Cat Nutrition : How To Make Sure Your Cat Gets What She Needs

Cat Nutrition : How To Make Sure Your Cat Gets What She Needs

If you have a new kitten, you may be tempted to just dump some cat food in a bowl and get on with your life. While that may be convenient to you, it could spell disaster to your feline friend. Certainly, you need to put in a little bit more effort to it. The truth is, in order to keep your kitty healthy, you will need to be sure that you meet all of her nutritional needs.

Just like any mammal baby, for the first few weeks of a cat's life, she received all of her nutrition from her mother. But as she approached four to six weeks of age, the breeder probably began supplementing the mother cat's milk with canned cat food or with hard kitten chow moistened with water. By eight weeks of age, she was weaned and eating a diet of kitty food.

You should be able to get some info on or even the remainder of the food your kitten was eating before you brought her home from the breeder. So you have an idea of what type of food she was eating then. You may want to mix some of the remaining food from the breeder with whatever new food you buy from now on. This will help your kitten adjust.

Note that your kitten needs to eat quite a bit of food because she is growing incredibly fast from the age of eight weeks to about six months. That means she will need to eat more than once a day. Having four small meals a day is best since kitten do not have very large stomachs, but need plenty of fuel. Water is also very important so you should give her an unlimited water supply.

After six months of age, your kitten's rate of growth slows down dramatically. She will become a bit less active too. At this time, you can reduce her feedings to two to three meals a day but remember not to change his food from kitten chow to adult food just yet. After all, she is still a growing cat.

On hitting the age of one, your cat can finally eat adult cat food. Adult cats usually eat only when they are hungry. So you can simply keep his dish filled with dry food. In the even that he overeats and starts to grow overweight, you will need to feed him twice a day instead. If you feed your cat canned food, you should still offer dry food as well, since canned food should not be left out for your cat to eat all day.

Make it a point to shop for kitty foods that have the protein source in the first few ingredients. Ensure that the food is well balanced. If your cat has health problems, such as hair balls or urinary tract infections, you should look for cat foods that help control these problems.

While it may be true that most cats prefer soft food, you can try giving them some dry food occasionally as these can help them maintain better dental health. If your cat refuses to eat dry food, you may want to have your dentist to check his teeth every year or so to be sure they are not too covered in tartar.

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