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Puppies rely on their mother’s milk for nutrition during the first few weeks of life. The mother should be fed a high-quality diet that is high in calories, proteins, fat, and balanced calcium and phosphorus throughout pregnancy and while nursing. This type of diet supports both her own metabolic needs and healthy milk production. Her milk supply is necessary to provide nutrition for her puppies for the first few weeks of life before they transition to a solid commercial diet. By starting puppies on this liquid milk diet, they receive appropriate nutrition, packed with maternal antibodies, which give their teeth and gut time to grow and develop so they can digest solid kibble.

At What Age Should the Weaning Process Begin?

Puppies should be weighed and checked for body condition (a healthy body weight) daily to ensure their dietary requirements are met. After the first 24 hours of life, puppies should gain 5% to 10% of their body weight every day. It may be noticed that larger breeds, such as Great Danes and Labrador Retrievers, may gain a greater proportion of their body weight each day. A general rule of thumb is that if the puppies are gaining and maintaining weight appropriately, you can start the weaning process between three to four weeks of age until they are fully transitioned onto a kibble around seven to eight weeks of age.

Diet Timeline:

• The first three weeks: The puppies’ diet should consist only of their mother's milk. To account for the small capacities of their stomachs, the puppies should be nursing every two hours for the first week. They can be slowly transitioned to every three to four hours by the third week. During these early weeks, poor or slow weight gain can be a sign that there is a problem with the mother’s milk supply or infrequent feedings.
• Weeks 3 to 4: Puppies can be introduced to gruel; to make this mixture, kibble is soaked in warm water
• (100F) for 10 to 15 minutes. The goal is to let the kibble soften to a smooth, soupy consistency at body temperature. Gruel should be fed in a large, shallow, flat-bottomed dish to allow each of the puppies to feed at the same time. It is important to check the temperature of the mixture on your skin to make sure that it is warm but not hot enough to burn the puppies’ mouths. At this stage, solid food is slowly introduced and fed three to five times a day, but they should still have access to nursing. It is expected that feedings at this stage will be messy, which is normal. A damp cloth can be used to remove any excess food from the puppies.
• Weeks 4 to 5: Offer a thicker gruel, made with less water. Gradually changing the texture helps the puppies transition from liquid to solid food. At this stage, the mixture should be offered three to four times a day. They should begin relying more on the gruel mixture for nutrition, but should still have access to nursing.
• Weeks 5 to 6: Puppies can move to a moist but mostly solid diet 4 times a day. The goal is to decrease the amount of water in the mixture to prepare them for the transition to solid kibble. By week 6, they should no longer rely on the mother’s milk for most of their nutritional requirements.
• Weeks 7 to 8: The diet should consist of only solid kibble. This often lines up with rehoming, which makes the transition easier for both the puppy and new owner. The new owner should feed the same puppy kibble starting at three to four times a day. To be accommodating to the schedule of the owner, they can transition the puppies to a new feeding schedule of two times a day.

Weaning should be a slow, gradual process to prevent low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), diarrhea, and poor growth in the puppies. Start by separating the puppies from their mother for short periods of time, a couple of times a day. While separated, offer gruel to encourage them to eat more solid food and nurse less, starting around weeks three and four. By week six, work up to separating the puppies from the mother for at least four hours each day. At this point, they should be eating much more than they are nursing. This helps keep them on track to be fully weaned by weeks six to eight.

Special Considerations

Water Intake: Begin offering fresh water around five weeks of age. Don’t worry if at first the puppies play in water more than they drink it. At this point, most of their hydration still comes from the mother’s milk. To build interest in water, encourage play, which will lead to increased water intake within a few days.

Milk Supply Concerns: As weaning progresses, the mother’s milk supply will naturally decrease and dry up as the puppies gradually stop nursing. If she continues to produce a large milk supply, you can reduce her food intake by about half for a few days. If needed, your veterinarian can prescribe medication to help dry up her milk (anti-prolactin), but this usually resolves on its own. Mastitis (inflammation of the mammary glands) is a common complication of nursing that could be due to trauma or infection of the nipple and/or gland. In most cases, the affected area will become swollen, painful, and may be red or purple. In mild cases, the mother may only show minimal discomfort, but the puppies may not gain weight as quickly as expected. In these cases, oral antibiotics and pain medications can be prescribed by your veterinarian, paired with hand-milking the affected gland every six hours. Home remedies like cabbage leaf compresses have also proven to help decrease pain and inflammation. With appropriate care, puppies can begin nursing on that nipple after the infection has cleared.

Social Development: Remember that continued nursing care does not always indicate a health problem. Sometimes puppies nurse for comfort or social interaction rather than nutrition. As long as they are eating well, growing, and meeting their dietary needs, this behavior is usually not a concern. This time, when the mother and littermates send bonding signals, it helps strengthen their bonds and allows them to begin socializing. Ideally, puppies should be kept together for at least eight weeks, but rehomed within 10-12 weeks for normal behavioral development.

Orphaned puppies: If a puppy is orphaned, the caregiver must provide maternal care. Puppies will have to be bottle-fed for the first three weeks. Another normal maternal behavior that should be done shortly after feedings is to stimulate the puppy to use the bathroom by gently rubbing a warm, wet towel on the puppy’s genitalia.

Late tooth growth: One of the reasons that puppies slowly transition from a liquid milk to a solid diet is to allow the teeth time to develop for chewing around the age of five or six. If the baby teeth come in late, puppies should be kept on a soft diet to give the teeth more time to come in.