Which Of These Dry Foods Would You Use For A Kitten?

[xenathecrazy]

I just adopted a 9 week old kitten. She is currently on Purina One kitten but I'd like to switch her to something slightly better but still cheaper because her main meals are wet food. I was trying to decide between Iams kitten, Nutro Natural Choice kitten, Authority kitten, or 4Health All Life Stages. She's a medium hair cat and I'd like to make sure she gets enough Omegas in her diet to keep her coat soft. For wet food, she gets a variety of Nutro, Sheba or Fancy Feast.

 

[trickytree]

Nutro is an excellent brand. From your list, it appears to be the best.

 

[Kieka]

I stick with grain free and do limited ingredient foods with my guys. Cats are obligated carnivores and most commercial dry foods are filled with binders and additives to lower production cost but that have no real nutritional value for cats. Grains are especially debatable because they can lead to weight retention around the midsection and other health issues. Many grains can also cause sugar spikes which can lead to diabetes or inflammation of the digestive system. Even the grain free aren't all wonderful because they use potato, peas and other binders that, while slightly more digestible, still can cause cats to be overweight or that artificially inflate protein content with proteins cats bodies can't really use properly.

That said, some binders are necessary because of the shelf stability and dry aspect of the food. I also fully understand money issues and availability so my ranking would be:

4) Authority Kitten has Rice and Corn Protein in the first five. Both are carbs that will contribute to weight retention around the middle. Plus Corn Protein means that a good part of the protein in the food is not an animal based protein so your kitten won't be able to fully benefit from the nutrition. This would be my last pick.

3) Iams Kitten has corn meal and dried beet pulp in the first five. Corn meal is again the weight issue and lack of processing. Its bulk basically with zero nutritional benefit. Beet pulp is a cheap fiber and filler that is found in horse feed mostly but cat food is starting to have it due to low cost and high availability. This would be my second to last.

2) Nutro has pea protein and brown rice in the top five but they follow that with potato protein, beet pulp and oatmeal so while they don't have the corn they do have a lot of fillers in the top ten.

1) 4Health is actually a fairly decent store brand food and the one I would pick if I only had the four to pick from. They have rice and peas in their first five but in terms of binders they aren't the worst out there. They have a grain free formula too that is worth looking at.

Both of these foods I linked below are are no grain products. They do have potato and peas but those are easier for cats to process and don't lead to as much weight gain. They were within a dollar or two of the prices of the ones you asked about.

Whole Earth Farms Grain-Free Healthy Kitten Recipe Dry Cat Food
CANIDAE Grain-Free PURE Foundations Kitten Formula with Chicken Dry Cat food

If it is more of local availability you might want to switch to online ordering. Also, if you can afford more there are better options but I was trying to stay in the price point of the ones you asked about. Keep in mind that while these two options are slightly higher in cost the higher amount of digestible protein and less fillers will mean that your kitten will eat less food. So the slightly higher cost should be offset by slightly less consumption of food.

 

[xenathecrazy]

Ok. Thank you