Kitten feeding advice

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  • #798760
    spica
    Participant

    So the kitten mentioned here, for whom we were looking for a new home – turns out she was home all along and has been a wonderful companion ever since we first brought her into our house 🙂

    We had her neutered about 3 weeks ago, back then she weighed 2.6 kg (I think, but I might remember incorrectly) and she is approximately 6 months old at the moment.
    She’s an indoor cat and although we try to keep her active, her kittenhood hyper activeness is slowly weaning and I am worried the current food is perhaps too high energy for her, keeping weight control in mind. She is eating canned food meant for kittens made by Specific Diets (a veterinary exclusive brand) and Applaws dry food. The vet told us after the neutering that we should start giving her dry food by the daily recommendations – so far we’ve just been filling up her bowl and that lasts several days, she doesn’t like dry food that much. She gets 3 meals of canned food, a single can per day (half in the morning, a quarter in noon and a quarter in the evening) but she always seems starving, or maybe she just likes the food very much.
    The question we have is when should we switch her to adult (or neutered) cat food? And when should we start feeding her 2 times per day? I feel so sorry for the poor pets who have been fed so fat they can barely move but at the same time I’m worried that maybe our feeding is somehow not appropriate for her development.

    Her breath has also suddenly become awful but I understand that might be because she could be teething?

    This is her a couple of weeks ago
    Kitten Alfred

    #798777
    jcat
    Participant

    Well, adult wet food is less calorie-dense than kitten food but they are technically kittens up to a year old so it’s up to you when you switch. To be honest, I wouldn’t worry too much about her weight, female cats seem to be much better at evening out their energy intake/expenditure than male cats. It is generally male cats who have weight problems after neutering, it just seems to go with the territory but you rarely see overweight female cats. Definitely keep on with the wet food rather than the dry, the dry is not such a problem with female cats either but it’s still not as good an option as wet. Since all processed foods have more calories than raw meat, you may want to look at including some raw meat in her diet (mine get one raw meal, one wet meal a day) either every day or a few days a week, this would bring her calorie intake down too (and she might love it). But, as I say, it’s generally the male cats who have the terrible weight problems. Check the pink nutrition tag for more info.
    I hadn’t heard that, about bad breath coming with teething. It often is a sign of tooth and mouth problems in older cats but that sounds unlikely at her age. Check the teething tag as well, I think there’s some good advice on there.

    #798778
    jcat
    Participant

    By the way, she looks a real cutie. And if you do decide to feed her some raw, make sure it’s from a reputable source (a good raw pet food company or human-grade raw food from supermarkets, eg liver, kidney, ox heart, sheeps heart etc etc).

    #798884
    spica
    Participant

    Thank you for the advice, especially about raw food. I considered it with my dogs but it just seemed too much hassle, but feeding a cat raw food should be easier because the amounts are so much smaller. I will look into it, thanks!
    I did some googling and teething was mentioned as one possible cause of bad breath, but if the problem doesn’t clear up soon we will take her to a vet.

    #798894
    snowkitten
    Participant

    I have six cats, and all of my cats seem satisfied after they eat their one to two meals a day… all of them except for Tenten. He always seems hungry no matter how much he eats as well. I just feed him the same amount as the rest of my cats, and I make sure he does not “steal” the other cats’ meals. He does not have worms, and I suspect he does this cause he was abandoned as a kitten (I found him roaming the streets half starved) and learned to eat everything in sight cause of this.

    I would have the cat checked for worms if you have not already done so to make sure the kitty isn’t hungry due to parasites. If kitty is healthy, then just be mindful not to over feed kitty. Adult cats only need one to two meals a day. With canned cat food, I would give kitty half in morning and half at night with a small bowl of dry cat food left out to graze on (but do not refill bowl once gone). With a kitten I would do the same thing, except feed wet canned food three times a day like you already are.

    #798978
    spica
    Participant

    We’ve been de-worming her once per month so I doubt it’s worms. It could however be the same reason that you suspect with Tenten. We also found our kitten on the streets when she was about 6 weeks old. For the first few days she barely ate a thing but after she got over the initial shock she has had a very good appetite. She doesn’t usually wolf down the kibble though, so maybe it’s not that much hunger, but rather she really-really likes the canned food (and lets us know with loud meowing 🙂 ).

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