Sunday, February 14, 2010

What to feed Kittens


What to feed Kittens?
I currently live in Mongolia and will be getting a 3 month old kitten very soon. What are some very easy homemade kitten food recipes? What in general should I feed my kitten? What kind of milk should I give it? Water? Any info would be great! Thank in advance!
Cats - 6 Answers
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1 :
kittens
2 :
Ingredients: 1 Tbsp. nonfat dry milk 3 medium eggs 3 Tbsp. cottage cheese 2 Tbsp. grated veggies Mix together the milk powder with a small amount of water; add the eggs and beat well. Pour into a small non-stick frying pan and cook on medium low until done. Flip over and spread the cottage cheese and veggies over half the top. Fold like an omlet. Cool and cut to bite-sized pieces to serve. Almost-Spot's Stew¹ Ingredients: 1 whole chicken, preferably "free range" or packaged with "no hormones or antibiotics" on the label 2 cups brown rice 6 stalks celery 8 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled 2 or 3 yellow squash 2 or 3 zucchini 1 small broccoli crown handful of green beans² Wash chicken, then cover with water in a large stew pot. Cut vegetables into pieces and add to pot. Add rice. Cook until chicken almost falls off the bone and vegetables are tender. Completely debone the chicken. This is extremely important, as cooked chicken bones can splinter and cause serious intestinal damage. Pour the stew into a blender and blend or chop until mixture is coarse (about bite-sized). Freeze in meal-sized plastic bags. In the movies, cats love a bowl of cold milk. In the real world, giving a cat milk can do more harm than good. While milk might seem like a natural choice for your cat, the truth is that cow’s milk offers no nutritional value for cats, and it can cause digestive problems in many. The reason is that most cats develop intolerance to lactose shortly after they are weaned. This means that they are unable to digest the sugars that occur naturally in milk. This causes problems that include diarrhea and other unpleasant digestive problems. Some people think that cats need to have milk in order to get all the necessary nutrients. This is not true. In fact, cow’s milk does nothing to meet a cat’s nutritional needs. If a cat was fed only milk, it would not be able to survive. Feral cats provide proof that cats do not need milk to be healthy, as wild cats do not usually have the opportunity to drink cow’s milk. As long as your cat is eating a high quality food, and has access to clean fresh water, she is getting all that she needs. Milk alone is not a sufficient diet for any cat, and should never be given in place of food OR in place of water. Replacing a cat’s food or water with milk can cause your cat to become malnourished.
3 :
my cat never got fed any milk or anything special. the tiniest cat food or can cat food (usually fish or chicken flavored) is all we used. and water to drink. if this dsnt sound right to you then dont listen to me. try a little tiny dropper with some luke warm milk in it. slowly drizzle it into their mouths.
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milck
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Do NOT feed your kitten only cows milk. Shortly after the cat is weaned most develop intolerance to lactose. They will lack the enzymes in their digestive track to break down the sugars in the milk and will cause them diarrhea and digestive problems. A bit is fine, but not in large quantities. Each cat is different, but just fresh clean water and cat food is suffice. Mix of some wet with dry food as a treat once in awhile is good, but don't always feed it wet food it's not that great for their teeth. See if your cat likes raw brocolli. Mine goes CRAZY for it! If you really want to feed your kitten milk, there should be special cat milk that you can buy at pet stores, but be warned, stay away from cows milk as best you can.
6 :
The kitten food industry is essentially a con, the only difference is that kitten food is smaller, so therefore easier to eat, and has more calories due to the fact that kittens are growing. Have you considered a raw food diet? Cooking depletes many nutrients so is not advisable IMO, and cooking the food is also more work. It's not rocket science, but as you are controlling what your kitten eats it is quite an undertaking .A kitten of 3 months will have no problem with eating raw meat, this is a species appropriate diet, so therefore optimum IMO. All you need to do with homemade food, either raw or cooked, is to balance the food correctly. Just follow the 80-10-10 rule. This is 80% muscle meat such as chicken, pork, lamb, turkey, beef etc (of which up to and including 15% heart), 10% offal such as kidney, tongue, neck, cheeks (of which 5% must be liver) and 10% bone. With kittens they can't always handle bone, so a sprinkling of crushed eggshell over each meal will suffice. The only things which you might want to add is some salmon oil (for omega 3) or just feed fish once a week, and taurine which is available in powdered form. Taurine (found in red meat) in cat's, unlike humans, cannot be synthesized, so too much is preferable to too little, (it aids eye health so is very important) if too much is given it is just secreted out of urine anyway. You can add this to food or water. There is an excellent yahoo group called raw cats which will be able to help, so if you consider this route go there. As regards to the milk, yes human grade milk is a no-no, you can get specific kitten milk at pet shops, or alternatively don't worry about it. Also remember that as a kitten is growing it can eat as much as it likes, within reason of course! If you have anymore questions feel free to e-mail or IM me.






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