Hi everybody! I'm new to this so bare with me please. My little family and I are adopting two bengal kittens on Monday. We are so excited. I'm worried about what to feed them though. The breeder does a raw diet, and at this time that is not something me or my husband provide for them. I don't want to stress these kittens to much with their transition. Can y'all give me any suggestions please

It is important to keep the same diet as the breeder uses so they continue to eat properly while adjusting to their new home. The transition for your babes will be EXTREME. They are leaving the only home they have known, their people, their mum, their siblings...try to keep as much consistency as possible, including diet & cat litter type.

If the breeder feeds a commercial raw (unlikely) try to get the same one and transition slowly to the diet you wish to feed. If the breeder makes their own, ask if you can purchase some from them to help you transition from raw to another diet over a few weeks.

Personally, my breeder fed raw and I had never heard of this before. I feed total raw now and have the healthiest cat I have ever seen! I make my own but also feed commercial raw that I buy from a local kennel.

Is there a reason you will not feed raw? If raw is simply not an option, perhaps someone here can give you advice on a high quality cat food.

Good luck! Enjoy your adventure!

_________________
~ Kyenta

Kyenta is correct. It's best to keep the kittens on the same food as the breeder as they will be going through a huge adjustment period in coming to their new home. You are getting two of them, so at least they will have each other. Asking the breeder to provide some of the raw food is a great idea. I'd even offer to have her mix up a batch and take it home and freeze it in portions that you can thaw out daily. I know some on here are huge advocates of raw feeding, but you have to be fine with it as well. There are commercial raw products for cats. Note that raw is only nutritionally complete when it contains crushed bones for calcium and heart and liver for taurine -- both extremely necessary for cats.

Should you want to transition to wet food, do it gradually, mixing the two. A sudden change in diet can lead to vomiting and diarrhea. So you want to be careful. Know, too, that each cat may have its own preference for wet food. What one eats, the other won't! Don't be in a rush to transition. You want your kitties to adjust to their new home. There's a lot going on in their little lives, so you want to make it as easy on them as possible.

Good luck and we want to see pictures when you get them. Congratulations!

I think this is kind of tricky. If it were me, I'd request (and offer to pay for) a small supply of raw food from the breeder, and throw it in my freezer. Then that kind of gives you a timeline (i.e., before that supply is exhausted) to transition off of it.

What I think is kind of tricky about this, are the logistics of the first few days. For all three of mine, they wanted to mostly hide for the first 24-48 hours or so, so dry food was very useful for that, because you could leave it out there, let them decide when they felt good enough to venture out and eat it, without worrying about it spoiling. So that could be a bit tricky with raw food. Another logistical problem with raw food and a kitten is that the kitten is supposed to eat 5 or 6 times during the day, so you'd have to be constantly there and constantly swapping out plates of raw food throughout the day.

I totally get why someone wouldn't want to make the big commitment of providing raw food. Certainly the vast majority of cat owners (including those in this forum) do not. There are some compromises that you can consider though. Pet food stores often do sell frozen and/or freeze dried raw meals for example, which don't require much if any preparation on your end.

Anyway, good luck. Remember that the most important thing is that you get the kitten eating within the first 24 hour or so. If that means some of the breeders raw food, that is great, if it's something else, that sure beats not eating. You really can't afford to be stubborn about this one way or the other. Definitely have a "plan b" whatever you do.

_________________
The little monsters 3

Great advice, as always, Brian.

I really would recommend sticking to the raw diet which the breeders have them on, at least for a few weeks, and also transition the food into their diets which you are planning on feeding them. At this age diet is extremely important and any drastic changes will cause stomach upsets and diarrhea, which believe me, you do NOT want to deal with.

Whatever you plan on feeding them, do it very gradually, over the course of weeks, preferably. Keep them on the raw, and mix very small amounts of the new food into their meals, gradually increasing amounts of new food and decreasing amounts of old food over time. Make sure you are monitoring the litter boxes to see signs of stomach upsets. Some food just does not work for some cats, especially Bengals.

May I ask what you intend on feeding them?