@floralies - I think there's good and bad in both wet food and dry food. Some sorts are rubbish, some are not... and in general, you get what you pay for. You'll need proper kitten food at the moment, which is a different composition from the adult sort. My moggie was brought up on dried food so when we adopted her we carried on with (better quality) dried stuff, until she started getting a sensitive stomach in her old age. Now she's on horribly expensive, vet prescribed, "sensitivity control" wet food pouches to try to put weight back on her. If you do feed dry food, don't forget she'll need plenty of water. Well done you for taking her on!
@Nollie - thank you very much for passing on your experiences. Very useful as we start to do our planning...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
@floralies How kind you are! I am sure you won't regret it. My cat has to be fed on wet food in pouches as he never drinks anything so if he just had dried food he would become dehydrated. He does have the odd dried food for a change. As @Liriodendron says you will need to use kitten food to start with and then gradually progress to adult food later. Do you live in a quiet area or is there a main road nearby? If there is a lot of traffic it may be an idea to keep her as a house cat if that's possible. You will soon work out what she likes. She will let you know I'm sure. Enjoy
Thanks @Liriodendron and @Fran IOM, I think at the moment we will keep her on the dried kitten food, she drinks plenty of water. The vet has suggested 40g a day, which is very hard to keep to and she thinks so too! We are in a fairly quiet area but our road tends to be a rather fast rat run although not directly outside our house.
This is my son's cat - though we "share him" since, when son in too busy at work, we have him for some weeks at a time. We've had him since Christmas - was due to go home this past weekend, but the bad weather put paid to that. so the bonus is that we have him for an extra week! Named Horus, he is as gentle as a lamb, with a lovely personality although he wasn't too impressed with his Santa hat!
Well done Floralies. Lots of fun to come. I feed our pair on a mix of dry and wet and make sure neither has fish in after seeing a BBC prog on cats and kidney illness which they all seem to get at about 15 yrs old now. Seems they can't process the teeny bits of arsenic present in fish and it knackers their kidneys.
This pair get two small tins of wet food a day divided between them and a bowl of dry biscuits for snacking in between. If they get fussy about the wet I just remove the dry. Dry food is good for their teeth and gums.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Horus is so handsome! Those white bits look so soft. My instinct tells me that a mix of wet and dry food gives the best of both worlds. My vet thinks an all dry diet is fine (and easy) and I am currently weaning them to an anti-hairball dry mix but I still give a pouch or two between them each day. I can’t leave their daily allowance of kibbles out as they tend to scoff the lot and still think they are entitled to a supper! Mine are ‘apparently’ slightly overweight so I try to stick to measured amounts but sometimes they just mew for more.
Our pair are due for their annual jabs this Thursday and no doubt we'll be told they are fat but it's winter and, in my experience, pussies do put on blubber in winter for insulation and because they are less active. Even busy and usually Slim Minstrel is rotund this year. Fat Boy Cosmos has always been less active and podgier cos he has dodgy paw pads that get injured very easily.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
@floralies, congratulations on your new kitten! The right early diet is critical to her future development and health, especially if she was abandoned before fully weaned. Most European vets push dried cat food because they have a commercial incentive to do so, but its not ideal as its dried at very high temperatures and can cause kidney problems later in life. I would feed a high quality, high protien wet kitten food, making sure it has added taurine, weaning her off the dried food by mixing it with the wet to begin with. If you stick to the dry food, at least wet it down - she will be drinking a lot to make up for the lack of natural moisture in the dry stuff. Some kitten formula milk might not be a bad idea, but never feed cows or other type of meat is bad for their digestion.
Kittens need to feed little and often when so young, feed small amountd four times a day or leave some food out and let her self-regulate, unless you see her really overeating. As she gets older you can reduce feeding intervals. When she is older you can wean her back onto the dry stuff if you find it more convenient, but supplent her diet with some fresh meat (cats have much higher protien needs than dogs) and always have water next to the dry food. Vary her diet with a couple of brands/flavours, cats are stubborn creatures and if she gets used to just one brand/flavour she will likely then refuse to eat anything else.
Oh, and price is no indicator of quality - the so called veterinary foods are overpriced rubbish.
Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
@Nollie - I accept that a lot of expensive cat food is just over-hyped, advertised etc - but how is the consumer to choose? Very cheap cat food, in my experience of reading the label, seems to have a lot of "filler" and not so much protein in it.
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
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@Nollie - thank you very much for passing on your experiences. Very useful as we start to do our planning...
Well done Floralies. Lots of fun to come. I feed our pair on a mix of dry and wet and make sure neither has fish in after seeing a BBC prog on cats and kidney illness which they all seem to get at about 15 yrs old now. Seems they can't process the teeny bits of arsenic present in fish and it knackers their kidneys.
This pair get two small tins of wet food a day divided between them and a bowl of dry biscuits for snacking in between. If they get fussy about the wet I just remove the dry. Dry food is good for their teeth and gums.
My instinct tells me that a mix of wet and dry food gives the best of both worlds. My vet thinks an all dry diet is fine (and easy) and I am currently weaning them to an anti-hairball dry mix but I still give a pouch or two between them each day. I can’t leave their daily allowance of kibbles out as they tend to scoff the lot and still think they are entitled to a supper! Mine are ‘apparently’ slightly overweight so I try to stick to measured amounts but sometimes they just mew for more.
Kittens need to feed little and often when so young, feed small amountd four times a day or leave some food out and let her self-regulate, unless you see her really overeating. As she gets older you can reduce feeding intervals. When she is older you can wean her back onto the dry stuff if you find it more convenient, but supplent her diet with some fresh meat (cats have much higher protien needs than dogs) and always have water next to the dry food. Vary her diet with a couple of brands/flavours, cats are stubborn creatures and if she gets used to just one brand/flavour she will likely then refuse to eat anything else.
Oh, and price is no indicator of quality - the so called veterinary foods are overpriced rubbish.