Kitten food

My little kitty Wilma is now 14 weeks old and since she`s my first cat I have LOADS of questions.
She`s eating quite well at the moment and I`m trying to feed her different foods to make her a bit less picky. She always has a bowl of dry food (Hills Science for kittens) and I feed her 4 times a day with some sort of moist food. I`ve tried the Whiskas and Felix kitten pouches but she`s not too keen on them.
I also feed her tuna and cod fillets and she loves it. But so far her absolute favorite food is the rabbit and chicken Sheba. Although it`s intended for adult cats I was wondering if it was ok to feed it to a kitten as well.
I gave her two servings of Sheba yesterday and 2 servings of tuna and cod. Is that ok?

Thanks
-Jen and Wilma

From my own experience, if the kitten is eating cat food then no human food should be given. The first year of a kitten's life sees tremendous growth and therefore the kitten should be given the top nutrients necessary for a healthy development.

I would stay away from any human food and only give the kitten a food designed specifically for that growth period. Also kitten food has a different nutritional makeup than adult cat food. Your kitten may be lacking key nutrients when you substitute fish or regular cat foods. In my opinion, I would stay away from any pouch foods. They are loaded with chemicals and preservatives to keep them moist.

You should do some research and learn about the ingredients in most canned/dry cat foods and what is necessary for your kitten's growth. Then you can make an informed decision when choosing a cat food.

In my case, I free feed my 6 month old kitten dry food. Then only as a treat say every other day, I will give her a bit of canned 'kitten' food. If your worried about the amount of water your kitten is drinking, you can add some water to the dry food to create a broth. My kitten loves that and she takes in more water this way.

I swear by Royal Canin products. They make an excellent BabyKat formula. You can click on their banner up at the top of this forum and go to their website and read about all their different blends.

If you buy cat food (dry) from the grocery store, you best rule is to stay away from the ones that are heavily colored with red dye. That color comes from sodium nitrate, which is the same thing they put in hot dogs and bacon and could be a carcinogen.

Thank you both for your answers. I will definitely start adding some water to the dry food I give her.

-Jen

Yup, I have to agree on the Royal Canin products. I wean my persian kitten litters on the BabyCat and they then go onto the Kitten34 at 4 months. I have also managed to sort out all sorts of problems with the persians I've rescued, by changing them to this product. For the tiny kittens, I grind the food into a course powder and add water to make a porridge. Ther adult cats love it that way as well sometimes and love to lap up what the kittens leave behind. Most of the formulations obtainable from the vet are good and it's really just a matter of which taste the cat enjoys.

The only time I give my cats anything other than a good formulated food is when I give them just a teaspoonful of a treat such as tuna, cottage cheese or even beef mince.

Best wishes with this kitten! Since she is your first cat, let me just say that "A kitten learns from its mother the GREAT SECRET....that cats rule the world...."