Can I feed my 6 month kitten 'BabyCat' food?

I have a small free packet of Royal Canin Babycat food for gestating mothers and kittens 1-4 months old that I got from my breeder. I don't want it to go to waste, but my kitten is 6 months and has been eating the Royal Canin kitten food. Would it harm him to feed him some babycat kibble so I can use up the small packet? 

On another note, our breeder feeds all her cats Royal Canin (a lot of breeders are affiliated with Royal Canin it seems) and while I'm not a big fan of the ingredient list, her cats are clearly healthy and win tons of awards at shows on it. I don't want to go all the way and feed him raw, but I am open to other brands of food that has less ingredients or less carbs. Do you have any suggestions or is Royal Canin ok?

Thanks!

WafflesNomNom said:

 
I have a small free packet of Royal Canin Babycat food for gestating mothers and kittens 1-4 months old that I got from my breeder. I don't want it to go to waste, but my kitten is 6 months and has been eating the Royal Canin kitten food. Would it harm him to feed him some babycat kibble so I can use up the small packet? 

On another note, our breeder feeds all her cats Royal Canin (a lot of breeders are affiliated with Royal Canin it seems) and while I'm not a big fan of the ingredient list, her cats are clearly healthy and win tons of awards at shows on it. I don't want to go all the way and feed him raw, but I am open to other brands of food that has less ingredients or less carbs. Do you have any suggestions or is Royal Canin ok?

Thanks!

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Sure. Go ahead and feed it. It's kitten food and she's still a kitten

Momma cats are often fed kitten food because it contains more calories than standard adult foods and pregnant/nursing momma cats need those extra calories.

Royal Canin is a popular brand but I personally am not a fan nor are my cats. I'm not a big fan of the ingredients list and my cats simply wouldn't eat it (the canned. I've never given them the dry)

Where are you located? Are you in the US? If you're looking for alternatives to RC, I can suggest some that are available in the US. You don't mention what your budget is but here's a few options:

Orijen Cat & Kitten. High end. Very good quality. Expensive. Hard to find in stores.

http://www.chewy.com/cat/orijen-cat-kitten-dry-cat-food-15-lb/dp/45857

EVO Cat & kitten -Also high end quality and hard to find in stores. Expensive but not as expensive as Orijen

http://www.chewy.com/cat/evo-turkey-chicken-cat-kitten/dp/32562

Acana Cat & kitten. - similar to EVO price wise. Also good quality and hard to find in store

http://www.chewy.com/cat/acana-wild-prairie-regional-formula/dp/56960

Moving downward price wise:

Earthborn Holistic- still a good quality food but not as pricey

http://www.chewy.com/cat/earthborn-holistic-primitive-feline/dp/36427

These are all good options to see what is out there. Obviously, cat food runs from high end all the way down the ladder. Personally, if I were looking for a kitten specific dry food, I think I'd choose this one:

Merrick Purrfect Bistro grain free healthy kitten

http://www.chewy.com/cat/merrick-purrfect-bistro-grain-free/dp/115588

It's grain free, affordable, kittens seem to like it and it's pretty easy to find.

For canned food, I'd go with Nutro Natural Choice for one. It's easy to find, also reasonably priced and many cats like it. My cats are picky and really like the NNC line. http://www.chewy.com/cat/nutro-natural-choice-kitten-soft/dp/114504

Then there's the old stand by- Fancy Feast kitten food in turkey. This is my go to when my grown cats are being fussy. This is a BIG winner with a lot of cats, it's also reasonably priced and readily available http://www.chewy.com/cat/fancy-feast-kitten-tender-turkey/dp/103976

Fancy Feast is not a high end brand BUT the pates are perfectly fine and the kitten foods (there is a whitefish one also) are pates.

There are other canned kitten foods out there. Here's a link to Chewy.com's kitten food page that you can browse. http://www.chewy.com/s?dept=all&query=kitten+food&nav-submit-button=Submit+Query

The foods above that are hard to find in stores refers to the big box stores. The Petcos and Petsmarts. They are available in a lot of independent pet stores. You can also contact the manufacturers to see if they offer samples that they can send you. Many do. You just have to ask.

Hey! Thanks for the amazing detailed reply! I'm in Canada, and I've heard of Orijen. They have a lot of Nutrience in the Petsmarts here. If RC is so bad or not that great despite how expensive it is, why do so many breeders and people recommend it?

WafflesNomNom said:

 
Hey! Thanks for the amazing detailed reply! I'm in Canada, and I've heard of Orijen. They have a lot of Nutrience in the Petsmarts here. If RC is so bad or not that great despite how expensive it is, why do so many breeders and people recommend it?

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You're quite welcome.  

I wouldn't say that RC is bad but I don't know why it commands the price tag that it does. Lots of cats eat it and do just fine. It's not one that I'd ever buy again. There are better foods out there in the same price range. Plus, all 3 of my cats flat out refused to eat it. 

My vet keeps it in her office lobby. Why? Because she's probably being paid to. I think a lot of vets do this. Some breeders may have a deal with them as well. I don't know. 

Waffles is adorable and I love that name. Who doesn't love Waffles?  

Since you do have Petsmart in Canada but you don't have Petco (unless you're near the US border and felt like making the trip), here's one that I do buy when I  give them dry if I have to go out of town for a day or so. It's Nature's Variety Limited Ingredient Diet turkey. Petsmart does sell it. My cats eat a lot of Nature's Variety foods including the canned version of this LID turkey. It is NOT a kitten exclusive formula but it is suitable for all life stages. It is a good food and my picky eaters like it. I sometimes will use it as treats instead of Temptations or something like that. Petsmart (unfortunately) does not sell Merrick. 

http://www.petsmart.ca/cat/food/nat..._id=36-22978&_t=pfm=category&pfmvalue=faceted

I used to feed my cats EVO dry food and stopped using it because the quality decreased drastically when it was sold to a different manufacturer.  The food would just crumble into dry dust almost immediately after I put it in the bowl. The small natural local pet food store I was getting my food at actually quit carrying all the EVO products because there were too many complaints and returns from their customers about the quality.   Some of my friends also had the same issue.  I am currently feeding Wellness Core Original which is an all stages grain free dry food.  My youngest cat Casey is now a little over a year old and he was fed this when I adopted him at 7 weeks old.

I smelled the fancy feast chicken pate, and oh. my. god. The smell. It was REVOLTING. It smelled like old urine. It was so bad I couldn't stomach the idea of feeding it to him. The Royal Canin cans smell like human pate you get at the grocery store, this pate smelled like 6 degrees of Satan. Do the other flavors smell this bad????

WafflesNomNom said:

 
I smelled the fancy feast chicken pate, and oh. my. god. The smell. It was REVOLTING. It smelled like old urine. It was so bad I couldn't stomach the idea of feeding it to him. The Royal Canin cans smell like human pate you get at the grocery store, this pate smelled like 6 degrees of Satan. Do the other flavors smell this bad????

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The chicken pate has some fish in it so maybe that's what you smelled. No, they don't. At least not that I've noticed. The turkey & giblets FF pate is a favorite at our house. They devoured some of the turkey kitten formula cans today for dinner. Have you tried that one out yet?

So I went to another pet store and they carried Orijen and some other less known brands. Holy, Orijen is expensive!!! And I thought Royal Canin was bad. The ingredients look awesome and def. better than RC and other brands I've seen at Petsmart, but how do you guys afford it? I think it's almost double the price of RC, $60+/bag. Waffles goes through a big bag a month plus $30-50 for litter because I change it completely every week. What are your budgets like for food and litter?