Easter Escapades: Our First Solid Food!

Well, the term "solid" isn't exactly accurate.  The pups' first "solid" food is actually more like a really thick milkshake or thin Cream-of-Wheat.  We mix dry puppy food (ProPlan for Puppies, Large Breed Formula), puppy milk-replacer formula (powder), and warm water together and blend it until it's the consistency we think the pups can handle (at this point, thick milkshake).

Some breeders use human baby food (rice) at this stage, but we feel that the fewer changes to the pups' diet we can make, the better (and the less likely their GI tracts will protest).  The puppy food we blend now with the the milk-replacer formula now is the same puppy food they'll receive from here on out.  We just add less formula and more puppy food as time goes on, until we're just moistening the dry puppy food with water.  And by the time the pups leave us, they will be completely weaned and eating dry kibble.

Yes, Elsie is still nursing them, and is still their primary source of food at this point, but her role feeding the pups will lessen over the next two weeks.  We'd like them to be completely weaned by the time they turn six weeks old.

So here they are. This is their first exposure to food other than Elsie's milk.  And they do quite well, I'd say. It takes Master Blue and Master Green a little bit to get the hang of it, but they do in time.





This next clip was taken a minute or two after the first clip. In this clip, you'll see (well, hear) that Master Blue wants more! And if you watch closely, you'll see that Master Green catches on (once he didn't have Miss Lime, Master Blue, and Master Yellow climbing though his spot at the saucer feeder he did just fine!).





Next up? Their world expands beyond the whelping box: the kitchen pen arrives!

Until then,
Joan