Kitten food is obviously an item that we would want to choose, wisely, for the benefit of our little friend’s nutritional best interest, as well as something he will enjoy. If you haven’t noticed, there are several brands of this food for different types of kittens as well as having different nutritional values. Vitamins are an essential part of helping a kitten to grow into a strong, healthy adult feline. First, let’s take a look at the various brands of these foods available on the market.
Even though “grocery store” brand kitten food may be less expensive than what you may find at a pet store, the pet store brands are much better, in quality. For young kittens that either will not or cannot suckle from their mother, or the mother is no longer with the baby, there is a great liquid milk replacer, made by KMR™. This is much similar to the human infant formulas that we give to our children, when they’re not nursing from their mothers. For extra pleasurable flavor, Blue Buffalo Spa™ Select offers a very nutritional “Chicken and Brown Rice” flavored formula. If you’d prefer to give your kitten canned (moist) food as opposed to dry food, Royal Canin™ offers “Instinctive” Kitten and Babycat foods.
When you purchase kitten food, you most DEFINITELY want to avoid buying adult cat food. You wouldn’t feed you 5 or 6 month old child some spicy spaghetti, that you made; instead you’d feed her baby food, according to her age. Just like humans, a kitten’s digestive system is not well enough developed, to be able to handle harsher foods that older cats would be eating. Also avoid any foods that contain any types of bi-products, for the same reason; digestion. Instead, read the ingredients and look for the first ingredient to be some sort of meat product, such as chicken or veal; kittens need a lot of protein, to help them grow and develop properly.
Kitten food has a lot more nutrients that a growing kitten needs to develop, properly, such as fat, fiber, carbohydrates, etc. There is a common misconception that dry food is better for ANY animal’s digestive system, but quite the contrary; canned food holds better nutritional value. Allow me to explain: All foods for kittens contain a percentage of moisture (empty calories). Let’s imagine taking all of the moisture or water out of dry food. Say there is 10% moisture that we omit, leaving the “dry matter” at 90%. If the most important ingredient, protein, is 20%, then you can divide that 20% by the 90% to get 22%, protein per pound of dry matter.
Now with canned kitten food, there’s obviously more moisture or water than dry matter. If there’s 80% moisture or water and 20% dry matter and 5% protein, calculate the canned food the same way; 5% protein divided by 20% would be 25% protein per dry matter. Since the canned food provides more protein per pound of dry matter than does the dry food, the canned food although better in nutritional quality, is actually less expensive, pre pound as well. So, “getting what you pay for” isn’t ALWAYS “bad”!
Some web sites that you can browse, to learn more about what are the least expensive and still the best in nutritional value kitten food are: www.petsmart.com, www.fancyfeast.com and www.peteducation.com. You can also visit your local Pet Smart™, Animal House™ or local pet retailer in your area.