Thinking ahead- adult food?

[FreyaTheTabby]

My kitten is 3 months old right now. I've been keeping her on the same diet as the lady I got her from was feeding her. Fancy Feast kitten pate (wet) & Purina one healthy kitten formula (dry). I've also been giving her temptations kitten treats.

Anyway, I'm already thinking about what to feed her when she turns a year old. I'm thinking Fancy Feast pate in a variety of flavors, Rawz pate in a variety of flavors, & Tiki Cat After Dark chicken in chicken broth pate. Assuming that she likes all of these (she doesn't seem picky at all so far).

Should I transfer her over to an all wet diet as an adult? Should I feed her one can of wet a day along with dry? Should I feed her all wet during the day & just leave a tiny bit of dry out over night while I'm sleeping in case she gets hungry? I also plan on still giving her treats too.

I know it's 9 months away, but I want to mentally plan. I'm 28 yrs old & she's my first ever cat & first pet ever in general!

Also, if all wet - how much should I feed?

 

[FreyaTheTabby]

I plan on getting Fancy Feast & Rawz in 3 oz cans & Tiki Cat in 2.8 oz cans.

 

[arr]

Congratulations on your new kitten! One thing to be aware of is that cats keep growing past one year even though everything you see on the internet suggests they are done in one year. Mine definitely grew well into the second year. For now make sure your kitten has unlimited food day and night. They can’t eat too much at your kitten’s age, they expend an enormous amount of energy growing and playing.

Everyone has different opinions on best food to feed, but most agree the more wet the better. Once they stop growing, the general rule of thumb is 20-25 calories per pound of body weight.

Just to give you an idea of what other people do: I feed my cats three times a day, wet food for breakfast, dry food for lunch, and wet food for dinner. I do the dry food for lunch from a programmable auto feeder because it gives us freedom to be gone during the day. The cats can eat as much at each meal as they want until they walk away. No food is left out between meals or overnight. I originally counted calories but no longer do so because they seem to self regulate reasonably well.

I feed Purina One Indoor Advantage for the dry, and for the wet, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Special Kitty, Sheba, Heart to Tail, Tiny Tiger, and Purina One. I occasionally buy some other wet food to shake things up, like Paws and Claws or Merrick.

This is what currently works for us. There are many options for schedules and brands of food, you will find what works for you and your cat.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I am one who used to free feed dry food until my cats kept getting kidney disease . Now I feed wet food and even switched their water to filtered AND I go so far as to add water to their wet food because I figured something had to be causing the kidney problems. That's just me, but my "now" cats are past the age my other cats were when they were diagnosed, so I think there may be something to the changes I made. That's not to say that many cats who are fed only dry food can't live long and healthy lives.

One thing many people think is that dry food helps clean teeth. That is a falsehood.

As far as how much to feed, that all depends on the cat...activity level and weight. As mentioned above, typically you will want to feed an adult cat between 20 - 25 calories per pound of body weight per day. So a 10 pound cat would eat between 200 and 250 calories per day. If the cat is extremely active, they might need more food to maintain their ideal weight.

BTW, if you are not home during the day and want to feed only wet, you can feed one meal before you leave for the day, one meal when you get home, and one meal before you go to bed. Or they do make automatic feeders for wet food as well as dry. Or you can feed only two meals per day if you want. There is no right or wrong. I used to feed two meals per day, then went to three when one of mine started scarf and barfing, now I am feeding four per day as they are getting older (14 1/2 years old)

 

[Babypaws]

With my experience with my multi-cat family I would stay away from dry food…I wish I had strictly fed mine the wet foods, I have several that are addicted to dry, it’s making them gain weight! I USE to think it was good for their teeth too, but now I’m having a hard time getting them away from it. I mix the wet food in with the dry. I would also stick to the pate textures it seems like for whatever reason it’s easier to find and a little better ingredients…but that’s my opinion and I would also feed a variety of fairly decent “brands” of wet. During the pandemic was very hard to find some brands if your cat only would eat a certain one so at least if they’ll eat different brands if one is hard to fine or discontinued at least you can fall back on another brand. Hope the way I explained it wasn’t too confusing lol.
Good luck with your little kitty