Weaning Puppies
A messy part of the puppy growth and development process is the weaning of the pups from momma dog. During this important transition from the mother’s milk to solid foods there are several tricks that breeders use to make things go smoothly. Commonly, the first introduction to solid foods will be a heated mash containing puppy food, milk and water. The only problem with the popular puppy mash is that it is extremely messy. No matter what you do – the puppies seem to want to jump right into the mash and get it everywhere. This is how they learn that dog food is good to eat. But, I’ve found a way to help keep things a little cleaner.
A cool idea I found on the internet is a simple wooden feeder stall built to isolate the puppies to their very own food dish (Notice the blocker boards in the back of each stall to help keep the dish from flipping up if pup gets his paws up on the front edge of the dish). This helps to keep things a little cleaner and gives all the pups an equal chance at the food trough. You will still have to watch them closely because there always seems to be a pig in the litter who inhales food and moves on to the next food dish when his is gone. Or on the flip side, the timid puppy that may need a little extra encouragement during the transition to solid foods. The puppy feeder stalls seems like a good idea to me.
