Removing Dry Food From My Kittens' Diet

[everariana]

Hi everyone. I have two 7month old kittens who currently eat Instinct's kitten kibble and Instinct's kitten canned food (just transitioned them back to this wet food, they were previously eating Wellness Complete Health Kitten Pate). They eat their wet food in the morning and evening, and the dry food for lunch, but I want to remove the kibble from their diet because they have some stool issues and I know how dry food contributes to digestive problems. My eventual goal is to put them on raw food. But before that, I obviously need to remove the dry food even though they're obsessed with it lol.

How would I go about doing this? Should I gradually reduce the amount of kibble per serving while increasing the wet food servings? Or can I just take away the kibble completely in one day? Mind you, they've been eating Instinct's kitten dry food since they were weaned at the adoption shelter. Also, I'll be working 9-6 again soon so if they're on a completely wet food diet, then they'll probably just be eating 2 meals per day (unless I give them an extra meal right before bedtime).

 

[daftcat75]

I recommend keeping canned food in their diet and not feeding raw exclusively. There can be supply issues or fussiness issues with homemade/raw and it’s good to have backups.

Also because you can put canned food in timed feeders while you can’t leave raw out for more than an hour (45 min is Krista’s limit.)

WOPET Automatic Cat Feeder, Pet Feeder for Dogs and Cats with Ice Pack Included - 2 Meals
Cats do better with smaller, more frequent meals. I split up Krista’s daily calories over four scheduled meals (6a, 9a, 6p, and 10p) and timed feeders in the daytime and the overnight. Getting to sleep past 4am makes these feeders worth it!

 

[daftcat75]

I can’t comment on the transition. Krista had her molars and sub molars extracted at 13 and her kibble days ended overnight. I don’t know that I’d recommend this. She didn’t have much of a choice.

 

[sivyaleah]

Hi everyone. I have two 7month old kittens who currently eat Instinct's kitten kibble and Instinct's kitten canned food (just transitioned them back to this wet food, they were previously eating Wellness Complete Health Kitten Pate). They eat their wet food in the morning and evening, and the dry food for lunch, but I want to remove the kibble from their diet because they have some stool issues and I know how dry food contributes to digestive problems. My eventual goal is to put them on raw food. But before that, I obviously need to remove the dry food even though they're obsessed with it lol.

How would I go about doing this? Should I gradually reduce the amount of kibble per serving while increasing the wet food servings? Or can I just take away the kibble completely in one day? Mind you, they've been eating Instinct's kitten dry food since they were weaned at the adoption shelter. Also, I'll be working 9-6 again soon so if they're on a completely wet food diet, then they'll probably just be eating 2 meals per day (unless I give them an extra meal right before bedtime).

Reducing slowly sounds like a good plan to me. However, at 7 months old feeding only 2x a day is really not enough as they are still growing and most kittens need food more frequently than that. Personally your idea about giving one extra meal at bedtime makes sense. If you could fit in one more smaller meal somewhere too that would be ideal. Of course you may find they don't need it depending on how much they eat at those 3 meals.

Our kitten is just over 6 months now and we're noticing she's self-limiting her kibble quite a bit and we'e thinking about weaning her off of it too just because - kibble (her breeder used it so we kept her on it while transitioning her to our home). Seems rather unnecessary at this point because she's getting 4 meals a day - 2 full 3 ounce cans (breakfast/dinner) and at minimum she splits another 3 ounce can twice a day with our other cat as a snack; so about 9 ounces a day total of wet food and is leaving over nearly all the kibble at this point.

 

[everariana]

I recommend keeping canned food in their diet and not feeding raw exclusively. There can be supply issues or fussiness issues with homemade/raw and it’s good to have backups.

Also because you can put canned food in timed feeders while you can’t leave raw out for more than an hour (45 min is Krista’s limit.)

WOPET Automatic Cat Feeder, Pet Feeder for Dogs and Cats with Ice Pack Included - 2 Meals
Cats do better with smaller, more frequent meals. I split up Krista’s daily calories over four scheduled meals (6a, 9a, 6p, and 10p) and timed feeders in the daytime and the overnight. Getting to sleep past 4am makes these feeders worth it!

Thank you for the suggestion! Do you personally use this specific automatic feeder? It looks like it has some issues and all the review pics seem to be of dry food so I'd love to hear about how effective it is with wet food.

 

[everariana]

Reducing slowly sounds like a good plan to me. However, at 7 months old feeding only 2x a day is really not enough as they are still growing and most kittens need food more frequently than that. Personally your idea about giving one extra meal at bedtime makes sense. If you could fit in one more smaller meal somewhere too that would be ideal. Of course you may find they don't need it depending on how much they eat at those 3 meals.

Our kitten is just over 6 months now and we're noticing she's self-limiting her kibble quite a bit and we'e thinking about weaning her off of it too just because - kibble (her breeder used it so we kept her on it while transitioning her to our home). Seems rather unnecessary at this point because she's getting 4 meals a day - 2 full 3 ounce cans (breakfast/dinner) and at minimum she splits another 3 ounce can twice a day with our other cat as a snack; so about 9 ounces a day total of wet food and is leaving over nearly all the kibble at this point.

Yeah I've been kind of wary about reducing to just 2 meals a day because of them still growing. Idk why a lot of sites say it's okay to feed twice a day after 6 months. Also, my male kitten eats almost 100 calories less than what multiple sites recommend he should eat for his age and weight (he's pretty big, about 9 lbs now at 7 months, he was also neutered at 3 months). But he hasn't lost any weight and continues to grow lol. Nevertheless, I'd be scared that his caloric intake would reduce even more if he was only eating twice a day.

 

[daftcat75]

Thank you for the suggestion! Do you personally use this specific automatic feeder? It looks like it has some issues and all the review pics seem to be of dry food so I'd love to hear about how effective it is with wet food.

I deploy them in pairs every day and every night. Of the hundreds of times I have used them, they failed to open maybe three times. Never had a double failure. The egg timer isn't very accurate so I split the portion across them and have them open approximately an hour, sometimes two apart. I put cold food from fridge in them and they last 6-10 hours without complaint from Krista. But they do come with ice packs if you think you need them (like for longer intervals.) Allowing your cats to snack through the day and the night without being there to feed them makes it worth $30 to give them a try.

 

[Azazel]

There is also the catmate c20. It is very similar and also has a compartment for an ice pack (comes with one). I’ve been using it for over a year and never had a problem with failing to open. I freeze wet food into portions prior to putting it in the compartment. I also put little ceramic bowls in the compartments cause I don’t like my cats eating off plastic (harbors bacteria and can lead to chin acne).

I recommend doing at least 3 feedings a day. I think 2 is too few. Cats are meant to eat lots of small kills throughout the day and night. This being said I don’t use the timed feeder overnight, only when we aren’t home during the day. I do a feeding right before bed and right when we get up. My cats sleep through the night and don’t bother me until my alarm goes off. We do 4 meals total: morning, lunch, dinner, and before bed.

 

[everariana]

There is also the catmate c20. It is very similar and also has a compartment for an ice pack (comes with one). I’ve been using it for over a year and never had a problem with failing to open. I freeze wet food into portions prior to putting it in the compartment. I also put little ceramic bowls in the compartments cause I don’t like my cats eating off plastic (harbors bacteria and can lead to chin acne).

I recommend doing at least 3 feedings a day. I think 2 is too few. Cats are meant to eat lots of small kills throughout the day and night. This being said I don’t use the timed feeder overnight, only when we aren’t home during the day. I do a feeding right before bed and right when we get up. My cats sleep through the night and don’t bother me until my alarm goes off. We do 4 meals total: morning, lunch, dinner, and before bed.

Thank you for the suggestion! And yes, I'm not too keen on feeding them throughout the night because that seems to throw off their sleeping/energy schedule we've successfully established. I need them to be either be sleeping or relaxing while I sleep since I live in a studio apartment and can hear everything they do lol! So I'm going to look into a wet food feeder for lunchtime while I'm at work.

 

[Azazel]

Thank you for the suggestion! And yes, I'm not too keen on feeding them throughout the night because that seems to throw off their sleeping/energy schedule we've successfully established. I need them to be either be sleeping or relaxing while I sleep since I live in a studio apartment and can hear everything they do lol! So I'm going to look into a wet food feeder for lunchtime while I'm at work.

A good play session right before bed and then a hearty meal to follow is usually enough to get them to pass out!

Only other tip I have for the feeders is if you have a fiesty and smart cat they will try to break into it. Mine learned to push it around with their heads and once knocked it off the counter and broke it open. I now put the feeders between some heavy books and it seems to do the trick. They are hard to break into unless the cat can push it around with their head.

 

[daftcat75]

The seal on the WOPet seems better/less easy to defeat. But I also like that the WOPets can be deployed single or together. Or you can chain as many of them together as you want.

My 15 year old eats better at night than during the day. She doesn’t eat like she used to so I will encourage her to eat when she eats best. The daytime feeders are just there so she doesn’t have acid barfs from waiting too long without food between the breakfasts and the dinners. I plan her calories for the scheduled meals and then let her burst over that with smaller feeder portions. This also lets her make up for anything she leaves behind on a scheduled meal plate.