My job as a breeder keeper is to take care of the litter. We are partnered with a breeder that updates all health certifications, chooses studs, and handles the insemination. From what I’ve read and experienced smaller breeds tend to have smaller litters, but you should consult your veterinarian to get more information. When I worked in rescue I had a Chihuahua mix litter that had only 1 puppy. I also had a German Shepherd mix litter with 7 puppies. I’ve also raised 3 Golden Retriever litters with 6, 8, and 10 puppies.

Yes I have 7 puppies. And they are 17 days old. Please tell me what the wait of the puppies. How many times I feed them. Thank you.

I’m planning on getting more information out on our Golden litter including a growth chart. I should have more together over the next week. We’re in the U.S. and our scale is by pounds and ounces, but off first glance your puppy range looks heavier then our pups. How big are mom and dad?

*We had fluctuation in our litter, but most of the way the heaviest was usually the heaviest and the lightest was usually the lightest. Our main concern was making sure each puppy gained weight each day.

*We didn’t do anything about adjusting where they were feeding. Since we only had 6 in our litter there seemed to be an ample amount of milk.

*We let Raven and the puppies determine when it was time to eat. Raven was a great mom and anytime she heard the puppies start crying for food she’d come running over to feed them.

*We started serving up mush (kibble soaked in warm water for about 10 minutes and then mashed up with a spoon) on Day 27.

*We fed the puppies mush all 8 weeks and recommended soaked kibble for the first week or so home with new families.

Thanks for all of your information. As I said I’ll have some more detailed information in upcoming blog posts. Let me know if you have any questions or answers 🙂

Week No. / Heaviest / Lightest
Week 1: 0.86 kgs. 0.68 kgs.
Week 2: 1.20 kgs. 1.02 kgs.
Week 3: 1.51 kgs. 1.35 kgs.
Week 4: 1.94 kgs. 1.75 kgs.
Week 5: 2.65 kgs. 2.29 kgs.

*Consistently, the heaviest puppy (puppy #7) is a Male and the lightest is a Female (puppy #4)

*Their weight ranking changes every week except for puppy #7 and puppy #4

*We let the lighter pups nurse on the lower breasts were there’s a lot of milk and sometimes interchange them so as to have equal sharing of milk

*Their nursing time schedule was every 2 hours when they were born up until Week 3 and gradually changed into every 3 hours, because they spend more time sleeping and playing around. And their mom sometimes won’t let them nurse because their teeth are out and hurt her.

*We introduced feeding them mush by Week 3 and it was a disaster and funny.

*We are now giving them soaked kibbles in milk and will soon feed them dry dog food

Compared with the 1st litter, these puppies are way much bigger and heavier. Maybe it’s because of the genes. The 1st litter had a different father. He was small, probably a runt of the litter. He sired 12 puppies but 4 of them did not survive: 2 puppies died because the mom accidentally crushed them when she laid down to sleep, one was a stillborn which came out the following day, and one was the runt of the litter and lasted for 2 weeks only.

I hope this info helps and that we are raising them right. We are giving them a good dog food and puppy milk replacement.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ve been working to get more pics of the litter up on the blog. Stay tuned!

The largest puppy in our litter was almost twice the size of your Lab/Golden mix at 8 weeks old! Did your puppy come from a large litter? Raven, the mom is only about 65 pounds so I imagine our pups won’t be too big. We kept three of the puppies to raise as service dogs so we’ll get to see how big they actually get.