What do you feed your kitten?

[Shaffron]

At the moment my 5 month old girl has Whiskas dry kitten food throughout the day (I regularly top up her bowl and she eats little and often) and then a full Whiskas pouch of wet meat for overnight.

Is this okay?

She's healthy and growing but a relative today suggested my poor old cat who was put down earlier this year was a bit of a runt compared to his cat. His cat is huge though!

i8f shes not shouting for more food soinds like this is enough for her . my four cats range from tiny to huge and they get 1/4 tin of aldis wet food and half a cup of harringtons biscuits each a day and at five months yours is old enough to eat adult food kitten food is expensive and not really that much more in it than adult food

kitten wet food (felix anyway) is often cheaper than adult cat food though that does depend where you buy it (eg at B&M, last time I looked, as good as it looks was 3 for £9, but kitten food was 2 for £5)

fwiw zooplus website seems to recommend felix over whiskas

it's arguably better for them to have more wet than dry food as they get more fluids that way

but cats come in all different sizes just the way humans do so your relative is talking out of his arse, frankly

I order food from zooplus but avoid whiskas, felix, gourmet gold etc as it has a very low meat content (4%) and is full of grains. My boy (7 months) gets between 200 - 400g of wet food (80% meat content food) a day plus I fill up a bowl with biscuits for him to nibble on. He's quite big for his age though - but not fat - his mother was a ragdoll and very large. At 5 months he was on 4/5 pouches of hi life a day plus biscuits.

If you are buying supermarket pouches then I would say hi life is one of the better ones as it's 49% meat content. I have read on here the butchers tins are quite good but we have never tried them so can't say.

As for the kitten / adult food thing. Kitten food has a higher protein content than adult food, the brands with high meat content have high protein anyway so are fine for kittens but whiskas etc adult food is very low on protein so that's why it's not recommended for growing kittens.

It's not actually only 4% meat in Felix - it's 4% of the named meat. it doesn't give a total percentage but it's more than 4.

I used to buy Bozita for mine, & tried various other expensive high-meat brands, but the buggers wouldn't eat them, & they scoff Felix! They are very sleek & healthy too

In fact this is Felix Doubly Delicious:

Analytical components:
protein 13%
fat 3%
fibre 0.5%
ash 2.2%
moisture 80%

Meat Varieties: Meat & meat by-products (min. 4% of the specified type), fish and fish by-products, vegetable protein extracts, minerals, sugar.
Fish Varieties: Meat & meat by-products, vegetable protein extracts, fish and fish by-products (min. 4% of the specified type), minerals, sugar.

& this is Bozita in jelly (which is also generally only 4% of the named meat):

Analytical constituents:
protein 8.5%
fat 4.5%
fibre 0.5%
ash 2.3%
moisture 83%

Haddock:
Chicken, haddock (4%), pork, beef, calcium carbonate, yeast (ß-1.3/1.6 glucan 0.01%).
Minced beef:
Chicken, beef (4%), pork, calcium carbonate, yeast (ß-1.3/1.6 glucan 0.01%).
Chicken liver:
Chicken (> 4% chicken liver), pork, beef, minerals, egg, carrots, ß-1.3/1.6 glucan (carrots???)

(figures from the zooplus website)

It must be the sugar that attracts them so much

I haven't tried mine on bozita and given those figues I will probably avoid. He's on a mix of various stuff but his favourite is catz finefood. It's typically 70% of the named meat and the website breaks down the % of meat and offal.

I agree that once they get a taste for the sugary stuff it's hard to get them onto other foods. My boy was on Asda kitten pouches when I got him and luckily took to the high meat stuff straight away. He did have a few pouches of the felix as good as it looks when I ran out before delivery last month. He did eat them but licked all the jelly off first and then the meat left at the end dried out and he wouldn't touch it once the jelly was gone so I was binning about a quarter of it. I've still got a couple of packets in the cupboard.
The stuff I get has the consistency of corned beef so I find he will clear the bowl when he goes back for seconds.

I also have actually found it works out cheaper bulk buying the tins from zoo plus than buying pouches from the supermarket and the like. I was working out that pouches were about £0.45 for 85g but the tin equivalent is £0.35 for 85g.

The things we do for our fussy cats.

I highly recommended Zooplus- they ate happliy taking back £50 worth of Lily's kitchen I bought last week just before my cat died.
My cat lived to 22 - most of her life she had tesco pouches in jelly. Last 2 years when she started being sick we varied between, James wellbeloved, natures menu, Lily's kitchen, turkey mince and tins of Salmon!
James well beloved biscuits are good to leave out. My poor girl could not manage them though due to bad teeth.

Aww, chocolatespiders

Sorry you've lost your old girl but wow, 22, that's amazing

I would get a better quality of dry food, there is lots to choose between but go for one with minimal grain and high meat content and you won't go far wrong.