I am new to this forum and I have been reading through a lot of the posts on food in the past couple of weeks and I have some questions. First of all, I just adopted two kittens, brothers, mittens and oreo. They are about 9 or 10 weeks old right now. These are the first cats I have had on my own, although growing up we always had a cat. We had always fed out cat Kit-n-Kaboodle and she lived to be almost 17 years old and never really had any health problems. Before coming to this forum, I hadnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t even realized that there were cat foods out there beyond what grocery stores and petsmart sold. Boy do I feel naïve now (and am feeling awful for the 17 years we fed our cat kit-n-kaboodle) My mom still thinks kit-n-kaboodle is totally fine and is working on switching our 3 new cats off of Iams kitten and onto kit-n-kaboodle, now that they are old enough, even though I have told her she should do better after reading stuff in this forum.
I am currently in the process of switching my kittens from the food their foster mom had been feeding them (Meow Mix dry and Sophisticat canned) to Eukanuba kitten dry and Iams kitten canned. I know that these are among the best out there in terms of grocery store/petsmart foods, but I am hoping to perhaps mix in some better foods as well. I am a student, so I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know if I can afford to switch them entirely to premium cat foods (although if they do actually eat less, it might not be much more expensive), so I am wondering exactly how to go about incorporating some other foods into their diet as well.
I see the posts of other people who have like 5 different premium foods that they feed their cat and I am just wondering how to go about doing that. I know that when changing foods, you want to do it gradually over a week or two, but how do you add many different foods and keep them eating many different foods at once without the risk of potentially upsetting their digestive systems? Do you begin mixing them together until they are used to both and then serve them individually? Do the people who feed their cats a variety of dry foods give them a mix of different foods at one time or do you give one kind one day, another the next? Basically, I am picturing perhaps feeding my kittens Eukanuba and Iams 5 days of the week and a premium cat food or two, the other 2 days of the week (or the equivalent if it is better to mix them together). Does anyone have any idea what would be the best way to go about getting into this type of feeding routine for them without potential digestive problems?
Also, I have read through many posts about different foods and peoplesâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] opinions of what foods are best, so I wonâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t ask about that, but is there any particular place where people have found premium foods to be the most inexpensive? Online through the companyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s website? More upscale pet stores?
Also, one more question. When I was looking in the pet store at food ingredients after reading on here about some of the ingredients that are in cat foods, I came across Blue Spa Select cat food. It looked like it is a pretty good food, and after looking on their website, this seems to be the case. Has anyone had any experience with this food? If it seems like it might be okay, I would be tempted to go with that and Nutro Natural Choice dry and Nutro Max canned since I can get them at petsmart only 5 minutes away. Does this seem like it would be reasonable?
Thank you for all of your advice!
I am currently in the process of switching my kittens from the food their foster mom had been feeding them (Meow Mix dry and Sophisticat canned) to Eukanuba kitten dry and Iams kitten canned. I know that these are among the best out there in terms of grocery store/petsmart foods, but I am hoping to perhaps mix in some better foods as well. I am a student, so I donâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know if I can afford to switch them entirely to premium cat foods (although if they do actually eat less, it might not be much more expensive), so I am wondering exactly how to go about incorporating some other foods into their diet as well.
I see the posts of other people who have like 5 different premium foods that they feed their cat and I am just wondering how to go about doing that. I know that when changing foods, you want to do it gradually over a week or two, but how do you add many different foods and keep them eating many different foods at once without the risk of potentially upsetting their digestive systems? Do you begin mixing them together until they are used to both and then serve them individually? Do the people who feed their cats a variety of dry foods give them a mix of different foods at one time or do you give one kind one day, another the next? Basically, I am picturing perhaps feeding my kittens Eukanuba and Iams 5 days of the week and a premium cat food or two, the other 2 days of the week (or the equivalent if it is better to mix them together). Does anyone have any idea what would be the best way to go about getting into this type of feeding routine for them without potential digestive problems?
Also, I have read through many posts about different foods and peoplesâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] opinions of what foods are best, so I wonâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t ask about that, but is there any particular place where people have found premium foods to be the most inexpensive? Online through the companyâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s website? More upscale pet stores?
Also, one more question. When I was looking in the pet store at food ingredients after reading on here about some of the ingredients that are in cat foods, I came across Blue Spa Select cat food. It looked like it is a pretty good food, and after looking on their website, this seems to be the case. Has anyone had any experience with this food? If it seems like it might be okay, I would be tempted to go with that and Nutro Natural Choice dry and Nutro Max canned since I can get them at petsmart only 5 minutes away. Does this seem like it would be reasonable?
Thank you for all of your advice!