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I searched the forum and found mixed answers.
Some important points:
- The main diet for the cats is wet food. This will be for supplemental.
- It’s likely only for a week and it’s either this option or kibble.
Tl;Dr:
Some people said it was better than kibble, others were more focused on hydration since the OP was wanting to feed it as a main meal (so doesn’t apply to my situation), but I also saw a few comments saying that not rehydrating presented an issue in regards to bone content, which is my main concern.
So if anyone could clarify, i’d be very grateful!
Background info:
The issue is that we’re going away for a week and have a ~4 month old kitten to feed. The sitter is coming 3x a day, but we cannot afford for her to come more than that.
The kitten is separated from the rest of our clowder with her now formerly feral mom in their own room. Mom is also a little less than a year old. Kitten is not food motivated whatsoever, but Mom is a typical crazy food fiend and often eats baby’s food.
I usually monitor this in order to prevent it, but it’s impractical to ask of the sitter (who already has a hefty job caring for our 12 critters inside and 12-15 ferals outside).
Only/healthiest option I could think of to supplement more food for the baby without terribly over feeding mom (who would gulp up kibble all at once if we left a bowl out) was to buy two timed feeders and use freeze dried (Feline Natural, broken up into smaller pieces) or air dried raw (ZP).
Two feeders means kitten will at least have a chance at eating from one feeder while Mom is busy eating from the other one. It also means Momma can’t prevent baby from eating by pushing her out of the way (she really is a great Mom, I swear ).
We were hoping to do ZP since it’s not quite as water depleted, but even with pieces broken up it seems to be jamming the feeder. FN is working fine in it, however.
So can we just feed the FN freeze dried without rehydrating?
Some important points:
- The main diet for the cats is wet food. This will be for supplemental.
- It’s likely only for a week and it’s either this option or kibble.
Tl;Dr:
Some people said it was better than kibble, others were more focused on hydration since the OP was wanting to feed it as a main meal (so doesn’t apply to my situation), but I also saw a few comments saying that not rehydrating presented an issue in regards to bone content, which is my main concern.
So if anyone could clarify, i’d be very grateful!
Background info:
The issue is that we’re going away for a week and have a ~4 month old kitten to feed. The sitter is coming 3x a day, but we cannot afford for her to come more than that.
The kitten is separated from the rest of our clowder with her now formerly feral mom in their own room. Mom is also a little less than a year old. Kitten is not food motivated whatsoever, but Mom is a typical crazy food fiend and often eats baby’s food.
I usually monitor this in order to prevent it, but it’s impractical to ask of the sitter (who already has a hefty job caring for our 12 critters inside and 12-15 ferals outside).
Only/healthiest option I could think of to supplement more food for the baby without terribly over feeding mom (who would gulp up kibble all at once if we left a bowl out) was to buy two timed feeders and use freeze dried (Feline Natural, broken up into smaller pieces) or air dried raw (ZP).
Two feeders means kitten will at least have a chance at eating from one feeder while Mom is busy eating from the other one. It also means Momma can’t prevent baby from eating by pushing her out of the way (she really is a great Mom, I swear ).
We were hoping to do ZP since it’s not quite as water depleted, but even with pieces broken up it seems to be jamming the feeder. FN is working fine in it, however.
So can we just feed the FN freeze dried without rehydrating?