Food help please...

[Brandy DW]

Okay so here is my issue, this is the care guide I was given to follow (from a1savannahs):

Care Sheet​

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DO NOT CHANGE FOOD or the schedule WITHIN THE FIRST MONTH*​

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Morning: Zupreem canned food (available online) mixed with 9 Lives Super Supper or tender Beef (no fish!).
Amount – as much as the kitty can eat at one time. If there is any left after an hour, you may remove it.

Mid-day: Zupreem canned food (available online) mixed with 9 Lives Super Supper or tender Beef (no fish!).
Amount – as much as the kitty can eat at one time. If there is any left after an hour, you may remove it.

Afternoon: Zupreem canned food (available online) mixed with 9 Lives Super Supper or tender Beef (no fish!).
Amount – as much as the kitty can eat at one time. If there is any left after an hour, you may remove it.

Evening: Zupreem canned food (available online) mixed with 9 Lives Super Supper or tender Beef (no fish!).
Amount – as much as the kitty can eat at one time. If there is any left after an hour, you may remove it.

All day:
Free choice of Iams ADULT dry food and fresh water at all times.

Twice a week:
Twice a week the kitten can have a RAW chicken drum stick WITH the BONE. The bone is safe and important for the kitten’s nutritional needs. Please DO NOT offer any part of the chicken that contains no bones. That would lead to an unbalanced diet that can cause growth problems.
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Okay so I've had Sabriel since October 16th. At first I thought I could mostly follow the above at least for the first month and then I planned on changing her to blue buffalo chicken dry food only... Anyway my issue is that on the days that I work I can't take the food away after the first hour. So I just put several spoon fulls of the wet food in her cat dish and figured if she was full she wouldn't eat it. Well she does of course eat all of it over time... So even though she's a kitten who is very very active I'm worried that should could potentially get a bit over weight with this in the long run. The reason why I even really thought about it was on Sunday and Monday she didn't go straight to her food bowl when I brought her new food - when before she had been going right towards it all the time. Pretty much figured out she was still full from the last time. I've e-mailed Martin and Kathrin to ask them what they think, apologizing that I didn't/can't follow the care instructions exactly by not being able to take the food away. I've asked them approximately how much a kitten would eat in that hour and have yet to get a response. I just e-mailed them last night I'm sure they'll get back to me when they're less busy they always have so far... But in the meantime today I cut back on how much food I've been giving her and I don't think she likes it because she has all of her wet and dry food gone in under an hour when usually she'll let the dry food sit for a while and sometimes not eat it at all. --- From reading the Zupreem canned food it's for small wild cats that are 25 to 30 pounds to eat 1 can daily... so since she's only about 3 pounds she should get about 1/10th of that can daily - approximately about a table spoon for her daily allotment from what I can figure. But she's getting quite a few table spoons of it, along with the 9 lives mixed in, and her dry food...

 

[admin]

Just feed your kitten 2-3 times a day...you can't overfeed a kitten, but I think this feeding schedule is just too much...I have seven 3 month old savannah kittens running around and they get fed in the morning, a raw snack mid day and then at night - that's it...if there is food left over, you have fed too much.

You should try and begin to wean off of Zupreem...if the kitten likes nine lives, then begin to feed more of that and eventually just stop the Zupreem.

Also, you may want to consider a more nutritious diet, but not right now...

 

[WitchyWoman]

I agree with Paige and I encourage you to reconsider feeding an all dry food diet. Cats simply aren't built to process dry food over the long term.

 

[WitchyWoman]

Here's a link to some of the better quality commercial foods: http://www.savannahcatchat.com/threads/commercial-cat-food-healthy-recommendations.893/

 

[Brandy DW]

I looked at the list... Now I'm just confused.. I thought Blue Buffalo was a really good cat and dog food but it's not on the list? :/

 

[WitchyWoman]

Blue Ridge doesn't provide a balanced diet. They have meat w/bone but no organ meats and without bone but no organ meats. Their "natural mixes" are confusing also. Kitten & puppy have bone & some organ meats but they mix beef & chicken together making it difficult to figure out if the calcium/phosphorus ratio is balanced. Also they don't list where they source their meats which is something I'd want to know. And without a guarantee that they grind whole carcases (bones, meat, organs), they shouldn't leave the impression that their food is properly balanced.

 

[admin]

Blue Ridge doesn't provide a balanced diet. They have meat w/bone but no organ meats and without bone but no organ meats. Their "natural mixes" are confusing also. Kitten & puppy have bone & some organ meats but they mix beef & chicken together making it difficult to figure out if the calcium/phosphorus ratio is balanced. Also they don't list where they source their meats which is something I'd want to know. And without a guarantee that they grind whole carcases (bones, meat, organs), they shouldn't leave the impression that their food is properly balanced.

I don't think their food is balanced, which is why i feed the kittens their kitten mix and canned food as well as dry...I am going to speak to them though about their kitten mix and try to get something that says it is balanced. The kittens have thrived on it, so I will continue to use it.

My kittens also love Zuri's ground quail and chicken and pretty much anything raw...

 

[Patti]

I believe she was asking about Blue Buffalo, which I have heard is a pretty good cat food, although they do use some grains. Just read the labels - anything that includes grains in the first five ingredients I would try to avoid.

 

[Brandy DW]

I didn't say blue ridge... I said Blue Buffalo...

Blue Buffalo Wilderness to be exact.

Ingredients and information: http://bluebuffalo.com/cat-food/wilderness-mature

That's the cat food I had Neka on before she got sick and she loved it! I have no doubt in my mind that Sabriel would love it to considering right now she likes Iams...

I don't know if when I get her off the food that a1savannahs currently has me on (1 month) - if I should go to there kitten dry food or adult cat dry food... If you think I should also do a wet food they have that as well. http://bluebuffalo.com/cat-food/grain-free-wilderness

Maybe think of checking it out? Who knows it might make your list but I don't see anything wrong with it...

 

[Nitro]

Blue Buffalo is a decent-quality food...I have fed it in the past, but I believe there's controversy just over who owns the brand. Then again, I think Innova was recently bought out too (albeit the parent company claims they're going to leave it alone). Blue Buffalo also seems to be the most expensive food without being the best.

I did my own research a while back about the most cost-effective foods to feed our kitties. You can see the chart here:

http://www.savannahcatchat.com/threads/grain-free-natural-dry-food.1085/

Note that Earthborn Primitive Feline only has 430 calories/cup (I couldn't find that info when I wrote this up).

I currently feed Earthborn Primitive Feline dry + Innova Evo 95% canned.

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You're probably already aware of this, but do not give your kitty a rapid change in diet. The instructions you were given might be tied in with your kitty contract somehow, which means your warranty might become void if you fail to follow them. She also just underwent one serious change (a new home!), so any additional changes might upset that perfect litter box behavior you mentioned earlier.

Kittens probably need twice the normal amount of food by weight; but as others have suggested, let a kitten eat whatever amount they desire. The importance behind feeding wet food is that felines tend to not get enough water in their diet; unless you sincerely believe that your kitty is drinking a LOT of water on her own, wet food is a good idea. My kitty drinks a lot of water on his own, but I still give him some wet food. And I even soak his dry food for a couple of seconds to make it easier for him to eat.