Paula's babies are a week younger than Ginger's so it was a few days later (today) that they were ready to move to the playpen. Both litters are in one large playpen which has a dividing panel in the middle to keep the litters seperate.
For the first 2-3 weeks each litter stays with their mom in a seperate room, but once the moms start spending time away from the puppies and let the other dogs come into the room with them, I know it's okay to put them in the same room. The Mamma dogs have done this before and they're happy to have each other for company. Ginger's puppies started on puppy food Wednesday and took right to it, Paula's puppies will have puppy chow available now too. At ~5 wks old, the divider panel will come out and the litters will mix. At that point they will have color coded collars, their moms will have started tapering off on their nursing, they will be getting most of their nutrients from puppy food and the moms will share taking care of them. When both moms go into the pen the puppies nurse whoever holds still long enough.
