Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey everyone! I just adopted a wonderful little white kitten over the weekend. He is used to eating Purina One kitten food, but I want something better for him than commercial food. Can anyone suggest a good, preferrably holistic type food for this little guy? My vet said Eukanuba, which is a great food I am sure (working for a vet for a year and sitting through a 2 hour seminar on the stuff, I guess you get a little brainwashed into thinking its good, so who knows?). Anyway Lucaya (Luke for short) is almost 3 months old and just a little angel, he's so sweet! I havent had a kitten since I was 2 (I recently just lost her after being part of my life for almost 19 yrs, RIP Kiki) so my views on cat food have changed QUITE a bit since then! I no longer think its good to feed the cat pizza, french fries (that was Kiki's fave food), any probably anything else I ever ate as a child, lol. I want to make sure I do everything right for this little guy. I'm not sure if I want to go the raw-food diet path, I'd still like something in kibble form. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Melody & Lucaya

>>I want to make sure I do everything right for this little guy. I'm not sure if I want to go the raw-food diet path, I'd still like something in kibble form. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Hi, congrats on your new kitten!

Since you said you're not SURE if you want to go the raw food path, but didn't absolutely rule it out, let me put in a plug for it.

I've fed my cats and dogs raw now for almost 20 years. I started with my cats, one of whom was very ill, and was just blown away by the benefits it had for all my cats... which is what motivated me to make the switch for my dogs, too, despite that fact that their much greater size made it much more expensive.

I would never even consider going back and think it is the absolutely best way to feed a cat (assuming you have a good diet, of course - not all raw diets are equally good!).

There is also a lot of ground between kibble, which is the worst thing for cats (I'll say why in a minute) and a complete raw homemade diet. There are canned foods, cooked homemade diets, and raw commercial diets. Each of those is better for a cat than kibble.

The problem with kibble is that, in order to hold its kibbled shape, it needs a certain amount of starch. Your cat, however, has no dietary requirement for starch, or carbohydrate in any form, at all. And research suggests that feeding kibble to cats may contribute to kidney disease, urinary tract disease, and diabetes in cats. (Debra L. Zoran, DVM, PhD, DACVIM, "The carnivore connection to nutrition in cats," Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, December 1, 2002.)

So I'd encourage you to consider foods other than kibble, and to minimize or eliminate all grains in the diet. Nature's Variety makes a canned cat food that has only 5 percent vegetables in it, no grains, and is complete and balanced. That might be a good choice. And of course there are raw frozen formulations that are good for cats as well, with a small amount of vegetables and no grains.

If you decide to pursue the idea of feeding a homemade diet, I highly recommend the book Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs and Cats.

I wish you all the best with your new kitten and your decision!
-----
Christie Keith
Caber Feidh Scottish Deerhounds
Holistic Husbandry since 1986
Meet the Felines!

The dry kitten food that I LOVE is Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul kitten formula. My cats LOVE this brand and it is all natural and very good for them. We used to eat Lick Your Chops, but they are all in better condition with the Chicken Soup. They use several different protein sources and it tastes great.

As far as canned, I would say Wellness or Felidae. These are two of the very best canned foods on the market, and both are yummy (to the cats that is, not me!). The felidae is a cat/kitten formula with chicken, turkey, lamb and fish in chicken broth. The Wellness (which is what we eat for canned) is also very good. They have several flavors in the cat/all life stagesm (chicken, turkey, chicken/herring, turkey/salmon and beef/chicken) but only one in the specific kitten formula. Kola grew up eating mostly the cat kind because that's what the big guys eat, plus I love to give them variety. Personally I think that feeding an all life stages canned food with dry kitten food is very good. Kola was the only one of my cats who didn't kind of pork out towards the end of kittenhood and I think the mixing of varieties helped with that.

I would just stay away from anything you can find in a grocery store. Most of these super premium all-natural foods are only at small pet stores, but if you go to the website they can tell you where to get it or you can order it online. Good luck!
-----
-Martha
Kuma
Bubba, formerly known as "Ducky"
and
Macaroni
And Now
Kola, the new fizzy kitten that has a tendency to go flat!

Also look into Innova canned food. There is a site that compares all the food and ingredients.
compare foods

-----
Jaime owned by
Mya the dog
and the cats:Crash, Moxie, Gabby and sometimes Tucker

You, my dear are going to get as many answers as you do posts. Everyone thinks their food for their babies is the best ever and I am just going to suggest that you read them all and then decide. I have 17 cats and they get a variety of foods. Purina Kitten Chow for kittens, Iams hairball for 2 who will eat nothing else, Science Senior for the elders and Friskies because they all love it. They also get 1/3 a can of Friskies each as their breakfast. They do also get some of mine when they want. They all seem to do very well on this odd mix of food
-----
PHWildCat/Tessa and 17 cats, 1 dog and even a hamster
Cat Board Monitor and Chat Host
Pet Hobbyist
A house without cats is like a garden without flowers

>>You, my dear are going to get as many answers as you do posts.

I have to agree with WildCat on this point so here is my 2 cent for what it's worth:

Personally I feed my pregnant/lactating queens and my kittens Purina One Kitten Growth and Devlopment dry food along with Friskies wet food (the loaf kind, never the shreded kind or chunky in gravy) Turkish Angora (Turkey) kittens are infamous for being hard to keep weight on since they are so highly active and tend to burn through a lot of calories. This combination seems to help them keep their weight nicely. When the kittens are old enough, usually about 8 months, I slowly (key word here *SLOWLY*) switch the kittens over to Purina One adult dry food (the chicken varity) by mixing it with the kitten food. I gradually increase the adult food in the mixture until the kitten food is eliminated from their diet thus avoiding upset tummies and all that. Hope this helps!

PURRS!!!!
Tricia
Da-Katz
Tonkinese &
Turkish Angoras