Can't decide what to feed my 8 week old kitten...

[lillypie]

I have been doing a lot of research on what is the "best" food to feed my new 8 week old kitten, Lilly. At first I was just deciding between dry foods, and then I came across the whole dry vs wet food argument and now I am even more lost. I don't want to spend a FORTUNE but I also don't want to cheap out on my Lilly's health. What are some good options for me? I am open to any suggestions Not a fan of any of the "grocery foods" and also not sure how I feel about Merrick or Blue Buffalo.

Lilly & I thank you all!! 

 

[kittyluv387]

There has been many many threads on this topic haha.  You can always do a part wet and part dry diet.  Just make sure to sneak in a little bit of extra water when you serve the canned food.  I also do not believe it's necessary to feed kittens "kitten food" as long as the food is high quality.  I notice something like science diet they make their kitten formula a little better than their adult formula since kittens are growing.

But some of the things I like:

Dry:




Wet food:

Nutro Natural - I feed my cat the turkey and also chicken flavor

Weruva Funk in the Trunk

Pride By Instinct - These are expensive but seem to have awesome sales at my local pet supplies plus

 

[lillypie]

Thank you for your input! If I were to go the part wet part dry route, how much of each would I be feeding? What would that feeding schedule look like? Thank you!!

 

[kittyluv387]

Well an 8 week old kitten has tons of growing to do and burn a lot of energy so many of us say that kittens under 1 years old should eat as much as they want.  Unless of course, you notice your kitten getting chubs .  For the feeding schedule it depends on your kitten.  You can try offering your kitten 1/2 of a 3oz can for his first meal mixed in with a little bit of water and see how quickly he's able to finish it.  I'm lazy so if my kitten were to eat the whole can in one sitting I'd just let him eat the whole thing and after he's done I would just leave out dry food.  But if he cant eat the whole thing in one sitting I'd split it between breakfast and dinner and let him munch on dry through out the day.  It's a GREAT idea to have him eat wet food starting at a young age so he wont be stubborn later.    Avoid feeding wet food that is primarily fish based, or just give it as a treat once a week.  I feed my cat food with fish but it's not the first ingredient for the wet food.  Try putting kitty on a rotation of wet food during the week so he can get used to some variety.  Definitely take advantage of the good quality canned foods you see on sale at the store and take advantage of websites like amazon and chewy.com.

Here's a very easy to read website that tells you what you need to know about cat food.

https://bettyvine.wordpress.com/tag/how-to-read-cat-food-ingredients-list/

Is that your kitty on your avatar pic?  So precious and cute!

 

[lillypie]

What wet or dry foods would you recommend, Im having such a hard time deciding, especially the dry food. Can I switch out wet foods without her having any stomach issues?

 

[kittyluv387]

It depends what your budget is for dry.  Your kitty will be eating quite a bit.  I really think the first link I gave you for dry is excellent kitten food, pricy but not over the top.  2nd dry food link is really good too and definitely more budget friendly.  3rd one is very expensive and I wouldn't recommend it unless you really don't mind, but it's considered the best dry food out there.

Well I always fed high quality canned food so my cat didn't seem to have any issues.  But he might have a sturdy tummy.  You can try adding a tablespoon of the new canned food to her old canned food and check how her stools look.  If it looks fine you can feed the rest next day.  If it becomes a little moist just keep adding just a little bit to her regular wet food until her stool normalizes.  It's a good idea to have your kitten able to eat a handful of different wet foods during the week.

 

[ellag]

fancy feast kitten wet food is usually well liked by all kittens and it's fairly cheap. the only downside is that it only comes in 2 flavors: turkey and a fish flavor. i think the more wet food the better but if you really want to use dry i'd stick to the grain free.

 

[lillypie]

Yes! That is my Lilly in my profile picture She is a little chunkier now Silly me, I didn't even realize you were the same person who initially offered food suggestions! I will look into all of those, thank you! When I brought Lilly home she was actually 6 weeks old. We started her out on Fancy Feast "Kittens" wet food and her stools were awfully soft and she was having accidents everywhere. We switched her to dry food and her stools firmed up a lot! Do you think it was just the low quality food that upset her little tummy? I definitley want to introduce higher quality wet foods into her diet.

 

[kittyluv387]

Oh yeah, when I adopted my Benny from the shelter they actually told me cats like fancy feast but sometimes they get upset stomachs from it.  But they feed it to the cats because it's cheap and also many cats find it tasty so it helps them eat in a stressful environment.  Since your kitty had a bad reaction to it I would be suspicious of the meat by products and also menadione sodium bisulfate.  The menadione is an artificial vitamin K added to pet food.  Normally, they add this to fish based cat food because fish naturally lacks vitamin K.  They also seem to add this to low quality canned food in general.  Avoid friskies, fancy feast, sheba...etc.  They're all at the same level.  This artificial vitamin K has been found to be harmful.  And some cats are just more sensitive than others about food in general.  It could also just be that you switched her too suddenly to wet food.

Try giving your kitty just half of a 3oz can  every day for a few days and see how she takes it.

My Benny had chronic diarrhea so I have done tons of reading on cat nutrition lol.  He ended up having to be on 100% raw.  My Nemo, the orange tabby is the one with the sturdy tummy, but I make sure to feed him high quality canned and dry.

 

[kkoerner]

My kitten is 4.5 months old.....but he has been eating Nulo Turkey and Chicken canned food since he was 8 weeks, and more recently since both cats have decided they don't love Nulo as much anymore....he has been eating Nutro Naturals Kitten-Chicken Soft Loaf....sometimes the fish one they sell for kittens which is not a pate/soft loaf style.

For dry he eats Orijin Cat and Kitten.

When I first brought him home at 8 weeks he could eat an entire 5.5 ounce can, AND 1 cup of Orijin dry (that's 683 calories all together!).
He did that for a little while and has regulated himself more....he is now eating 1/2 cup of Orijin (1/4 twice a day...one mid morning, one at bedtime) and one 3 ounce can of the Nutro kitten (1/2 twice a day....one when I wake up and 1 at my dinner time). So he is getting food 4 times a day....I could just leave him a bowl of dry but I limit it to portions so my other cat doesn't get to steal it. He has put on some chub since I got my kitten.....LOL.

My 4.5 month old is a long, thin, 6 lbs 12 ounces....yours may need different amounts.

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• kkoerner
• Feb 20, 2016

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• kkoerner
• Feb 20, 2016

 

[LTS3]

Copying from a response I posted to someone recently:

Here are some threads on affordable canned foods:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/308964/healthy-but-affordable-canned-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/241131/healthy-affordable-wet-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/306956/new-affordable-petsmart-brand-d

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/181955/cheapest-healthy-canned-cat-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/306956/new-affordable-petsmart-brand-d

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/310351/need-ideas-on-canned-wet-cat-food-brands-please

Some of the brands above have kitten formulas avaialble or also have dry food. You can feed adult food (dry and canned) to a kitten, you just need to feed more of it for the extra nutrients. The occasional adult food is fine if you want to stick mainly with kitten food. Adult foods come in lots more varieties than kitten food.

Head out to your local chain pet stores (Petco, PetSmart, etc) and the independent pet stores to see what is available

The chain pet stores have a good selection of quality foods while the independent pet stores often have the high end premium brands.

Have you tried the Wellness kitten food? Its better quality than Fancy Feast and may not upet your kitten's tummy. Wellness has both dry and canned kitten food. I think Orijen has a kitten food.

8 week old kittens eat a lot of food to help their little bodies grow so you'll need to buy a ton of food for at least the next couple of months. To balance cost, some people feed oth dry and canned, usually a high quality grain free dry with a inexpensive canned food. Since canned food is healthier, lots of people feed mainly canned food and leave a measured amount (less than a cup or so) of dry food out for snacking on.Several small meals daily works best for most kittens. If you do only canned, you can use a programmable timed feeder to provide meals when you are not home. I like the PetSafe 5 compartment one.

 

[zed xyzed]

For Dry food it would be a no-brainer for me. I did a tonne of research (because I have OCD when it come to my cat) and  Orijen jumped out of the pack. For canned there are a lot of good ones but I really like the Nature's Variety, and in particular, the limited ingredients version. 

 

[lillypie]

Thank you to all who took the time to reply! As an update I ended up going with Halo's Wholesome Chicken Recipe food, so far so good and she LOVES it