Thankyou for the reply. In hindsight I should of asked my friend for a couple of scoops worth before buying, her cats have been fine on Burns and I giess if I don't try it I'll never know eh? I think what I'll do is store it for a couple of months then try introducing it when the kittens are established on food.

Thankyou
Nicola x

But isn't that just the cat version of "we never had all this fancy food in my day; we just had roast beef and lots of potatoes, and it never did us any harm"? The concept of "no harm" is nebulous, and just because A worked in the past, it doesn't mean that B won't work better in the future.

since kitten food with it's higher nutrition values etc has been introduced cats have been able to get a better, healthier start in life and this can help them then live longer... my boys are bigger, healthier and much better condition than next door who has always fed cheap adult food to her cat who is same age as Indy.

It may be hyped a lot, but so is senior food that is lower in fat etc... in the last 20-25 years with better foods and kitten food coming onto the market the average lifespan of a cat has rocketed from 12-15 years to 16-25 years

Isn't that the same logical fallacy as the other person posted? Are we basically keeping surrogate wild cats in our houses, or are we accepting that a domestic cat is distinct in both needs and nature?

Not saying you're wrong about branded kitten food (I'd love to know the real difference in ingredients myself) but it just seems an odd reason to discount it. Your kittens don't really need that blanket or basket, so better shove 'em out in the garden like proper wild cats

If you are only feeding your cats the cheap low protien rubbish that supermarkets offer then yes feed the better quality kitten food and pay through the nose for it. If you are feeding good quality food anyway(60%+ meat), there is plenty of nutritional value in it for a growing kitten. But it is purely your choice.

Not all thing new are good - once cigarettes were endorsed by doctors! Low fat, means high sugar (hence the rise in diabetics), industrialisation means global warming and pollution. There is good and bad in inventions and then there are those in marketing that look for a way to make an easy buck. In my personal opinion cheap cat food and cheap kitten food are all ploys to get the most out of use for the largest profit IRRESPECTIVE of the effect these could have on future health. Yes i am a cynic at times.

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Sorry, I never realised a debate on this subject could get so heated!!

I guess it is true about new not always being best, we had a cat when I was a little girl, she was bought as a present for my sister shortly after my first birthday. Sparky never had any vaccines, was always an outdoor cat, she had 4 or 5 litters of kittens and the first of her going to the vet was after her 20th birthday!!

She lived until 4 months before her 21st, and I can remember her being fed on such foods as Brekkies and Go Cat............ makes you think don't it?

Interesting question And yes, of course our domestic cats are different from wild cats and we should of course not try to replicate the hardships that follow from being a wild cat. They can have all the cat beds they like, we groom them, take them for walks in their harnesses, etc..

However, when it comes to the cats digestive system and nutritional needs, this has not changed and is still the same as the wild cats. True, the wild cat will have a harder time getting their food and might starve - we don't want to replicate that! But, we need to remember what they are designed to eat; birds, mice, any small animal they can get hold of really. Biologically, cats have a very, very limited ability to extract nutrition from anything that's not meat/organs/bone.

Sadly, the commercial cat foods we see today contain a huge amount of cereals, vegetables, grains - have a look at the ingredient list of a dry cat food and you'll see - I had a look at a random Hills pack and Brewers rice was the main ingredient - for a cat that's a carnivore?! This just does not make sense to me.

Kitten food (wet) is generally of a higher quality than adult wet food. But as Spid said, if the adult wet food was of a high quality in the first place, there would be no need for kitten food. As it is, the best choice assuming you want to feed commercial cat food, is a high quality wet food such as HiLife, Bozita, Porta21 - any food with more than 60% meat and no fillers. If that is fed, there's no need for any kitten food because the food will be providing enough nutrition as it is.

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Fit for the sunshine so it followed her, a happy tempered bringer of the best, out of the worst.

Hehe if you think this is heated, you've seen nothing yet!

Sparky reminds me of my grandmother - she's still alive at 94 years of age, she's smoked like a chimney her whole life, sustains herself mostly on chocolate and alcohol and has outlived all of her much healthier friends. There'll always be one person - or cat! - that beats all the odds

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Fit for the sunshine so it followed her, a happy tempered bringer of the best, out of the worst.

My lot are definitely not wildcats............pampered basket kittys more like.

I just wouldn't feed my kittens/cats solely on processed cat food whatever brand it might be. I prefer a varied diet consisting mainly of raw minced beef, some cooked chicken or fish, tinned sardines or mackerel and a small bowl of dry adult food to graze on inbetween.

As with humans, if you feed your cats a variety of good quality food then there should be no need to buy these *special* kitten foods.

Yeah, I'm sure that's the best way. The sloppy Felix/Whiskas pap is nominally "complete", but as we know, it's mass produced as part of the waste meat industry, so it's essentially ground up bones and sinew with cereal and dietary supplements. They might be getting the right stuff on paper, but the actual process of eating is so far removed from a cat's instinctive feeding style (no ripping, slashing or sorting out the "right" bits from the "wrong" bits).

It'd be interesting to hear from a petfood insider... just what *is* the difference between, say, Felix AGAIL normal and Felix AGAIL kitten?

[Interestingly, the most dramatic response I got from my stupidly fussy and obsessed-with-sloppy-pap 10-month-old male was when I gave him Asda's own Tiger Select (the one in foil trays, not sachets). He fell on it like a savage... I'm sure the real chunks of ham had something to do with it.]