Kitten and Food Question :)

Hi everyone,

My boyfriend and I have recently adopted two 12 week old kittens from the Cats Protection here in the UK. We've both owned cats before but have only ever owned kittens when we were younger so can't really remember back that far.

Anyway - I have a fairly simple question I think. We're both out at work all day from 8 until about 6, we feed them a sachet of food between them both at 6:45AM, then another sachet between them at 8AM. We leave them a complete dried food with a bowl of water out whislt we're at work and then feed them twice in the evening as well (when we're back and then a bit later too - or an extra if they're looking hungry).

My question is firstly, is this okay for them, a mix of both with access to only dried food during the day? They don't seem to be drinking much of the water at all, will this be because they are having wet food sachet's too, so they're getting enough water from them? The Cats protection didn't ever feed them dry food so they've only just got used to it.

The other part of the question is, we're feeding them a mix of felix, whiskas and iams wet food (the sachets - which are 100g each) and james wellbeloved dry food, and we're trying to keep it varied so that they don't turn out to be fussy adults, and they happily eat all varietys that we give them, but their stools are a little bit runnier than I think they should be. Would this be because of the variety, and should they really only be eating one brand of food at a time? They generally get 2 different brands of sachet per day.

Sorry that this is such a long post! Trying to give as much detail as possible. Hope someone can advise, and thanks in advance!

Kat

Well done you for adopting from the Cats Protection My kitten Jack is from them as well

With being at work i give jack a full tin of this wet food with kitten kibbles mixed in.

http://www.hilifepet.co.uk/

The tins are just small but just right for the size of him and with the kibbles added it bulks it up. Personally i would bin Felix and Whiskas because theres a lot of animal parts in it

I also leave a bowl of kibbles with water for him to snack on until i get home to give him his wet food again.

Yeah we're a bit unsure about which cat foods are actually decent and which aren't. What would you recommend? They love the Iams which has a higher meat %.

How old is Jack?

We give ours 2 pouches each effectively (so 200g) and they're fairly small kittens, do you think that's enough for them? (Bearing in mind that they do have the dry food available during the day)

I'm not that much clued up on the Iams wet food?. I would say a pouch each twice a day is ok, along with their kibbles like you say.

There'll be more members and advisors on to give you some advice though.

Marks and Spencers now do a great line of cat food and the chunks of fish is unbelieavable!. My 3 love it. It's more pricey, but i think it's work it

Jacks just over 4 months old now, and i got him from the Cats Protection when he was 10 weeks

Aww. Well thanks for the advice, I'll check out M&S's food.

The Iams wet food is quite a good quality one I think (from what I've read anyway!) It's about £5 for 12 pouches though, so a little pricey. It's a new product and hasn't been advertised much (as we only saw/realised it existed when we on a desperate cat food investigation mission).

You feed the same way I do - wet before work and before bed, and a little dry left down for snacking, it works fine for my 2.

JWB is a good dry food, but personally I would find something with higher meat content for the wet foods, even the premium whiskas range doesn't contain a great deal of meat. The large branches of Tescos and Pets at Home both stock Hi-Life and Nature's Menu kitten sachets, they are both good wet foods (Nature's Menu is 70% meat compared to Whiskas ordinary range 4%!) and not too pricey.

I did have a look at hi life as a possibility, but I couldn't find their kitten food? I will have another look in Tesco's tonight and investigate! It makes sense to get a higher meat % than whiskas/felix, I was a bit apprehensive about feeding it to them as I knew generally speaking they don't *really* resemble meat in the slightest.
The Iams pouches are 12% meat I seem to remember, which is a little better.. but I will have a look for the HiLife kitten pouches. I saw natures menu kitten food in our local main pet store (Jollyes) but wasn't sure if it would be too rich for them.

I'm a little concerned that their stools aren't quite solid yet, but as we've only had them for a week I aam bearing in mind that it will take them a while to settle. Would the variation of food on a meal basis (ie. whiskas in morning, iams at night) have an effect on their stomachs at all?

Thanks for your help.

As mentioned in another post, it turns out Oscar has a bit of colitis, which explains the runny stools. So, we're keeping them on felix for now until we've finished that up (still got about 12 packets left) and once that's done we'll switch them over to Natures Menu kitten food which we got 3 boxes of yesterday. It's 70% meat compared to the 4% of felix, so hopefully that will help their digestive systems a bit.

Oh poor little dear! Hope he feels better soon