Should I keep feeding her Kitten Chow?

Question

Should I keep feeding my kitten Kitten Chow? I'm tired of seeing her eating the same thing. I'm tired of seeing the same brown colors in her bowl. I think it's the lack of color and just not much flavor of fish, chicken, etc that in Kitten Chow that's making me want to switch. If I had to eat the same thing until I was an adult and I was a kitten, I wouldn't want to eat some brown meal that probably only has chicken byproducts (i know others have byproducts too and my mom wont buy her the natural ones so once im an adult in 4 years im gonig to do it so dont recommend it now).

got any recommendations?

Answer 1

Well, I'd definitely switch to a higher quality food.

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, Canidae All Life Stages, 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 of the high end foods can be found in common pet stores. Petsmart carries Blue Buffalo products (such as the excellent grain free diet Blue Wilderness). Petco carries Wellness and Solid Gold. 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...

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 2

get blue spa, EVO or Wellness brand kitten food, so much better for your cat, no byproducts, no grain etc.

Answer 3

Any thing you buy in the grocery store is going to be more by-products than real meat (by products aren't meat - it's all the left over "parts" that are deemed not fit for human consumption).  The fact that Purina is brown isn't a bad thing - those colored cat foods are full of dyes to make them appealing to us humans, and are even worse for your cat than what you're feeding now.  Purina (and all the grocery store foods) are also full of corn, which is nothing more than a cheap filler that has little to no nutrional value for cats.  

Tell your mom that she can go to Petsmart and get their own Authority brand, or Nutro, for about the same price as she's paying for Purina.  It's a much higher quality food, with real meat and no by-products.  Your kitten will be healthier for it.

Answer 4

If the kitten is eating well, leave her alone. There's an old saying, "Don't fix what's not broken".  As long as the kitten is happy and healthy...she is fine.

Answer 5

I had a grown up cat and a kitten and they ate different foods but they ate each others so use older cat food now younger cat food later or use purina one that is what we use.