Imagine you are walking down the pet food aisle in the supermarket. Everywhere you look, there are bags and cans and pouches of food in all manner of varieties. In the face of so much choice, how can you be sure that you’re choosing the best kitten possible for your furry little friends? It is actually a lot more simple than you may think. Just read the labels carefully and keep a few things in mind while you are shopping and you will have no problems.
Cats Are Born Carnivores
In the wild, cats are hunters and most of the food they consume is in the form of smaller animals that they catch. Their diet is made up primarily of protein and fat. There is usually only a very small amount of carbohydrate in the natural cat diet.
This means that when you are checking labels, you want to look especially close at the caloric balance of the kitten food in question. You want to choose food that has a high amount of fat and protein, with very little else in the way of fillers and carbohydrates. This can be difficult because manufacturers like to be sneaky about the naming of the ingredients in their products, such as labeling a product as maize in the United States when most people simply say, “corn.”
Dry Food Is Mostly Carbohydrate. Is It Still Okay?
It is perfectly understandable that many pet owners prefer dry food over wet. After all, cats and kittens enjoy the crunch of the food, and it is much less expensive and more convenient than canned cat food.
Notice that nutrition isn’t anywhere on that list. That doesn’t mean that can owners don’t love their pets; it indicates nothing more than an innocent ignorance of the nutritional needs of the cat. The problem with dry cat food is that it almost universally contains large amounts of corn, grain, and other fillers that do not exist anywhere in the cat’s natural diet. To ensure that your kitten lives a long, happy, healthy life, dry food, for the most part, should be kept off the menu.
Special Kitten Nutritional Needs
The best kitten food is going to take the special nutritional requirements of newborn kittens into account. Like any other baby, kitten bodies are constantly growing and developing, so they are going to need plenty of raw material to create the building blocks they are going to need to create strong bodies. The best kitten food available will have a particularly high concentration of protein, as well as a higher vitamin and mineral content.
As you can see, even though there are dozens of varieties of food available, canned, dry, and otherwise, you can be confident the next time you go shopping because you know exactly what to look for to be sure that your cats and kittens get the best nutrition possible.
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