein food or tegh Puppy food you are going to use and then mash it up with some formula.

I offer it off the end of my fngers at first, or off a teaspoon.  As with human babies yu should never thicken bottle feeds.