Hi we have a litter of medium sized puppies that are now 27 days old. The breeder of the stud advised us to start weaning from 2.5 weeks which we have decided to do due to the mum struggling with producing milk. On day 18 we started by giving them a suck of rusk on our finger and then built it up to a baby's spoonful and then once eating off that 2 baby spoonfuls. Trouble is they would only eat off the spoon after having some milk. We have now managed to get them eating before the milk for a couple of days now. However is there any way you can encourage them to eat out of the bowl rather than hand / spoon feed as only 1 is interested in putting their head in the bowl! Also a coupl are a lot stronger and more interested in the mince and kibble so will probably get more than the others if not careful. Fnally, as they are now taking less milk is there also any way you can encourage to drink water from a bowl so to ensure they remain hydrated. So many questions I apologise!
Hope somemone can give me some answers or advice. Thanks in advance.

Bumping this up in the hope that someone will reply

Thanks Vanhalla!

We now have 2 eating from a plate, hopefully the other 2 will get the idea soon - they are not as strong/big as the 1st two though! Might try adding some goats milk to their water perhaps to encourage them to drink. That way we can really get their weaning going.

I always start with raw mince - they always seem to manage to eat better than lap milk.  I used to use puppy porridge first but find that is less appealing than raw meat and now just use the porridge to increase fluid intake rather than nutrition.