Best cat food for my new kitten?

Question

I just got a new kitten,and he's really tiny. I got some wet cat food for him earlier but I don't know if I should be looking for a specific food for him or what.

Any help would be great!

Answer 1

I have just had 4 kittens - 3 went off to their new homes today - but i kept one with mum...

The best kitten food by far I found was Whiskas Kitten food.  Its tiny tiny chunks and covered in gravy - they absolutely loved it :)

Answer 2

Wet food is great! Cats were never meant to eat dry food, also known as cereals or kibble. We, humans, make them eat it for convenience to us. It has nothing to do with them or their nutritional needs. It's completely species inappropriate.

All small domestic cats descended from desert cats. In the wild, desert cats derive their entire liquid intake from their prey. They do not have a thirst mechanism because they don't need it when eating a species appropriate diet. They get all they need from what they eat. Additionally water was usually not available to them in their desert climate. So they do not often drink water. Regular ol' house cats have descended from those same wild desert cats.

So in a home environment, your kitty does not get the moisture it needs from dry food and it’s almost always in a constant state of dehydration. Water fountains are encouraged to TRY to get your cat to drink more and your kitty may even enjoy it, but it will never meet its water intake needs drinking from a bowl.

Deadly feline illnesses such as diabetes, kidney failure, obesity, allergies, Irritable Bowel Disease (IBD), bladder stones, kidney stones,  urinary tract blockages and Urinary Tract Infections (FLUTD), with and without deadly crystals run rampant these days. Cats are not taking in enough water to stave them off. Proper water intake through a species appropriate diet alone can prevent most of these conditions.

Overall,  wet is all around better for any cats diet, be it canned or Raw and they should never be fed dry cereal kibble if we wish to most closely match their wild nutritional and dietary needs. Kibble meets our needs… not our cats.

I recommend varying the diet with a constant rotation of accepted canned foods that your cat enjoys. If you do this, and allow your cat the same assortment they would have in nature when eating mice, bugs, birds and rabbits, your cats’ digestive system won't be so sensitive and you won't have to run around looking for a specific brand when your store is out. You will have a nice variety to choose from instead.

Canned foods I recommend for your rotation:

Nature's Variety - http://www.naturesvariety.com/content.la...

Wellness Grain Free Formula’s - http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_welln...

By Nature Organics - http://www.bynaturepetfoods.com/productp...

Organix -  http://www.castorpolluxpet.com/store/org...

Evanger's Holistic Pheasant - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/20089...

Evanger's Organic Braised Chicken - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50103...

Evanger's Turkey & Butternut Squash - http://www.evangersdogfood.com/cat/50111...

Answer 3

Absolute best canned food for a kitten?  Innova's EVO!  It's also a bit on the "soupy" side so it's very easy for the little ones to eat.  That's what my foster babies get, and they thrive.   Any canned food though is better than dry - but EVO is the best you can do.  It's fairly easy to find in the non-chain pet stores.  If you can't find that, then Wellness is great also, and that's now available at Petco.  You'll need to thin that down a bit to make it a more soupy consistency though, until he's a bit bigger.  

Good luck on finding a name for him - I have a lot of luck finding names for my foster kittens on any of the web sites where you find human baby names.  Lots of choices for you on all of those.  

Answer 4

The same food you would feed any cat. You are already smart enough to get wet food.





Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingrediant a muscle meat like chicken or meal or other things?

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with grains and carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process.  Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

http://www.catinfo.org/#My_Cat_is_Doing_...

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all.    The best food for cats does not contain any grains at all.

Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies  whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods. I would rather feed a middle grade canned food then the top of the line dry food.

Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

                               http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...

                               http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...

      http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Vetinarian diets  The reason your vet thinks so highly of the pet food they sell probably has more to do with money than nutrition. In vet school, the only classes offered on nutrition usually last a few weeks, and are taught by representatives from the pet food companies. Vet students may also receive free food for their own dogs and cats at home. They could get an Iams notebook, a Purina purse and some free pizza.  http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring04...

Answer 5

Congrats on getting a new kitten!

There is several foods on the market that are specially designed for kittens.  I suggest you go to your local supermarket and/or pet store and purchase the smallest amount of the various kitten diets that they provide.  That way, your kitten will be able to pick out which one is his/her favorite and then you can stick to that diet.  Friskies and ONE have really good feed for kittens so I would start there.

As for names, check out this website.  It has a lots of great cat names and I think you will find a good one there: http://www.cat-names.co.uk/

Best of wishes to you & your kitty!

Answer 6

i just got a kitten that was really small and they said they feed her science diet but i started feeding her Purina kitten food and shes doubled in size since i have gotten her which was good cause she was under weight

Answer 7

ex lax and burgundy

Answer 8

Not all pet food is made equally. A lot of it is full of corn, by-products, dyes, unhealthy preservatives, filler grains and all sorts of nasty stuff. A lot of pet food companies are perfectly happy to dump cheap leftovers in. Will it kill your cat? No, it has to be nutritionally complete and safe to even be marketed. Is it healthy? Not by a long shot.

Corn is a low quality ingredient you never want to see in your pet food. Corn and low quality grains are two of the biggest culprits when it comes to food allergies in our pets.

Thankfully, there are some excellent cat foods being made these days that include organic, human grade ingredients rather than trash not fit for human consumption.

Examples of low quality foods to avoid: Anything you can find in a grocery store will be low end, Purina, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, Royal Canin, Whiskas, Fancy Feast, Friskies, Meow Mix.

Examples of high quality foods to look for: Innova, Wellness, Solid Gold, Felidae, Fromm Four Star, Merrick, GO Natural, Nature's Variety Prairie, Nature's Logic, Artemis Fresh Mix, Timber Wolf Organics.

Although the high quality foods are more expensive, you're getting what you're paying for. Less filler material means more concentrated nutrients... this means you typically need to feed far less of the high quality food than you would of the low quality one. Which also means less p**p!

A great option is to go with an entirely grainless diet. Diets high in grain have been attributed to problems with diabetes in cats. Cats are obligate carnivores, so why should there be grain in their diet? Many of the high quality foods now put out grainless formulas. Some good grainless diet's include: Innova EVO, Wellness CORE, Blue Wilderness, Nature's Variety Instinct, Orijen, Fromm Surf & Turf, Now!, and Sold Gold Indigo Moon, Taste of the Wild.

Some pretty decent foods can even be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness, Solid Gold, Natural Balance, Eagle Pack Holistic, Blue Buffalo, Castor & Pollux Organix, Pinnacle, and Halo. If you can't find a food, most of the high quality food brands have websites with store locators on them.

Remember that foods should be switched gradually, especially when switching to a higher quality one, so as not to upset tummies.

Another option for feeding cats is to feed raw. This is something that should be thoroughly researched before being attempted:

http://www.barfworld.com/

http://www.rawfedcats.org/

http://www.rawfed.com/

http://www.wysong.net/controversies/rawm...

Now the question is, do you feed wet or dry? Wet is the correct answer. The reason is, in the wild, cats normally get most of their water content directly from their prey items and drink very little. Domestic cats are no different, and because of the fact that they are designed to take in water with their meal, they have a very low thirst drive. Cats often just don't drink enough. This leads to urinary tract infections and crystals. The bit about dry food being better for teeth is a myth and has not been proven in the least. Canned/wet food is better because it more closely mimics the cat's natural diet. More on why canned food is best:

http://www.catinfo.org/  (Excellent cat nutrition information by a vet)

http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/canne...

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?ac...

Another option to get cats to drink more would be a cat fountain. Cats tend to like to drink from running water and cat fountains see to that need, encouraging cats to take in more water.

More:

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_... (Dog food reviews. It's for dogs, but most of the high quality brands also put out excellent cat foods. Anything with five or six stars is a great food.)

Answer 9

High quality cat food is very similar to dog food.

A specified meat should be the main ingredient. No corn, soy, wheat, by-products, menadione, colors, chemical preservatives such as ethoxyquin, and euthanasia drugs.

High quality cat food:

Evo

Innova

Orijen

Wellness

Solid gold

That isnt a complete list of cat food options, but I am sure you can find one you like if you know what ingredients you need to avoid.(listed above)

www.naturapet.com(Evo and innova)

http://www.championpetfoods.com/orijen/p...

http://www.wellnesspetfood.com/cat_index...

http://www.solidgoldhealth.com/products/...