3 types of food too much?

[karenlynn79]

So, long story short, have been feeding my SV about 6 oz of canned (Weruva) a day, split into morning and evening. In addition, I free-feed (about half a bowl) good quality dry food. We're about to get our new baby SV (yay!) who is on raw. I was initially very opposed to raw being a vegetarian, just the gross-out factor, but the canned food is way stinkier than raw and his breeder really kind of sold me on it.

But..I'm not sure I want to/should do raw instead of the canned, mostly because it seems much more expensive, has to be thawed, etc.. And, I'm not really wanting to completely eliminate the dry because when we go out of town or gone for a whole day, it's much easier for those who come to check on/play with the kitties to do one serving of canned/raw and leave some kibble out.

So...my question is: Would it "bad" or potentially harmful to feed all 3 of these? I bought my first bag of raw food today (closest place is 40 min away!), and for Zyon the serving size says 4 nuggets a day and for our new kitten it says it will be 8 a day! So I wanted to do maybe 1 nugget (for my adult SV) twice a day with 3oz of canned or less twice a day, and leave the kibble out still. Do you think this sounds ok? I will say that Zyon would definitely eat more canned a day if I gave it to him, and then probably less kibble. So IMO adding the 1 raw nugget to his same canned amount would by default decrease how much kibble he eats, which is good of course, without altogether eliminating it.
Thanks,
Karen

 

[WitchyWoman]

For the kitten, it's best to keep him on the type of food the breeder was feeding him and slowly transition him to canned & kibble. You should not try to change his food for at least the first 2 weeks he's home and then you can slowly add in the canned and give him some dry. Slowly increase the amounts of canned and dry over the course of a few weeks making sure to stop or draw back if he has any tummy upsets.

It's perfectly fine to feed different types of food as long as overall a balanced diet of protein/bones/organs is achieved and that is fairly easy to do with commercially prepared foods.

 

[Patti]

I definitely agree with Deborah regarding the slow transition to new foods, it is very important to keep the kitten on the diet he's used to when he first comes home, if at all possible.

As far as offering a variety of different foods, there is absolutely no reason not to, in fact I do this myself. Not only that, but I use four different types of kibble mixed together - I figure this will help smooth any transition onto a new food a kitten may be started on when he/she goes to his/her new home.

 

[karenlynn79]

Great, thanks for the advice. I can't buy his breeders dry or raw here, but she is sending me with quite a bit of both so the transition shouldn't be too bad.