AM I doing it all right?

Hello

Although i live with my parents i have taking on the full responsibility of my first kitten (my mum and dad have my kittens brother who is 2 weeks older)

I will be paying full vet fees for spaying , jabs , worming , flea control.

Just wondering if the diet my little girl is on is ok

She is 7 weeks old and 1 day.

She eats half a pouch of wet whiskers kitten food in the morning
Free fed whiskers dried food with real chicken bits throughout
And in the evening if she is very hungry she has half a pouch of wet whiskers kitten food with a small amount of dried whiskers kitten food with real chicken bits mixed it to bulk it out.

She has no more then a few bites of dried food through out the day and will try to eat off peoples plates hehe.

She is fully littered trained and has toys around the house , including a large scratching post and bored little rattle ball and rugby ball toys , a spinning ball feather toy and of course favorites toys like pieces of screwed up paper lol.

Am i doing everything ok so far?
Jess x

I'm sure one of the food gurus will be along soon, but it sounds to me like your girl has the most important point all covered - a loving, concerned home. What a lucky girl she is!

That's not enough food. Does she have dry food out all day and just doesn't eat it, or is she only given a little tiny bit of dry food? She should have access to water & kitten dry food at all times.

If she is only eating wet food and you can't get her to eat her dry food, she needs to be eating a LOT more than 1 pouch a day. Try to feed her as much wet food as she will eat everyday. If she is hardly eating any dry food, she should be given 7.5 pouches per DAY (per Whiskas feeding instructions for 2.5 pouches per feeding, 3 times per day).

If you can get her to eat more dry food, you can get away with feeding less wet food. If she is acting hungry, feed her. At this age, she needs all the food she wants. Don't overdo it on the human food, and make sure you are not feeding anything with garlic/onion/etc.

Also, I would feed something of higher quality than Whiskas. If that's the only wet food you can afford, it's certainly better than no wet food at all. You can't skimp as much on dry food quality though. I would check out brands like Authority (available only at PetSmart), Diamond Naturals, Nutro Max, and Nutro Natural for relatively inexpensive dry foods with good ingredients. (I'm assuming you're in the US, I don't know where Portmouth is).

Congratulations on your new baby

I think the OP said the kitten is being free fed dry food as well as the wet food twice a day

Can you get to a pet store??

Wiskers ?? / do you mean WIskas ?? did you get this at the grocery store??

Your kitten is quite young and should have stayed with mom cat for another week to 4 weeks ...

Ok this is all the information i know to give you guys

I live in england Whiskers is a well known brand here. The pouches fills a whole small cat food bowl.

She has dried food out ALL day long along with fresh water ALL day long.

She is fed wet food on demand.
In the morning she will eat maybe a quarter of a pouch of kitten food. But has more in the bowl to go back to. At lunch time she has another quarter of pouch mixed with some dried mix .. she eats as much as she wants. And in the evening maybe at 8ish she wants wet food again.
She does eat her dried food when she fancies it.
She seems healthy to me , darting about playing , sleeping fine , toileting fine in the liter tray.

I have never heard of any of the brands listen above.
Jess x

James wellbeloved seems to be popular

Ok jinxy had not showed signed of wanting wet food so i done her some any way , just half a pouch she ate maybe 4 big mouthfuls and walked off but it gets left out for her for maybe a hour and she just asks if she wants more.

I personally think she is eating enough , but i may look at better brands around.
Jess x

7.5 pouches per day? that would feed an awfully big cat lol

Hehe i thought that but didnt mention it lol.
Jess x

It sounds like she is a happy healthy kitty to me.

Most important she is a loved kitty

Hi! I'm in the UK.

Whiskas is a popular brand of cat food over here, but it's not the best quality. The wet food only has 4% meat. Imo, you're doing the right thing by feeding her some wet food (regardless of brand) and by feeding her several times througout the day. Feeding a mix of wet and dry (and leaving the dry out for free feeding) is a popular way of feeding cats. Imo, it's actually quite good if she isnt' eating much dry food. That means that she has some there for if she's hungry, but isn't eating too much dry (wet food is better for them than dry but a mix is ok).

As far as brands go, I think it's best to concentrate on feeding a good quality dry food. I think it's better to feed a good quality dry food with a poor quality wet food than the other way around. If money is an issue (and let's face it, for most of us it is!), I would concentrate on getting the best dry food you can afford. Most dry foods you can get in supermarkets are pretty poor quality but look out for ollie, hi life or purina one as they have more meat in them than the whiskas dry (hi life has much more and is a good dry food). If you can get to a pet shop, there are a lot more brands to choose from. James Wellbeloved, royal canin, Pets at Home home brand are all pretty good dry foods. PAH is good value and often on special offer. If you can shop online, Orijen is available from zooplus, but that is more expensive.

http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/dry_cat_food/orijen

As far as wet food goes, I wouldn't worry too much about that if you are feeding a good quality dry food, but if you want to look at other brands (or your kitten is eating predominantly wet food) nature's menu do a kitten variety. It's not cheap, but is sometimes on offer at pets at home and it contains 70% meat. Others to look are hi life (they do a kitten/junior version which is a complete food but once your kitten is a bit bigger, the essentials range is very economical - actually cheaper than boxes of whiskas and felix - and has a good meat content), tesco luxury and tesco finest, applaws, bozita and animonda. The last 2 of those are available from zooplus and work out very economical.

Hope that helps

Originally Posted by darlili

I think the OP said the kitten is being free fed dry food as well as the wet food twice a day

Click to expand...

Yes, but then later she said that she has no more than a few bites of dry food a day so it was unclear as to how much dry food the kitten was actually eating.

If feeding wet only (no dry) and pouches instead of cans, you have to feed a lot. There is more water in the pouches than most canned foods, so you end up having to feed more of it. 7 pouches would be like feeding 3.5 cans of kitten food a day, which isn't that unreasonable if the kitten isn't eating dry food. (I got the 7.5 number from the Whiskas feeding instructions anyway).

I already said this but as long as the kitten has access to dry food all day and water, then just feed her as much wet food as you can afford. 1 pouch a day would be fine. That's what I fed Chloe when she was kitten (dry left out for her all the time and then 1 pouch a day).

I lived in the UK for a while a few years ago. Whiskas is just as well-known in the US as it is in the UK, but it's still not a great food to feed (at least for a dry food, the wet would be better than no wet at all). I didn't have a cat while in the UK so I don't know what you have over there for cats but other people have given suggestions that I would look at.

Well she will eat the dry food as long as its mixed in to her wet food.

This morning she had half a pouch mixed with 2 small handfuls of dried food and actually at the most of it.

I think i will get a bag of purina for her dried food , and maybe just get a tiny bit more expensive wet food but better % of meat.

Like i said before

She has dried food on offer ALL day same as fresh water on offer ALL day!

So i am quite happy letting her finish of her box of whiskers pouches.

She eats 1 and a half pouches MAX day and half the time her brother eats some to. Her brothers eats at least 1 and a quarter pouches a day but he is bigger.
Jess x

If you do decide to try different foods, change over very gradually, especially with the dry foods. There are usually directions on the bag on how to transition (like 20% new, 80% old, then increasing the percentage of new food into the mix gradually). Kitties can have such delicate tummies (yeah, hard to believe when they're after your pizza!), but food change overs can trigger upset tummies and other digestive woes.

Your little girl sounds so lucky to have such a good mom - and tell your parents they really raised good kids!

Aw Darlili your so sweet!

I went looking today and have decided on Purina as a dried food and am looking at different forms of wet food now to

Jess x

Of course, the big thing is to find a food she will eat. For some cats, that's no problem. For others, it can be tough. Our Sterling will eat anything we put down; Punkin would starve to death before he ate almost anything.

I looked at the Whiskas pouches today, and they had a formula for figuring out how much to eat for both adults and kittens.