weaning pups - how do you make mom more comfortable during this time?

[hughest]

Just wondering what everyone does while weaning pups from the mom to help make the transition more comfortable for her. I know some folks actually withhold food and water for a day or two, but I just can't bring myself to do that. Seems to me that would just make her even more miserable.

[mwk56]

I don't withhold food or water, but I do cut her food WAY back for several days. She will dry up pretty quickly.

Meredith

[WRL]

I don't cut her food and water intake at all. Just start limiting access to pups. If she is in with them all the time, cut her back to say 4 times a day for an hour each. Then after a few days cut the hour to 30 minutes and so forth. When she nurses, the pups drain her in a matter of minutes so any "extra time" is for comfort for the pups or for her to clean up. Usually once pups are 4 weeks old or so, mom is happy to spend time away from them anyway.

WRL

[DEDEYE]

I don't cut her food and water intake at all. Just start limiting access to pups. If she is in with them all the time, cut her back to say 4 times a day for an hour each. Then after a few days cut the hour to 30 minutes and so forth. When she nurses, the pups drain her in a matter of minutes so any "extra time" is for comfort for the pups or for her to clean up. Usually once pups are 4 weeks old or so, mom is happy to spend time away from them anyway.

WRL

I agree.....

[hughest]

Lee that's the way I have always done it, too. I figure there is always more to learn so thought I would ask and see if any of you guys did anything different. We have a litter now, and started taking her away from them for a few hours at a time last week. We've extended the time out more each day, and yesterday she was only with them twice, so today was my target day for no more nursing at all. She is painfully thin already even though I've been feeding her 8-10 cups a day, so there was no way I was going to withhold food from her. Because of that I'm really hesitant to even cut her back. Thanks for the replies.

[mwk56]

When my girls have a large litter, they could be eating 8 + cups a day, so absolutely I cut her back to normal level after the pups are separated from her.

Meredith

[WRL]

Lee that's the way I have always done it, too. I figure there is always more to learn so thought I would ask and see if any of you guys did anything different. We have a litter now, and started taking her away from them for a few hours at a time last week. We've extended the time out more each day, and yesterday she was only with them twice, so today was my target day for no more nursing at all. She is painfully thin already even though I've been feeding her 8-10 cups a day, so there was no way I was going to withhold food from her. Because of that I'm really hesitant to even cut her back. Thanks for the replies.

I had a bitch that was nursing 11 pups. She was eating 14 cups of dogfood a day and still could not stay ahead of them. I left her on that amount as I weaned the pups. She got to where she was looking better and she stopped eating that much so I scaled her back then. She was an 80 lb working weight bitch and was down to 65 lbs. I didn't have an issue continuing to feed her as much as she wanted until she was almost back up to weight.

[windycanyon]

Try sprinkling sage (herb) on her food. It has really worked for my girls. The last one still tried to nurse her pups on the way out the door, but she didn't have hardly anything left to give.

[hughest]

Try sprinkling sage (herb) on her food. It has really worked for my girls. The last one still tried to nurse her pups on the way out the door, but she didn't have hardly anything left to give.

Does the sage help dry her up? Interesting. How much do you put on there?

[windycanyon]

Does the sage help dry her up? Interesting. How much do you put on there?

Yes! It really seems to work. I probably add at least a teaspoon to each meal. Amazingly enough, my girls never seemed to mind.