# Weaning puppies with goat milk?



## KnowOneSpecial

My lab-chow mix got together with a larger terrier mix and had 7 puppies. They're now 3 weeks old. I also had a Saanen goat give birth to two beautiful bucklings last week. 

I've been reading about weaning puppies using puppy milk replacer and making a mush out of puppy food. This stuff is EXPENSIVE here! I figure it'll cost me about $14 a day to wean them this way. One site said something about using goat milk and now I'm wondering if anyone's weaned puppies using goats milk instead of puppy replacer. I'm using Red Flannel Brand Puppy chow and Purina Puppy chow mixed together. 

Is this doable? I think I'll start weaning them next week when they're a good 4+ weeks old. I'm planning on adopting them out at 8-10 weeks old. Does this sound right?

Can you tell it's been 16 years since I've had puppies in the house?!:awh:


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## Oregon Julie

Do not wean your pups at 4 weeks of age. They need mom for a lot longer then that. I never physically remove a ***** from a litter until the pups are at least 6 weeks and often they stay with them longer. They will start telling the pups that they don't appreciate the nursing and start to limit the intake. This will make for a more natural situation for the pups and it will allow mom to start drying up a bit on her own, less of a chance for mastitis.

I actually have never used goats milk for pups, would rather drink it myself or feed it to bummers if I had any. I feed raw so I can't comment on the type of food, although in general I am not a big fan of Purina Puppy Chow.


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## Goatress

Raw goat milk is wonderful for dogs and pups (don't forget mom too she'll really do well on it) especially if you add some raw eggs. Esbilac puppy replacer is great, but it is fifty bucks a five pound bag - choke! - I totally feel your pain....I bought some and it about killed me to pay that much. My Big R feed store has cheaper bags of milk replacer, and I think on this second litter I'll use that (Manna Pro is the brand, much less cost).

I have two litters here right now and have used Esbilac PLUS canned goat milk (no fresheners right now) and a combo of either evaporated milk or powdered milk plus raw eggs. I make a mush with it using Purina puppy chow and Diamond large breed puppy chow. You might even try to start them now on it unless they look like they are doing okay. My one female had 11 - gasp - puppies, I actually had them on it just as eyes opened. It was just too many for her, I was bottle feeding and fingering mash into their mouths too very early. Did not hurt them any. But Oregon Julie is right don't REMOVE the pups from mom yet. I don't let any of mine go to new homes until at least 8 weeks of age and prefer they stay till 9 or 10 to really get on goats good plus mom is teaching them very valuable play fighting techniques and pack heirarchy stuff. 6 weeks is way way too young to go. 

Your pups will be ready now for a de-worming too, don't forget that. You can buy a bottle of pyrantel on Amazon fairly reasonable and it'll do your whole litter and then some - the recommended schedule is to do them about every 12 days that way you nuke all the stages of eggs/worms. What a mix you have there! What could you call them, Chowiers? Chlabs? Grin....good luck and best wishes.


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## wendle

I would try to keep the pups on their mom at least past 5 weeks, and to about 7 weeks if possible. I supplemented the pups with goat milk in a litter of 9 after the first week and until they went to their new homes at 7-10 weeks. The pups all did great with it.


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## mekasmom

I always wean my puppies on goats milk. I start them on goat milk mush as soon as they lick rather than suck your fingers. With big litters, you do tend to wean as soon as possible because Mom gets drug down so bad from feeding so many. I take off the biggest puppy as soon as it licks rather than sucks, and start weaning it. It's usually at leas 3.5-4wks of age when they do that. I leave the smaller puppies on Mom longer to give them a better start. I know some others do that opposite feeling they would rather sacrifice the tiny ones and feed out the bigger ones. But that's the way I do it. I just start taking off the biggest ones as soon as they are ready to eat, and leave the tiny ones on longer. And when you start weaning, you still put the bigger ones back with Mom for a few times a day, as you gradually teach them to eat on their own.


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## KnowOneSpecial

I wasn't going to pull them off of Momma completely. I was going to put the mush in there for those who wanted it and still let them nurse on Mom. I have at least 2 pups who have tried to eat the puppy chow now, so I'm thinking it's about time to start offering mush. The worst that will happen is that Mom will eat it. 

The earliest I'll adopt them out is 8 weeks. I would prefer to keep them 12, but we're going on vacation to celebrate my parent's 50th and we would leave at the end of week 12. Since they're mixes and it's going to be hard to find them all homes, I'm starting at 8 weeks old and hope they're all gone by 12. I really really really don't want to pay $25 PER DOG PER DAY to kennel them just to come home after a week and give them away. I could handle 2 or 3, but 7? I'd have to cancel the vacation-NOT happening. 

As for the eggs....she gets 2-3 a day as I have young 'helpers' who help me gather eggs. She gets all of the ones that have a crack on them. When she came to me her coat was dull and her personality matched. Since I started feeding her eggs her coat looks fantastic, she had a very easy pregnancy and birth and she's coming out of her shell. I think I'll stick with the eggs!


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## bluemoonluck

I wean my pups onto Goats Milk Esbilac - you can get it online for cheaper (even with shipping) than you can get it in the stores, IME. And the ingredients of GME are waaay better than regular Esbilac too. In a pinch I've used canned goats milk - we don't have any goats here to provide fresh milk - so my guess is that you could substitute fresh goat milk for GME.

I mix the GME as directed, then I add some plain organic yogurt to the mix for probiotics. Once the pups are doing well on that we soak a bit of puppy food in the GME/Yogurt mix and feed that, then gradually increase the amount of puppy food being included in the mix....then we start to remove the GME slowly - yogurt stays! - until the pups are 7 weeks old or so and eating just puppy food soaked in water with yogurt. That's the diet we send them to their new homes on.

ETA: my last litter was 7 pups, and in our breed 3 is the average litter size! For a 25 pound dam, 7 pups was sucking the life out of her (quite literally). I started supplimenting a few pups at each feeding once they were 10 days old - kept track of who was nursing and who was being bottle fed and rotated them so every other feed or so they were on a bottle instead of their mom. I used straight GME for this, and the pups didn't seem to have any trouble going from GME in a bottle to nursing on Mom. For big litters where you are concerned about little pups draining momma dry, this might work....I was able to keep the pups nursing on Mom much later than I would have been able to if I hadn't supplimented them.


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## Maura

If you leave food out for them at around five or six weeks, mom will naturally wean them. They will eventually feed from mom about half the time, then go to her for sucker. By eight weeks they will still appear to be nursing, but it's a family thing, a bonding thing. You'll want to use a high grade puppy food, not Purina.


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## wendle

I would supplement the mother too. Mom got raw meat and goats milk along with some high quality puppy food. She looked great , never got thin even when the pups were weaned.


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## KnowOneSpecial

Just for curiosity's sake I put a bowl of mush made out of Red Flannel Puppy Chow and half milk replacer and half goats milk. They couldn't eat it fast enough! Pudge, the biggest one, put his paw inthe bowl and licked it clean! ound: They're all here this morning and look to be in good health, so I think it's a GO! 

THANKS!


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