My family went down to the local animal shelter yesterday to look at the new kittens of the season. They had quite a few, surprisingly, and a little girl grey fluffball was so adorable that we submitted an interest card for her. I get to pick her up next Friday! She’s sooo tiny, just over 2 lbs. and still needs surgery. The spoiling will be lots and lots of fun for me. I just have to keep her safe from the animals already here, i.e. my 2 y/o & soon-to-be 5 y/o.
Anyway, I was wondering what kind of food folks are liking these days. I used kitten chow with Chloe, who passed on Friday. I don’t know if I want to go the prescription-type food, but would be willing to do some Petco/Petsmart brand. Or Purina, of course.
So what y’all think? What should my adorable baby “Cheeks” be eating? Pics will certainly come…
I fed all mine Iams kitten chow when they were young and was very happy with it. When they all got a little older, Bitey and Kitt developed some sensitivity issues (I was giving them Purina at the time) and switched to Science Diet for sensitive stomachs. It didn’t handle the issues at all, so I switched to the plain old Iams (orange bag). Overall I’ve been pretty happy with Iams, as it doesn’t seem to trigger the Orangies’ issues, and digests pretty well.
Oh and pictures please! You should know the rules around here about kitten threads!
I’d go with Hills Science Diet. Our cats all eat it (except for Maggie, who’ll only eat the Friskies canned junk), and we definitely saw an improvement-their coats are much healthier, they’re not as fat, and their litterboxes are just a tad less stinky.
We feed our girls a combination of Iams and Purina One. They started on Kitten and are now on Hairball and Weight Control (are they a year old already?) Make sure you mix in the occasional wet food if they get mostly dry. There is some evidence that an all-dry diet can promote diabetes.
I fed Iams kitten when they were babies and now feed Iams Multiple Cat formula (dry). It really does make a difference in the litter box! And all of mine have very sleek, shiny coats.
I work at a petstore and I can tell you hands down, the best two brands you can buy are Nutro or Royal Canin. They cost a little more, but you will have less smell, less litter box waste, feed them less food, and I swear you could make fur coats out of my kitties because they have the softest fur imaginable. Iams was good until it was bought out by another company, kitten chow is basically beaks and feet with chicken flavor sprayed on it (put a piece of the food in water and you will see hair and chunks of dirt floating out of the dissolving food. Some of the “meat” in the food is swept up off the floor.) And Science Diet has been know to cause bowel obstructions. (No cite for this, I took a class on pet nutrition.) If you have a Petco near you, bring in your adoption papers and they will give you a coupon book that will save you TONS of money - it even has a coupon for a free bag of premium food. Good luck with your little kitty!
Some cats cannot handle the ash in store bought food. It can crystalize and mess up thier urinary tract. I once had several hundred dollars in vet bills to confirm this. I don’t know about Iams etc., but we had to feed our sensitive kitty Science Diet to keep him out of the vets office. I know most cats live fine long lives on store bought stuff, just giving my reasons for using the pricer stuff.
Thanks all! I knew you folks could set me straight. What I didn’t know was that Kitten Chow was icky. I think I will try to observe this disolving phenom mentioned by mama. I’m gonna try the Petco advice, too; I LOVES me some coupons!
And, of course my friends, pictures will soon follow her arrival on Friday. I can’t wait!
Oh…another Q, and I know we’ve discussed it before, but…
Those little caps for the claws are really cute, and I could totally get into them. If I start early, will she tolerate them well? The shelter employee sneered at me when I mentioned them, but she was a snot anyway. Sneering as I was eschewing de-clawing but thinking out loud about the covers. This woman really shouldn’t work with people. She told me, and I quote, “I want to tell people to not bring their kids back until they’re 30”. Shame on her.
It obviously wasn’t one of the pet nutrition classes offered by Hills, let me guess it was sponsored by a competitor? A claim like that requires a cite. I work at a vet hospital and I have never heard this rumor. I call it a rumor because if it was a known issue Hills would have responded by now. They tend to be very quick on responses to claims about their food and frequently send out updates to vet hospitals.
When you pick her up from the shelter, ask them what they’ve been feeding her. Keep feeding her that for at least a few days, then gradually switch to whatever you want to feed her (mix it with the food she got at the shelter). I’ve heard that sudden diet changes can cause diarrhea or vomiting in cats. You’ll want to follow the same sort of procedure when she grows up (about 1 year old) and you switch her from a kitten food to an adult cat food.
I feed the Neville kitties Eukanuba dry food (Weight Control, because Luna is a fat cat). They love it, and have nice soft coats and seem otherwise healthy. I need to feed them something that I can get at Petco, because if I space out and think I’ve got another bag of food somewhere and I don’t, I need to be able to make a quick run for more food fairly late at night. That wouldn’t be the case if I had to get their food at the vet’s.
All felines and canines in my home are fed the appropriate Neutro Natural diet. I favor the chicken formula for the dogs, but the basic adult cat mix is perfect for our (used to be three kitties) remaining seven year old. He is sleek, glossy, not overweight even though I free feed him, and he has never needed a vet visit other than regular exams/immunizations. They also have a kitten formula.
I believe the smallest kitten you can use caps on is about 3lbs. If you want her to tolerate you putting them on, start playing with her paws (I assume you’re only doing the front) now and often. She’ll need to get used to you holding them and so forth so she won’t freak when you trim her nails and put the caps on.
We only used them on one cat, but they worked out rather well - she was already used to people playing with her feet since she had her claws removed from our legs frequently, or held so she’d stop kneeding-with-claws-out. You’ll have to replace the caps every one to three months (probably once a month or so as she grows) and for some reason we had better luck with the natural colored ones than blue. I think they’re made of different materials.
Oh my Og! There’s hair in Purina Cat Chow?! Cat’s never eat hair! :rolleyes:
Purina Cat Chow is the best ‘store brand’ cat food for the money. The vet clinic I used to work for recommended it based on years of observations that cats fed Cat Chow do well. We recommended ProPlan or Hills c/d for people who wanted a little bit better diet for their pet. I have fed my cat Iams dry first in Kitten, then in Adult, then in Weight Control and now in Weight Control with Hairball Care or some such silliness. The orange bag with the teal label. I feed about a pound a week so paying $8 a month to feed the cat is not a huge concern. I stayed with Iams because that is what she was eating when I adopted her and she likes it and it likes her. She had puked about 4 times in the 4.5 years I’ve had her, only once since I switched to hairball formula, she has small, well-formed kitty poo that isn’t overly stinky, so I’ve been happy with Iams. Her coat is always shiny, her eyes are always bright, and she always passes her physicals with flying colors. Her only issue is bad teeth becasue she was a stray and didn’t get good nutrition while her perminant teeth were forming, so the enamel is soft and rough. Even so, at 5 she has all but two of her teeth.
