Kitten Vs Adult Nutrition

[SaraBeth88]

So my two babies are three months now. We have been feeding them kitten formulas for wet and dry only. It's starting to get expensive. When is it okay to start mixing in some regular adult food? Not for all the time, just to help keep the cost down...

 

[SaraBeth88]

I also might add that we have been feeding them the top brands only, so maybe there are a few further down the line that would be less expensive that are still formulated for kittens? They have been eating Wellness, instinct, and Pro Plan mostly.

 

[cheesycats]

I wouldn’t give any adult food for at least 7-9 months. All life stages you can try. But keep in mind kittens should eat as much food as they want. Which right now is going to be a lot. When they’re older you can start tapering the food back and doo scheduled feedings where you aren’t feeding as much. But unfortunately kittens eat a lot. That’s just the way it is.

As far as cheaper foods what is available to you? What is ur budget? Etc, start with those questions and look for foods that are all life stages or kitten specifically there are a wide array of options. But you will always need to keep dry food out for them. And the lower quality dry you get the more they’re going to eat and the more you’re going to pay. I would stick with natures variety and wellness core with the dry. For wet, fancy feast has a couple kitten formulas that aren’t awful. Whole earth games and merrick have kitten formulas that are pretty good too.

 

[SaraBeth88]

I wouldn’t give any adult food for at least 7-9 months. All life stages you can try. But keep in mind kittens should eat as much food as they want. Which right now is going to be a lot. When they’re older you can start tapering the food back and doo scheduled feedings where you aren’t feeding as much. But unfortunately kittens eat a lot. That’s just the way it is.

As far as cheaper foods what is available to you? What is ur budget? Etc, start with those questions and look for foods that are all life stages or kitten specifically there are a wide array of options. But you will always need to keep dry food out for them. And the lower quality dry you get the more they’re going to eat and the more you’re going to pay. I would stick with natures variety and wellness core with the dry. For wet, fancy feast has a couple kitten formulas that aren’t awful. Whole earth games and merrick have kitten formulas that are pretty good too.

Thank you! I wouldn't say I really have a budget as far as their health goes, it's more of an inquiry question since my husband is complaining (but what kitties want, kitties get and I'm the one who does the shopping and research for them)... as far as dry, they've had wellness core for kittens and instinct raw all life stages (they seem to like that flavor better than the wellness). Natures variety I will have to check out, I haven't seen that around. They've been mostly on Wellness, Pro Plan, and Instinct, with some Royal Canin thrown in here and there because they like the textures. Whole earth and merrick I'll have to look into as well, haven't seen them. Just bought some fancy feast kitten, but I always thought they were a lower brand like friskies, I could be wrong, but I'd never feed them friskies lol.

 

[SaraBeth88]

Thank you! I wouldn't say I really have a budget as far as their health goes, it's more of an inquiry question since my husband is complaining (but what kitties want, kitties get and I'm the one who does the shopping and research for them)... as far as dry, they've had wellness core for kittens and instinct raw all life stages (they seem to like that flavor better than the wellness). Natures variety I will have to check out, I haven't seen that around. They've been mostly on Wellness, Pro Plan, and Instinct, with some Royal Canin thrown in here and there because they like the textures. Whole earth and merrick I'll have to look into as well, haven't seen them. Just bought some fancy feast kitten, but I always thought they were a lower brand like friskies, I could be wrong, but I'd never feed them friskies lol.

and i just realized natures variety and instinct are the same haha

 

[SaraBeth88]

and also why are most of the kitten formulas chicken? i want them to try all the things lol.

 

[cheesycats]

I’m not sure. Most puppy foods are chicken too. Just a cheap easy to obtain protein I guess. Maybe look into an all life stage food that’s a different flavor. Not sure where you’re from or what’s available, but they should somewhat obtainable. I think natures variety does have a couple other all life stage flavors you could try like duck and salmon.
Fancy feast isn’t the best of the best but as long as you stay with the pate varieties they aren’t horrible either. The gravy ones are the ones that get questionable. But the pates are just as low carb as instinct canned foods are which means they’re mostly meat which is good.
Stick with pates as they are typically more bang for your buck and higher meat content so more filling to growing kittens so you’ll feed less.

 

[SaraBeth88]

I'm in Petaluma CA so I can pretty much find anything I think, I just want them to live their best life so I'm full of silly questions lol, the more I ask the more I can research
I guess my main concern was the fact that so many of the top brand kitten formulas are the same flavor and texture and I want them to have a variety, but I guess I'm being helicopter cat mom lol.
Any recommendations on cat gravy alone? I've seen a few like vita-something or bone broth... worth it? or waste of money for now at 12 weeks?

 

[cheesycats]

You can try bone broths. They are a good complement and can just be mixed into canned foods. Or look into applaws, they have complementary toppers and whatnot you can add to the pate to spice things up sometimes if you want. It is good to expose them to a multitude of things in my opinion.