kittens and feeding of

[Tengu]

Well, I was planning to get a cat....

...came home from work with a couple of kittens.

They seem well behaived enough but they eat like lions.

I am dubious about feeding them smelly muck from a tin that cats are supposed to love (and often dont)

I can scrounge a load of stuff from work, chicken, lamb, the odd prawn. (they already like my tandori chicken)

does anyone know any nice recipes that both humans and cats can eat?

Im sure this two will love my stews and I can try to teach them to eat rice. Im not sure about veg, cats are often very funny on veg.

what about fish? but the fish that is cheap is often stuff like smoked fish or sardines in oil. I think a little would be fine for adult cats...none too sure about feeding oily fish to a kitten though.

they love milk (being farm cats) despite what you hear about milk being unsuited to them

they hate being inside. (I will get them used to me petting them and come to call before any adventures outside.)

 

[Martyn]

Mice & birds usually go down well.

Seriously though, I wouldnt feed em too much posh stuff, especially as kittens. All that rich food will give em the squits. It'll also turn em into food snobs. You'll soon get fed up of feeding em scraps from your plate and you'll want em to eat their own food. Cheap, tinned cat-food works just fine.

 

[outdoorgirl]

Cats are carnivores - while they may put up with rice, cereals and veg in tinned or dry cat food, what they really want is meat, fat, gristle, fur, feather and bone... They'll eat it cooked but prefer it raw (yuk). If they had grown up as farm cats they would have existed on whatever they could catch - mice, rats, birds and so on. They will eat grass and other vegetable matter but usually only if they want to sick something up.

Assuming you don't have breeding pens for chicks, mice, guinea pigs or rabbits, probably the best thing would be to start them on small fish (whitebait or sardines, but not in tomato sauce), and bits of chicken, until they're big enough to crunch up anything bigger.

I always used to give mine the offcuts from any meat or fish I was preparing to cook; my ex-farm cats have always lived to ripe old ages. The last one I have left now is 19 and still going strong.

ODG

 

[Toddy]

Not a good idea to feed them raw meat, it's appalling the amount of things they can pick up from it and I presume you want your pets to live longer than the feral average of about 2 years , or too much oily or fatty stuff either.....you'll just have to clean the litter tray a h3ll of a lot.
Cats do seem to like rice cooked in milk all of mine have devoured rice pudding, raisins and all
Cooked chicken goes down well, as does mince.....they like gravy with their food....mine gets the Whiskas pouches and Go-Cat crunchie things when there's nothing else on offer, and she seems to thrive on it. She also has a thing for cold boiled potatoes, scones and cake, and if they can be scavenged from the back lawn, having been thrown out for the birds, so much the better Tamsin does eat mice and the very occasional bird, but an awful lot more moths than you'd think a cat would like It's astonishing really the things a grey & white furry beastie will happily eat
Kittens won't yet have big enough back teeth to chop (cats don't really chew) meat so flake stuff for them for a while.

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[British Red]

Many cats are lactose intollerant and it really isn't a part of their natural diet. Neither is rice so I need to disagree with Toddy on this one (sorry mate). Cats are naturally carnivorous and should live on a diet of meat and fish. If you are buying nasty meats of unkown origin, cooking them isn't a bad idea, but beyond that - chopped meat and fish should be enough with occasional vits and cereals. Leave out all the additives. Mind you round here, the cat (not mine) lives predominantly on rat and mouse (good kitty)

Red

 

[Toddy]

I do agree that the milk and rice seems wrong for cats, but I have to say that 40 years of experience with the furry critturs says they do well with it. My present cat refuses milk even when well meaning neighbours offer it to her; I don't because it does seem wrong, but rice pudding thrown out for the birds is devoured eagerly To be honest I've seen cats eat a tremendous variety of foods, from baked beans to peppered mackeral; I reckon given the choice they too like variety
I don't think it's either fair, or right, to make a cat survive on a vegetarian diet but since the preferential part of a carnivore kill is the gut, and as it is usually full of semi digested plant stuff I reckon the beasts get a fair amount of plant stuff naturally so we need to give them that too. Skin of larger prey is usually left alone as are feathers......tiniest parson's nose I've ever seen was on a sparrow one of the cats plucked before it ate the bird .

Cheers,
Toddy

 

[baggins]

Bit of a tricky one there, all of the above are right to a certain degree. How old are the little critters? as the best food for any kits up to about 8 weeks is specialist kitten food, then, as they start to mature, slowly start to mix it with an adult variety. Once (after about 10 weeks), they are on adult cat food (whiskers and the such), again try mixing in a bit of fresh meat, fish or chicken (cooked is better really). You'll soon know what they and thier stomachs prefer. As for drinking, a little milk won't hurt (generally), but water is fine and also doesn't get unpleasant if you do forget to change it.
Good luck and please post up some pikkies, i love the little critters.
Baggins

 

[anthonyyy]

In the long run I think its easier for them and you to get them used to dried cat food. Cats need a much higher quality diet than dogs so its easy for them to get malnurished.
A food I've found good for cats and humans is tinned sardines.

 

[Martyn]

I do agree that the milk and rice seems wrong for cats, but I have to say that 40 years of experience with the furry critturs says they do well with it. My present cat refuses milk even when well meaning neighbours offer it to her; I don't because it does seem wrong, but rice pudding thrown out for the birds is devoured eagerly

I think it's possibly the fat content they are after Toddy. Neither of mine like milk, but they'd both eat butter till they were sick.

They are both 14 years old now and aside from the kitten food they had when they were young, we feed em on whiskas pouches, with a side order of munchies, mixed with Iams. Be warned regarding Iams, they love it, but give it sparingly unless you want an obese cat. One of my cats, the female, is more sedentary than the other and got very fat on Iams because I was too generous with it. I now restrict it quite a lot and mix it with other dried food.

They used to suppliment their diet daily with mice, but dont bother with them much these days.

They do get tidbits of cooked chicken etc, but pretty much exist soley on pouches with gravy and dried food and look very well on it too.

 

[fred gordon]

An aunt of mine had a cat and she fed it nothing but boiled haddock. It lived to be 15! At one time I had 3 cats and they spent most of their time outside. They could catch mice and voles easily and, during the summer, needed very little other cat food. One night we woke to a real racket going on in the kitchen. One of the cats had got stuck in the cat flap trying to bring in a fully grown rabbit. Took us ages to get them both out!

 

[Snufkin]

I feed mine on Iams dried food predominantly with a bit of fish (she's picky and prefers it cooked but I'd try yours on raw first), and meat scraps. She also gets to lick my plate clean after I've eaten if she wants. I only let her do this as she doesn't beg and whine, she just waits patiently. Oh, she also like Ben and Jerrys cookie dough icecream, but then, who doesn't?

 

[Brocktor]

if your going to start feeding it other things than cat food, i think you will have to do it often and consistantly, especially while they are young. my cats have been fussy about what they eat. dont forget there is kitten food. its amusing how wild they go for raw fish. try bolognaise, a seafood dish ( with e.g. prawns), tuna + mayo.

 

[scanker]

Ours had stomach problems when we got him from the RSPCA. I think we didn't help giving him a can of this one day and a can of that the next. IMO cats need consistency, whether that's just whiskas or whatever, but the same all the time. He was on the ID paté for a while until he was sorted out and now just eats Hills dried food. I would personally never give a cat milk, I know people who do and their cats are fine.

I agree with Anthonyyy - we've found dried food the best. It has little nasty smell (I always want to vomit when I open a can of cat food), keeps his teeth in good order and doesn't go off if you leave it in one of those clockwork feeder things for a weekend. We've found it cheaper (10kg sacks) and a lot less packaging than cans/pouches too.

 

[Brocktor]

oh and milk makes mine had diarrea

 

[Lurch]

To the shop and buy kitten food mate, couldn't be simpler!
Start them out on a (decent) dried (stays fresh and doesn't attract flies and doesn't need you to clean their bowl after each feed) kitten food now before they get you trained into giving them all sorts.
Milk is no good for cats, they can't deal with it. So little amounts are OK for a treat occasionally but not as a regular part of their diet.

Oh and pictures required!!!!!

 

[shona]

I've had loads of cats over the years and have found that they will eat pretty much anything (our last 2 stole a bowl of leeks in cheese sauce when they were kittens, but they did come from the Brecon Beacons !)

They do need a balanced diet though, so canned or dried foods are a good start, supplemented with a bit of whatever you are eating. Feeding dried food all the time isn't the best - I've heard of cats suffering from uric acid crystals in the bladder through not drinking enough water with dried food. And a bit of variety is good - would you want to eat dried food all the time?

I have one cat now that's absolutely crazy for crisps and chocolate, she can hear the kids open the snack cupboard from upstairs, but she also likes mice, sparrows and especially chicken

 

[Tengu]

 

[Lurch]

Super cute!