Feeding your kitten
P.S. ANY BRAND/PRODUCT MENTIONED ON THIS PAGE IS FOR SUGGESTING PURPOSES, NONE OF THEM IS FOR ADVERTISEMENT. PLEASE PURCHASE ACCORDING TO YOUR ACTUAL SITUATION
There are various types of cat food: Dry food, and Wet food including: Canned food, Fresh food, and Raw food(freeze dried included.) If you're feeding your kitten with 2 or more types of food, do make sure to feed them with at least 6 hrs in-between each type of food. Doing this will make you kitten less likely to have an upset stomach, which means diarrhea.
1. Dry Food
Dry food has advantages like: easy to store and feed, and disadvantages like: kittens fed with 100% dry food has lower water intake compared to ones fed with wet food. We do not recommend you feeding your kittens 100% dry food, if possible please also supply any type of wet food along with it. (P.S. never mix dry food and wet food together, always feed in separate bowls!!)
Nature’s Variety Instinct Kitten Food
Fromm Kitten Food
Orijen Cat & Kitten Food
2. Canned Food
Canned food as a type of wet food, is easy to store and feed, also rich in moisture. The disadvantage is it should be finished as soon as can is opened. Seal and store any unused portion in fridge, make sure it's finished in 48 hrs after opening. There are various types of canned food, some are for meal purpose, some are for supplement feeding purpose(or snack.) You want to make sure you get the right type of canned food so your kittens will receive all the nutrition they need.
Canned Food for meal purpose
To identify if a canned food is for meal purpose, simply look for feeding guidelines that tells you how much and how many times you should feed it to your cat.
Canned Food for supplement/snack purpose
To identify if a canned food is for supplement/snack purpose, the package should say "it is for supplemental feeding only" or similar statements.
Nature's Variety Instinct Kitten Food
Currently used to feed CreamTofu kittens.
Instinct® Ultimate Protein Real Chicken Recipe
Currently used to feed CreamTofu kittens.
Ziwi Peak Canned Food
3. Fresh Food
Fresh food is made with cooked fresh produce, it is sealed in separate packages, frozen for freshness, then sold to customers. They're rich in nutrition and moisture. One disadvantage of this type of food is it takes a lot of space of your freezer for storage. And defrost in the refrigerator is required before feeding to kittens. Seal and store any unused portion in fridge, make sure it's finished in 48 hrs after opening. Fresh food is usually bought with subscription from commercial sellers, rarely found in local grocery or pet stores.
NOMNOM
I used to subscribe their food, but I stopped. Not because of the food quality or anything, with so many cats at home this type of subscription is too much for my budget. Food itself is pretty good. One thing that triggers me is they have vegetables like carrots in their formula. Cats can hardly digest vegetables. They come out the same look they went into the body. (I saw little cubes of carrots in my cats' poop.) In my personal opinion, NOMNOM might have added vegetables so the food looks more appealing to pet parents and can also reduce budget.
Be aware: there was a recent recall for this brand. Again, please do some research and think thoroughly before making a decision.
Smalls
4. Raw Food
There are two types of raw food: freeze dried raw, and frozen raw. They're rich in nutrition.
Freeze dried food has had all its moisture sucked out through freezing temperatures and a multi-step drying process. They can be plumped back up by simply adding water. Can also be given without adding water, but I personally encourage adding in water for extra water intake.
Frozen raw is made with fresh meat with bone-in. Basically it is made through grinding meat, bones, livers, etc. There will also be other essential nutrition added to make it a balanced diet, such as taurine, VB, VE, etc. One disadvantage of this type of food is it takes a lot of space of your freezer for storage. And defrost in the refrigerator is required before feeding to kittens. Seal and store any unused portion in fridge, make sure it's finished in 48 hrs after opening.
There are various types of raw food on the market. Freeze dried ones can be easily find in local pet stores or online retailers. Frozen raw food is usually sold by online retailers with subscriptions. Both types of raw food are not cheap to purchase. For the best nutrition intaking result, I personally recommend feeding your cat with raw food. In CreamTofu Cattery we feed our kittens with home-made frozen raw food, it is way cheaper and better.
Recipes are available upon request.
Stella & Chewy Freeze Dried Raw
Currently fed to CreamTofu kitties.
Primal Freeze Dried Nuggets
WeFeedRaw
I used subscribe their raw food. Stopped because of budget issues, food itself is great.
5. Personal Opinions
I have introduced basically all kinds of cat food available in the market, my personal rankings are below:
Nutritious: Raw>Fresh>Canned>Dry
Moisture: Raw=Fresh=Canned>>>Dry
Smelly poop (from most smelly to least): Dry>>>Canned>Fresh=Raw
Budget: Raw=Fresh>Canned>Dry>Homemade Raw
Personal Overall Ranking: Raw>Fresh>Canned>>>Dry
Every single statement above is just my suggestions and opinions based on personal experiences, please select and purchase according to your actual situation.
6. Be Aware
WARNING: We highly DISENCOURAGE our pet parents to purchase following food brands and types of food:
Hill's, Royal Canin, Purina, Fancy Feast, Friskies etc. Or those included grain in their formula, and ones that don't have meat has the primary ingredient.
Cat as pure carnivore, will have the best nutrition consumption from meat. The ingredients list on packages of pet food are listed with portions of ingredient used from highest to lowest. If meat is not the primary ingredient, but instead the primary ingredient is some type of grain, meat by-product, or some type of meat meals, etc, please DO NOT purchase and feed it to your cat. I personally would never feed any of my cats with those food. One easy way to recognize if grain is contained: check if the package says "grain-free".