What to feed new kittens who have been eating shelter food?

August 14, 2015 7:18 AM

We've been through all the applications, and tomorrow, we're getting a pair of 10-week old kittens from a local rescue. However, while I've had adult cats, it's been ~20 years since I had kittens. So, what should I feed them?

The rescue lady reports that "they are eating Purina One Healthy Kittens dry food and Friskies Turkey & Giblets pate, Chicken, Turkey & Cheese Pate and 9 Loves Chicken Dinner. They get a small amount in the A.M. only." I'd like to upgrade their diets to something higher quality.. more meat and less corn. My old lady, who we lost this summer, ate Innova and Natural Balance, with some BG.

My plan is to keep feeding them what they've been getting and gradually replace it with the good stuff, so their tummies don't get upset. Any recommendations? And what do you think about things like schedule, free feeding, etc? My old lady always free fed (sparsely) on dry food without issue and had wet food in the am and pm. I'd like to keep this pattern if possible, so training them to be able to free feed without stuffing themselves would be good. But if kittens need different rules, then so be it.

posted by media_itoku to Pets & Animals (15 answers total)

When our lady was a kitten we loved Wellness kitten food. She's still on Wellness indoor health now that she's grown and spayed and free feeds on kibble happily with a can of wet food in the evening. I'd say set up that schedule early and makes adjustments if needed.
posted by lydhre at 7:27 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Your plan is good. My advice is:

• Set mealtimes and structure from the get-go. Do it like clockwork. Giving them expectations early on is a huge help.

• For instance, we serve wet food at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. (which, now, is +/- like four hours on either side, which is fine), but the dry food timer goes off three times a day with a little snack. I prefer the twice a day meal-time; I don't understand cats getting fed once a day?

• Having the dry food situation get handled by a machine keeps the cats from begging for food from us. Their focus is on the machine. IDIOT CATS.

• Those of us who can and want to prefer feeding the cats grain-free food. Ours are grain-free (although one of our cats really likes eating corn on the cob??) and their fur is insanely soft.

• So, despite the fact that it may (or may not!) partly be produced by ACTUAL HUMAN SLAVES on fishing boats, which... is pretty horrifyingly bad, I can, as a food, highly recommend Weruva. (Also that fish may come from like horrible net-fishing or worse.) I dunno man, conditions in the world are terrible. But my cats are happy at least. (Yeah, I'm actually having to look for ways to make sure that HUMAN SLAVERY isn't part of my cats' food chain. BLECH.)

• The "Fromm" dry food is very good; lots of the other grain-free food is equally good.

• But your cats will have their own desires.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 7:30 AM on August 14, 2015 [2 favorites]

Don't structure things so that your cats expect you to feed them right when you (usually) wake up. That way they are maybe less likely to wake you up for food.
posted by needs more cowbell at 7:45 AM on August 14, 2015 [6 favorites]

I'm going to echo the "use a machine!" advice. My alarm goes off at 7:30am; the cat knows that I have nothing to do with getting fed so there's no point bothering me. The Robot feeds him at 7:00am sharp, and by 6:45 he's (im)patiently waiting right by it, staring intently, until it whirs and grants him delicious precious kibble. I keep sleeping. Sometimes he stops by after breakfast to snuggle me until my alarm goes off, and I wake up with him cuddled next to me, purring contentedly.

(It may take the kittens some time to figure this stuff out; kittens are really quite astonishingly stupid. But they will get the idea eventually and you'll get to sleep in.)
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:54 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

We started our shelter kitten on Wellness wet food and unlimited, self-regulating dry food, skipping the robot or dry food feeding times altogether. It's worked well for us, though our kitten was fairly old (9 months, best guess) by the time we adopted him, so he was almost to "cat."
posted by craven_morhead at 8:01 AM on August 14, 2015

Be advised that not all "good" brands of cat food agree with all cats, so don't become married to the idea of just one particular food right away.

Congrats on your new household additions!
posted by LilithSilver at 8:18 AM on August 14, 2015

I'm going to echo the "use a machine!" advice.

This doesn't work for wet food though, which is best for cats.

Nthing don't train them that they get breakfast when you get up.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:44 AM on August 14, 2015

Our cat has been eating a combination of Weruva (which my iPhone really wants to autocorrect to "America") and Tiki Cat wet food, along with Orijen dry food, basically since we got him as a little baby. (We started with EVO dry food but moved away from it for various reasons within a week or two).

The advice above about schedule/routine is good. We don't use a machine feeder, but we did make a point to never, ever feed him first thing in the morning so he wouldn't learn to wake us up for food (as our previous cat loves to do).
posted by primethyme at 8:56 AM on August 14, 2015

Don't structure things so that your cats expect you to feed them right when you (usually) wake up. That way they are maybe less likely to wake you up for food.

Can't reiterate this enough.
Crazy Morning kitties are soul destroying.
My cats tag team me at 4.54am every morning.... :(

We feed Wellness canned food which they love and they are both thriving. Also good, Nature's Instinct, Bosley's own brand is grain free and they love that stuff too. Evo also.
Anything wet is certainly better than dry, but it sounds as if you know that already!

Congrats on your new hairy babies!
posted by JenThePro at 9:05 AM on August 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Congrats! I just adopted a kitten recently. Your idea to phase in the grain-free food is a good one. I bought all grain-free at first, and my kitten would barely touch it. After a few days of mixing that with the food he was used to, he's now happily eating the grain-free food on its own.

I can't remember the brand of wet food off the top of my head, but mine seems to prefer the morsels-in-gravy type to the pate. For dry food, I got Orijen, which he seems to like. I leave the dry food out all day, and so far he eats when he's hungry without overeating. Wet food in the morning and evening, but the timing varies depending on my schedule.
posted by treachery, faith, and the great river at 9:21 AM on August 14, 2015

We love wellness CORE. But whatever you feed them, definitely do the thing you were thinking about and mix it 50/50 for a week or two.
posted by zug at 10:59 AM on August 14, 2015

This doesn't work for wet food though, which is best for cats.

You can get a similar effect by setting a mealtime alarm on your phone with its own special ringtone, so that they know the phone is in charge of it and there's no use pestering you for food!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 11:37 AM on August 14, 2015

does that really work?
posted by andrewcooke at 4:09 PM on August 14, 2015

This doesn't work for wet food though, which is best for cats.

Actually, that's not true because you can buy this kind of automatic feeder which works brilliantly for my darling cat.
posted by superfille at 6:15 PM on August 14, 2015

Try to keep them on kitten food for a full year or longer. As long as they're still growing they'll appreciate the added fat and protein.
posted by irisclara at 5:34 PM on August 15, 2015