Kitten Food

I've had some people asking what they should feed their kittens and how often and so on... so here's a blog post devoted to that!

The kittens will come home with samples of both the dry food they have been eating here, and the canned food as well, and I'd advise you to keep them on this food for the first few days until they have settled down a bit- it's familiar, it's comforting, it's not going to put any strain on their systems in those first few days.

They will be used to having kibble freely available, water freely available, and three wet food meals a day. When your kitten comes home they will be ok on two wet meals a day, morning and evening, as long as the kibble bowl is topped up. Fresh water must be available at all times.

After that... it's up to you, and your kitten. They have individual preferences, for example AnnElise really isn't bothered about the wet food at all. Monty isn't terribly fussed either. Kensey and Wendell, on the other hand, absolutely love it and will scoff until the plate is clear. My own adult cats are mostly dry food fed, but because they like the canned stuff they have a meal of this in the evening. You'll soon find what works for you and your kitten.

Wet food, once out, has a limited freshness, so I'd remove what is left uneaten on the plate after about half an hour, and chuck it away. You can keep stuff that's still in the sachet/ can for about 24 hours in the fridge, covered over. As for how much to put out, it depends very much on the kitten... at the moment I'm putting down about 200g for the six of them, (two sachets, or half a can) of which four are eating a good meal, one is ignoring it and one has a few bites then wanders off. They eat about 2/3 to3/4 of this (??) and then mama polishes off the rest. Obviously in three weeks they will be having more. So perhaps try 50g/ half a sachet per kitten to start with, and build up from there if they look like they want more.

You can use any kitten brand you like, as long as it says it's a 'complete' food. Be careful here... you can buy what looks like a really nice food only to find it's a 'complementary' food... thing is people don't realise this and feed it to their cats all the time, leading to all sorts of (serious) issues for the poor cat who isn't getting all the vitamins and minerals it needs to be healthy. This is doubly important for a kitten who has to grow as well.

When switching your kitten over from the sample food I'll give you to the food you have chosen, do it slowly. With the kibble, start with 25% new stuff mixed with 75% of ther old. Then the next day half and half and so on. It's a little more difficult to do this with the canned stuff, and you have to change that all at once of course, so do this first, then switch the kibble after that. If you switch everything all at once, you might find your kitten has runny poop for a day or two!

I would advise you to buy a kitten specific formulation as well, as it has a higher percentage of fat and protein, but if you have older cats do keep an eye on their weight! Kitten food is highly palatable and your older puss might be sneaking  regular treats from the kitten's bowl! My Ava had terrible trouble reaching an acceptable weight (she was less than 6lbs as a fully grown cat) and stayed on kitten kibble far longer than strictly speaking necessary in order to get her weight up. It worked... she's now 71/2 lbs and still a slim cat but not all skin and bones! Unfortunately her sister's weight went up too, this is why Sofia is a tubby cat! I couldn't feed them seperately as Ava wouldn't eat without her sister!

Also if you have an older cat, don't expect him to share his food bowl with the kitten or even feed in the same spot as the kitten... cats can get very territorial about their food. Feed them a little distance from each other, or ideally, in a seperate room at first, and don't strain their budding relationship any!

I hope that's helped, but if anyone has more questions about food, please do ask!