Purina Kitten Chow?

[jaycee]

i just brought home my new 8 month old cat and she has been living on dry purina kitten chow (i will be adding wet food to her diet). the first ingredient is meat but im not sure if its too grainy. on the front of the bad it says nurturing formula. high in nutrients and protein like mothers milk. any thoughts? thanks.


julie

 

[pami]

Hey Julie, I dont have a comment on the food (no experience), but was just wondering what have you decided to name her ......and where are the pictures ????

 

[arlyn]

Too grainy.
Don't know if Nutro makes a kitten dry, but if they do, it will be better quality and in that general price range

 

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Pami

Hey Julie, I dont have a comment on the food (no experience), but was just wondering what have you decided to name her ......and where are the pictures ????

we havnt decided on a name yet but i have a thread in the lounge if you have any ideas. as soon as i get a picture of her i will post it with a poll so everyone can vote on her new name (i get final of course)

right now shes growling and hissing at us so i dont wanna try to get a pic just yet!

 

[shengmei]

Originally Posted by Arlyn

Too grainy.
Don't know if Nutro makes a kitten dry, but if they do, it will be better quality and in that general price range

Yap. Nutro makes a decent kitten food.

 

[simpleblue]

[font=verdana, geneva, helvetica]Purina Kitten Chow [/font]

[font=verdana, geneva, helvetica]Ingredients Listing [/font]

[font=verdana, geneva, helvetica]Ingredients
Poultry by-product meal, rice flour, corn gluten meal, wheat flour, beef tallow preserved with mixed-tocopherols (source of vitamin E), soybean meal, ground yellow corn, fish meal, brewers dried ...
[/font]
"Poultry by-product meal"
Poultry by-product meal consists of the ground, rendered, clean parts of the carcasses of slaughtered poultry, such as necks, feet, undeveloped eggs, and intestines -- exclusive of feathers except in such amounts as might occur unavoidably in good processing practices.

This is a low-quality, inconsistent ingredient, with multiple organs used, constantly changing proportions, and questionable nutritional value. The origin can be any fowl (turkeys, ducks, geese, buzzards, etc.), instead of a single source, like chicken. Poultry by-product meal is much less expensive and less digestible than chicken meal, which Natura uses and which is considered the single-best source of protein.

"rice flour"
Rice flour consists principally of the soft, finely ground and bolted meal obtained from milling rice (containing essentially the starch and gluten of the endosperm) together with fine particles of rice bran and the offal from the 'tail of the mill.'

Whenever flour is part of an ingredient's name, the grain has been processed and some (or all) of the nutritional value has been lost. Frequently these flour ingredients are simply the leftover dust from processing human food ingredients.

Not to mention cats don't require carbohydrates.


A cat food with extremely low quality protein. A cat can survive on this, but vet visits may be frequent and costly in the future.

 

[jaycee]

does anyone have a list of the ingredients in nutro or know where to purchase it?

 

[jaycee]

i just found a list of nutro ingredients, it doesnt seem to have any more protein (if even as much) as the purina kitten chow:

Nutro Natural Complete Care

Kitten Dry Cat Food





Ingredients

Chicken Meal, Ground Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Poultry Fat (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Dried Beet Pulp, Natural Flavors, Dehydrated Alfalfa Meal, Oat Fiber, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed Tocopherols, a source of natural Vitamin E), Yeast Culture, Potassium Chloride, Menhaden Fish Oil, Choline Chloride, Dried Egg Product, Taurine, DL-Methionine, Vitamin E Supplement, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, Inositol, Dried Bacillus Licheniformis Fermentation Extract, Dried Bacillus Subtilis Fermentation Extract, Ascorbic Acid (source of Vitamin C), Chicory Extract, Cranberry Powder, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Biotin, Riboflavin Supplement (source of Vitamin B2), Calcium Iodate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Sodium Selenite, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (source of Vitamin B6), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate (source of Vitamin B1), Vitamin D3 Supplement, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (source of Vitamin K activity), Folic Acid. Guaranteed Analysis Crude Protein (minimum) 35.00% Crude Fat (minimum) 21.00% Crude Fiber (maximum) 3.00% Moisture (maximum) 10.00% Ash (maximum) 7.00% Linoleic Acid (minimum) 4.00% Zinc (minimum) 250 mg/kg Vitamin E (minimum) 250 IU/kg Taurine (minimum) 0.18% Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) (minimum)* 0.06% Ascorbic Acid (minimum)* 15 mg/kg

 

[fatkitties]

Even if they have the same crude protien listed, the cat will extract more protien from the chicken meal than they will from the by product meal. So the kitten will get more protien from the Nutro than from the Purina. You'll also use less food so even though it is more expensive to buy a bag of good food, it will last longer.

 

[vanillasugar]

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Nutro either. It's a higher quality food than Purina, but it's still not amazing. And keep in mind, it's not so much the percentages as the QUALITY of the ingredients included.

www.naturapet.com has a great ingredients comparison tool, where you can pick any two foods and compare ingredients side by side, and you can click each ingredient to tell what it is exactly.

Edit to fix link... I miss typed!

 

[jaycee]

i think ill just look at whats available at my local pet store and compare ingredients there.

 

[dizzymslizzy]

I just posted this in another thread, but my vet urged us away from kitten food for female kittens older then 4-6 months. So my kids have been getting adult food

 

[arlyn]

Did your vet give you any reason why?
I've never heard of this before, our vet urges kitten food till 10 months, or an all stages food.

 

[dizzymslizzy]

Yeah, my Vet told me that once the females are spayed they can gain weight very easily, so she'd rather see them on an adult food rather then a kitten food.

 

[arlyn]

I've honestly never found that to be true.
Mine were all altered well before 4 months and the only overweight cat I've ever had was male (ex-boyfriend overfed him).

I can see her point though, but I probably would still keep them on a kitten food as long as they still have kitten engery level.

 

[lunasmom]

jaycee, since coming to this site I've been well educated about different types of food.
I did feed Luna kitten chow up until she was about 6-8 mos old, then I mixed adult food together for a week (or until it was finished, can't remember).

I do agree with everyone that Purina is OK if you're on a tight budget, but if you can afford a little more, then do it. Basically its the difference of feeding your cats Fast Food everyday or a well balanced meal (or a filet mignon).

I've been trying to convince B to let me switch their diets for a year now. I even thought about taking an empty Purina bag and filling it with the good stuff.

 

[meow meow]

My kitten (almost 5 months) eats Nutro Kitten dry and canned. I think it is reasonably priced and his poop does not smell at all (maybe it's the great Fresh Step litter).

 

[jaycee]

Originally Posted by Dizzymslizzy

Yeah, my Vet told me that once the females are spayed they can gain weight very easily, so she'd rather see them on an adult food rather then a kitten food.

she isnt spayed yet.

 

[zak&rocky]

If she's 8 months get her spayed as soon as you can, because she can get pregant now.. If you were planning on letting her out don't until you do that. I hope I don't sound preachy.
Anyway how long you feed her kitten depends on what you and your vet decide. For now I would slowly switch her over to a higher quality kitten food. If you can't get to a pet store try purina one kitten. My kittens also ate nutro kitten as well as nutro max kitten.

 

[jaycee]

i dont plan on letting her outside but i do plan on getting her spayed as soon as possible. it might be a short while because i cant even touch her yet and i would like her to be at the point where she trusts me before doing that. i plan on checking out authority and some other foods at the local petsmart.