Wet food for kittens

Hi, all!
I've been trying to feed Moscato more wet food, at least two or three times a day if I can (she's about 3 months) and she snacks on some dry food in between if she feels like it. Right now I have her eating Wellness's kitten formula wet food but I don't want her to get tired of eating the same flavor over and over. I got her another flavor of Wellness wet that says its suited for both cats and kittens. My main question is, do I need to be careful switching around wet foods like I do whenever I switch dry foods? For example, gradually introducing the new food over the course of however many days. Or is wet food different and I can just switch flavors/brands/etc without trouble?

Also, suggestions for good wet foods would be appreciated! :-) I decided to stop feeding her Merrick's canned because it seemed to be contributing to her diarrhea, and so far since she's been off it her stools have been looking a lot better.

Wet foods are easier to switch up than dry foods. You're fine to add some new ones in. And cat food is fine for kittens, kitten food is just usually higher calorie.

What kind of Merrick were you feeding? It's likely just one specific ingredient in the food that is causing the trouble. I'd maybe try the Merrick Limited Ingredient food (less guess work with proteins and veggies,) and see what specific flavors your kitten can tolerate. For canned foods, look for grain free, and high quality if you can afford it. I try to minimize veggies as much as possible.There's a great list here. I would recommend just buying a couple cans of each, instead of buying an entire case. Some cats have texture preferences. 

Just to add to what @Paiger8 said about the Merrick food: if the food you've been feeding has peas it it, I'd suspect that as the source of Moscato's problem. Pretty much any carby vegetable has the potential to cause digestive issues; one of our cats can't handle potatoes.

I agree, too, about switching out wet foods. I might be a little cautious initially when trying a new protein on a kitten and/or not try too many new foods all at once but even so it's definitely a lot easier to change wet foods than dry!

I was feeding her the Merrick's Purrfect Bistro chicken pate. I'll look into their limited ingredient diets and possibly pick some up next time! Thanks for the suggestion. :-)

Tonight we tried the Wellness Core seafood variety of wet food and Moscato didn't go as crazy for it as I thought she would. I hadn't given her fish yet so I thought she might love it, but she didn't seem to think it was anything special. I'll probably keep giving her the Wellness kitten formula wet until I find something else to try!

Double post, but looking at the ingredients in the Wellness kitten formula and comparing them to the Merrick's chicken pate, it looks like Merrick's has less vegetables than Wellness. I did notice that the Merrick's has "dried egg product" and Wellness does not. I haven't seen much about eggs in cats' diets. Any thoughts on that?

kgropp16 said:

Double post, but looking at the ingredients in the Wellness kitten formula and comparing them to the Merrick's chicken pate, it looks like Merrick's has less vegetables than Wellness. I did notice that the Merrick's has "dried egg product" and Wellness does not. I haven't seen much about eggs in cats' diets. Any thoughts on that?

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Egg is fine in a cat's diet. The raw I feed has ground up egg shell, and I give my cats an egg weekly as a treat. Wild cats raid bird's nest as well. 

I discovered a holistic pet supply store about 10 miles from me so this morning I went to check it out. I picked up a couple cans of Tiki Cat and a couple cans of Weruva just to see how my Moscato would like them. She's only had the regular pate-type canned so far, but wow! She really loved Tiki Cat's Puka Puka Luau, which is shredded chicken breast in chicken consomme. 

What a sweet kitten!

And Tiki is great food, the canned food I feel best about feeding. Our cats love the Puka Puka and the similar one (pinkish/purplish can) with chicken and egg, plus any of the non-fish foods from Tiki's Gourmet Carnivore line. I think the Gourmet Carnivore foods with liver are probably their favorites.

Weruva's good, too, though a lot of their foods have potato in some form or other, and we can't feed that. Our cats do like their Cats in the Kitchen foods a lot: we feed three of those that are meat only, plus their Quick 'n Quirky, which is a real favorite. They have a strong preference for poultry shreds!

One thing about Weruva: a lot of their foods are lower-calorie so you might need to feed quite a bit of them to a kitten. Tiki's are generally fairly caloric, though, plus they really cram the cans full in the "luau" line, so if I compare Tiki and Weruva, I get a real "you get what you pay for" feeling with Tiki!

One other "one thing": both those brands are carrageenan-free, which is a plus given Moscato's digestive issues when eating the Merrick food, which I believe does have carrageenan. (Some cats have problems with carrageenan; I avoid it for our two because they have sensitive stomachs to begin with!)