how old do puppies have to be so u can feed em?

Question

i have puppies and they are 2 weeks old..and i donno when to feed em real food.

Answer 1

Wait until they start nosing around at the mother's food (and they will). It's a good idea to feed her puppy chow right now anyway, because it will provide her with the extra nutrients she needs to help her stay healthy while she is nursing the pups. When the puppies get a little older, they will start sniffing and tasting what mom eats. When they start doing that, give her a little more food so that they can share with her. By they time they are old enough to wean (somewhere between 6 and 8 weeks), they will be eating puppy chow on their own and the switch from mother's milk to just puppy chow won't be such a drastic one.

Answer 2

Stay away from anything in a grocery store. The best food I've found is Innova Evo. Canidae is also a good and fairly inexpensive food. Keep in mind that with a better quality food you don't have to feed as much so the same sized bag will last longer. If you are on an extremely tight budget and want to settle for a lower grade food then Maxximum Nutrition from Walmart is the best commercial grade food out there. You want to make sure the first ingredient is a meat product. Steer clear of Iams, Science diet, Pedigree, Beniful, puppy chow, Eukanuba (Same formula as Iams and sold by the same company), and The Good Life. These are all mainly cornmeal or wheat gluten based and are not nutritionally valuable for your puppy.

Answer 3

I wean mine at 3/4 weeks. Start by soaking a good quality puppy food in warm water until it is a mushy consistency and let them lap some from a saucer. Once they have got the hang of it you can then start to increase the amount daily.
Weigh the pups once a week and keep increasing the amount of food according to their weight. The instructions are on the packet. They will need 5 meals per day now and the mother will also need plenty of food to build her up after feeding all her puppies.

Let the Dam go to them when ever she wants to. She will only want to visit them if she has milk. When she feels it is time for them to fend for themselves she will growl at them to back off.

Don't give the puppies cows milk as this can cause diarrhoea.
Just make sure they have plenty of water available once they are eating normally.

They should be wormed now and then every two weeks until they go to their new owners. Worm the mother one week after you worm the puppies each time as she may have ingested the worms when she cleans up after them.

Once the pups are eating their own food the mother will stop cleaning up after them and then it's down to you to keep their bedding quarters clean. It's quite a good idea to line half of their pen or box with newspaper as they will use that rather than soil their own bed.

Hope all goes well with your puppies. Good luck.

Answer 4

puppies should be started weaning at 4 weeks.
take mom away at night and in the morning give teh pups a soup like mush of moistened puppy chow and goats milk or puppy replacement.
leave teh food down for about 15 minutes. You will need to put the pups noses in the food and if they don't take to it put a little on your finger and put in teh mouth.
After 15 minutes let mom finish by nursing.
about 3 times a day reomove mom and try the food. It's ok if mom eats the left overs.
at 5 weeks make it a little thicker and romove mom for longer periods. at 6 weeks make slightly thicker and add a small amount of teh solid dry to the mix.also leave a small bowl of dry for the pups to nibble at. at 7 weeks they sould be on solid food.
at 6 weeks start leaving water down for them to drink.
Pups should be with mom until 8 weeks but can get teh first vacinations at 6- 8 weeks.

Answer 5

I start mine at 4-5 wks. I put kibble in a blender, mix in some baby rice cereal and some water, blend to a mush. Start them out with around 2 tbsp. per pup, and increase amount each or every other day. After a few days of increasing the amount you can slowly start backing off the cereal and how much you blend it, by then they should have their teeth for chewing. I had one pup recently that didnt have the front teeth till he was 7 wks. But they chew with the back ones. And mom will probably start pushing them away around the 6th wk.

Answer 6

6 to 8 weeks they can eat full puppy kibble around 4-5 you can SLOWLY feed them slightly wet (little bit of water will work) puppy kibble

Answer 7

once your puppies are 4 weeks old, you can start feeding them cream of wheat mixed with puppy milk.
when they are accustomed to that for a week and ahalf maybe, you can mix puppy milk with solid kibble.
then when they are ready, you can feed them solid kibble.

have fun!!

Answer 8

about 2 monthes before if mom isnt around any more go to pets mart for subcitute mothers milk till 2 monthes and slowly start introing to soft dog foods

Answer 9

ur not supposed to take puppies away from their mom until their 8 weeks