I see there are several threads on nutrition but I have been researching tirelessly for the past 3 nights and I just cant do it anymore!

I refuse to buy commercial crappy cat foods and will be going for a natural one. there are a lot out there and I know that I need one that is around 80% meat though this is hard to find and also I'm not made of money (at the moment!!) so although I am willing to pay for good quality I do have a limit!! Lily's Kitchen looks amazing but at over £1 per 100g tray it could become too costly for us depending on how much our kitty consumes (am waiting for my friend to get back to me as they are her cats babies so she will know what they have been eating).

nature's:menu was someones second suggestion (she seemed to know what she was talking about) but I am confused as...

Ingredients

Chicken min. 71%. Minerals. Various sugars.
Typical Analysis

Protein: 12.0%, Oil: 7.0%, Fibre: 0.2%, Ash: 2.5%, Moisture: 81.0%. Vit.A: 2000 I.U./Kg, Vit.D3: 200 I.U./Kg, e Vit.E (alfatocoferol): 16mg/Kg. Taurin: 300 mg/Kg.

yet James Wellbeloved has far less meat content but states:

Ingredients and analysis

Ingredients: White rice (min 26%), turkey meat meal (min 26%), turkey fat, maize gluten, potato protein (min 9%), poultry gravy, tomato pomace, omega-3 oil supplement, chicory extract, carrot, cranberry extract (min 0.05%), DL methionine, lysine hydrochloride, taurine, threonine, zinc methionate, yucca extract, rosemary oil.

Typical analysis: Protein 32%, oil 20%, ash 7%, fibre 1.5%.

how is it possible it has so much more protein/oil/ash when contains so much less meat?

My kitten will be indoor for the forseable future as I live in an apartment. Hope to get a ground floor or even a house over the next couple of years but until then I worry about her not being out and munching on grass and hunting etc.

I am just confused and dont know what to pick. I need to decide ASAP as away for easter weekend and picking up kitty early to mid next week so not much time to get food in!

She will be 12 weeks old. How much roughly should she eat (I appreciate every cat is different but just on average) this would help me work out costs. I was thinking wet food morning and evening and biscuits/dry kibbles in the day? or is that too much or wrong?! Ah I thought this would be easier but my family cat grew up on whiskas rubbish because my parents just thought it was OK so I am doing this all from scratch with no advice! so need it here!

thank you and sorry to go on for so long. hope it makes sense! any help/advice appreciated. Pixie.

Lilys Kitchen is good but expensive compared to its meat content. One of my kittens has been on Bozita since 13 weeks and has been fine, and I dont find it particularly expensive (all wet) Zooplus.com is what I use for catfood as pet stores simply dont have enough range.

If you really want the best food, my preference would be for wet, and to not bother with dry if you dont have to. I used to work 8-4, so I would feed in the morning, when I got in from work, and then before bed, and they were fine with that. Mine eat about 400g a day from a mixture of brands (Bozita, Grau, and Animonda. They have had some smilla but im cutting that out, but it is good and cheaper than the other 3) 400g is higher than the feeding recommendation of Grau but they tend to only have 300g of that, and they are still kittens so to a certain extent can have a bit more food.

Hi and welcome to the forum.This is a question for someone more clued up ,like hobbs our own food guru.At this time of night though you probably wont get many replies.I take it you have read the a-z lists hobbs has compiled.They do explain the differences in the various foods available.For the first week or two you will need to stick with the food your kitten has been used to so buy enough of that to start with.Most members of PF preferr to feed wet food rather than dry,Once you have decided what food you would like your kitten to move on to then you start very slowly to add it to the food it is having.As there is very little difference between kitten and adult food there is no need to stick with kitten food.If you are willing to buy on line from the likes of Zooplus you will find a vast amount of good quality ,high meat content wet foods available.I have added a link to the a-z lists incase you have missed them A-Z of wet food for cats
A-Z of dry food for cats

__________________

Agree with everything Buffie said.

Also kittens eat anything between 200g and 600g a day, to give you an idea Kittens thrive when fed as much as they want.

__________________

Hiya Pixie, congrats on your kitten and good on you for trying to find her a good food.

But hun, you cannot compare those two foods - one (NM) is a wet food, JWB is a dry food - without first taking into account the differing amounts of moisture that those foods contain.

When you take moisture out of the equation, then NM actually has a protein content of 63.2%, while JWB only has 34% protein. So, quite a difference per 100g.

You could make your life a lot easier if you are prepared to buy the food online - at zooplus, who have by far the biggest range of wet and dry cat food in the country and who also stock some of the best cat food that your money can buy. I am thinking in particular about Grau Gourmet but they also sell Animonda Carny, and Bozita pate tetrapaks or tins.

However, you are best off feeding her the food that she was weaned on for the first couple of weeks or so when she comes to you. Then you can slowly start to change her over to a food of your choice.

Hope that helps

Thanks so much for your reply. I was actually looking at your list of foods the other night.

I am willing to buy online my concern at the mo is being able to find one single tin/pouch to make sure she actually likes it before i order a whole lot and to buy one tin and pay several pounds postage is pretty mad!

My friend has actually fed the kittens a number of different foods but they have still been taking from their mommy so not eating too much kitty food. I can find out what she has them on at this moment.

I have found several good brands in natural food stores in london but they dont stock the whole range only one or two of the adult options. I think to be honest I am going to contact my chosen companies and ask them if they can send a sample or reduce the postage cost for one tin just so i can try her on it.

I'm probably worried for nothing as apparantly so far the kittens have taken to all foods fed! But I cant help but worry I will spend £20 just to get free postage and find she hates it!

I will see if i can find any local stores selling those you suggested and go from there!

Thanks again!

Hey, I've heard from a vet that actually wet food can be bad for kittens/cats digestive systems and can cause diarrhoea like symptoms and also that dry food is better for their teeth... don't want to tread on any toes even though its conflicting with previous posts... sorry its just what I have come across... I'm also looking for the best type of kitten food as we're getting a new kitten soon ... I'm thinking of getting cheap offcuts from the fish mongers and mayb butchers... any thoughts on that?! All the best, Beth

Your vet knows nothing! Vets in general have very little knowledge on nutrition. Look at the food on a vets shelf, look at what they recommend. Interesting that they recommend exactly what they sell, who will also happen to be the people who led the one nutrition seminar the vets will have had...

Kibble, unless specifically designed for helping teeth, does nothing to help cats teeth. Much like us eat crunchy biscuits of crisps doesnt help our teeth. The kibble breaks on contact with teeth or is swallowed whole. The only thing that can help is a good meaty bone or chunk of raw meat, or brushing them.

Diarrhoea in kittens is caused by them not being able to digest the food, ie grains, in kibble. Diarrhoea is way more common on a kibble diet. People seem to assume 'sloppy food causes sloppy poo' but that is simply not the case.

The best adult food is the best kitten food. There is no need for a 'kitten' specific food. And wet is a billion times better than dry, in every way, as it has literally no health benefits, and wet has plenty.

__________________

Also dry food is implicated in causing health problems in cats such as UTI's. Cats often don't drink enough water and if they have a dry food diet they are not getting moisture from their food either. Additives such as grains [which make up a large part of dry food] can cause problems as well. Cats are not meant to eat such things and can lead to IBD. Dry food if anything is more likely to cause diarrhoea because of these additives. If you going to feed dry make sure if is grain free

If you feed a good quality wet food [look at the A-Z} then you don't need to feed kitten food as it is high in calories, you just need to feed more often for a kitten.

I'm with the others on the foreign wet foods brands - I initially changed my kittens over from whiskas to NM and HiLife at about 12 weeks. A few weeks later I discovered zooplus ad since then they've had a variety of animonda carny, bozita (all types), smilla and very rarely terra felis. I haven't bothered to feed kitten foods even with the brands that make them (like NM).

I do feed a small amount of dry, I use Applaws chicken and salmon - which is the easiest to find in the shops if you're not keen on shopping online. Otherwise Orijen or Acana are good.

I mainly wanted to say that if you are thinking about your cat not going outside to eat grass and hunt - I can highly recommend growing your own cat grass and buying mice and day old chicks. My boys get a whole prey item 2-3 times a week as a treat, good for their teeth too!

__________________
"For all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams it is still a beautiful world"