Dylan and Scruff the kittens

ian103

we need to go shopping for food / milk for the kittens, we are using both as a treat. we walk them round the garden and when they come in they associate nice things with coming inside.

can you overfeed a cat? we put out dry food which they eat through the day, and half a pouch of wet food as a treat.

is there a cheaper option than cat milk?

Fire_Fox

You can't easily overfeed kittens if you use good quality food, you can more easily overfeed a fully grown neutered cat tho. Don't bother with cat milk at all, it is not necessary once they are weaned and doesn't necessarily supply a balance of all the nutrients they need. Pouches are an expensive way to feed wet food if you check the price per kilo, maybe switch to large cans or tetrapacks and increase to the equivalent of one pouch (1/4 can) each per day? Generally wet food is lower cereal/ grain and higher animal protein so more nutritious than dry food.

IMO the best treat for cats and kittens is playtime, it's very easy to get them back indoors when Da Bird or Da Mouse is playing just inside the door!

NewKittenHelp

ian103 wrote: »

Dylan is proving to be a live wire and at some point I guess he'll escape to the big outdoors no matter how hard we try (we are trying to make sure there are 2 shut doors between him and the outside), at least with the chip he can be traced if needed, I was just surprised at the size of the needle for a small cat.

The chip isn't a GPS tracker so you won't be able to trace him. You'll only be able to find him if he's been handed in at a rescue and they scan him, and then they contact you.

NewKittenHelp

ian103 wrote: »

we need to go shopping for food / milk for the kittens, we are using both as a treat. we walk them round the garden and when they come in they associate nice things with coming inside.

can you overfeed a cat? we put out dry food which they eat through the day, and half a pouch of wet food as a treat.

is there a cheaper option than cat milk?

Don't give cat milk, there's no point. You should be feeding kittens more wet food than dry, good quality grain-free dry only.

ian103

we know there's no real benefit for giving the kittens milk, but they seem to associate this with their morning treat, we feed them and give them a small amount of milk when we feed the dogs - just looking for something cheaper than cat milk at 80p a miniscule box. could we use creme / youghurt instead as they create when we have either of these. The wet food in take has increased since we had them, we have tried tesco kitten food / aldi tubs, who makes the tetra pack. also could we feed raw rabbit instead of chicken as our butcher stocks rabbits at a couple of quid each.

gettingready

And where is a photo of the dogs?

Already the cats rule the house I see...LOL

Fire_Fox

ian103 wrote: »

we know there's no real benefit for giving the kittens milk, but they seem to associate this with their morning treat, we feed them and give them a small amount of milk when we feed the dogs - just looking for something cheaper than cat milk at 80p a miniscule box. could we use creme / youghurt instead as they create when we have either of these. The wet food in take has increased since we had them, we have tried tesco kitten food / aldi tubs, who makes the tetra pack. also could we feed raw rabbit instead of chicken as our butcher stocks rabbits at a couple of quid each.

Raw rabbit would be perfect! Will he leave some of the organ meat in? :cool: They really don't need a daily treat, they need balanced nutrition. Given how tiny they are you may find what looks to you as a tiny treat is actually a relatively high percentage of their daily calories. No form of cow's dairy is a balanced food for the domestic cats, it's a balanced food for a calf which is a herbivore, the opposite end of the spectrum to an obligate carnivore. As as much as possible of the feline diet should be parts of a dead animal - meat, skin, offal, bone, meat derivatives.

Toplife (Asda, sometimes Home Bargains, possibly Wilko) and Bozita (online) do tetrapacks, both are high meat content. Easy to get hold of and cheap are Butchers Classic large cans, meat derivatives not meat but no additives.