What wet food do you feed your KITTENS?

I am researching a little bit on different kinds of kitten food as in 4-5 weeks time my kittens will hopefully start to be weaned.

The most common brands that are sold here in the uk are whiskas, sheba, felix, go cat and then the cheap brands which I will stray from.

I don't want to be paying an arm and a leg for this food but I don't want shop own brands make like the asda hero one. I need to make sure it is nutritious and that cats will eat it.

Advice?

Sheba is pretty good, it's like the USA's "Fancy Feast" classic only brand.  Considerably better ingredients than Whiskas, which has wheat gluten and corn starch.

It is not necessary to feed them food marked "for kittens"; all life stage is fine.

And, the way to go of course is wet food, not dry.

Thank you very much

I will look into sheba, I've heard from other kitty owners that sheba is good

Do they have Fancy Feast there? I like their turkey flavor Kitten food for small kittens. It's higher in fat and calories so they don't have to eat as much. But if not, Sheba sounds good . And remember, lots of variety so they don't grow up picky!

They have no fancy feast, sheba is a good one although it doesnt do kitten food.

I have just acquired two 3 month old x Bengals a couple of weeks ago. Their owner was feeding them Whiskas kitten food both wet and dry. However I also have an older cat (Tara) which I feed Sheba. The kittens, now having settled in a bit, have found their way down to the kitchen, and I've noticed they are eating the older cats Sheba, even when I put their usual food out. They also eat her Royal Canin (sensitive) dry food! If Sheba is alright for them to eat then it suits me fine as I have been trying to keep their food separate from Tara's which is nearly impossible.

Perhaps another cat food to try is 'Applaws' which is available at Pets at Home here in the UK. It is slightly more expensive but it is almost 100% meat or fish product. I believe they do a kitten range.

There are a few UK members here who can help. I'll ask them to check in here.

Can you get Applaws? http://applaws.co.uk/product-category/cat-food/ The only one that is a complete diet for cats are the cat pates and the dry foods. Everything else are supplement / treat only.

See this UK web site for other brands that are avialble: http://www.zooplus.co.uk/

What sort of budget are you looking at?
Feringa kitten wet food works out the same price per kg as sheba kitten (if you buy the saver pack, that is). Animonda Carny kitten is also good, and even cheaper. Both are from http://www.zooplus.co.uk.

Oddly enough, I'm struggling to find ingredients listing for the brands you mention, but if you read labels carefully and try to avoid grains, sugars and 'derivatives of vegetable origin' (if I don't know what it is, I'd rather not feed it :lol3: ) then you should be ok. Of those three, I personally think grains are the most important thing to avoid, but some judgement can be made on where ingredients fall on the list. If something less desirable is right at the bottom of the list, then it's far better than being further up.

An example is the tesco own brand kitten paté in trays. The ingredients are all ok, except for sugars appearing on the list. However, the sugars are just above the vitamins and minerals list so I'd feel that, on balance , it's a pretty decent food. Don't be put off by own brands - a well known name can mean the ingredients are no better (or sometimes worse), but that they've spent a ton of money on ad campaigns. The kittens don't care what the ads and packaging are like

Bear in mind that applaws is expensive for what it is, and none of the wet foods are specifically for kittens.

I feed Feringa adult as part of my rotation, and it's one of Asha's favourite wet foods (I feed a mix of wet and freeze dried raw). I've never fed Animonda Carny simply because the adult ones all contain beef, which Asha has trouble with. I know others here have fed it with good results - it generally goes down well from what I've heard.

The reason I prefer these brands over sheba etc is because they use named muscle meat as opposed to 'meat and mat by products' or 'meat and meat derivatives'. There's nothing wrong with the last two types - they are at least meat, and are great if your budget is really tight. It's just that I like to get the best quality food possible within a given price range, and am quite happy to order online in bulk to achieve that.

A couple of other great kitten foods are Lily's Kitchen and Nature's Menu. They are much pricier though, so are best kept for special treats if you want to include them.

Zooplus is a great resource for supplies generally. If you sign up to their newsletter you get 5% off your order. If you spend over £75 and use the code STOCK-UP you get an additional 3% off (might be 5% - can't remember offhand). Delivery is free over £29. They have a reward points scheme too. Also, if you join http://www.topcashback.co.uk and follow the steps, you get 4.04% cashback on each order. I know each saving is small, but they do mount up (well, they do for me, anyway - what with 2 big dogs, 2 house cats and a yard cat to take care of).

No, I don't work for them, I promise I just figure it helps to know all these tricks to get high quality cat food at a reasonable price.

Sorry this is so long. I hope it's of some use to you.