As a responsible cat owner, can or should you feed your kitten normal food for adult cats? Is food for kittens better and therefore also suitable for adult cats? Some cat owners suspect that selling special food for kittens is just money-grabbing, while others want to give their adult cat particularly nutritious food and therefore buy food for kittens.

 

What is the difference between kitten food and 'normal' cat food?

The difference between food for young cats and food for adult cats is similar to the difference between food for human babies and adult humans. Babies are not served schnitzel and adults do not normally eat porridge.

Apart from the fact that special kitten food is often sold in smaller doses because less of it is consumed per day and because it is softer for the little teeth to chew, there are some differences in the composition.

As with humans, kittens need a particularly high level of vitamins as they are growing.

Kitten food is specially designed to meet the needs of kittens and is therefore not beneficial for adult cats. Due to the high protein content in kitten food, it is even not advisable to feed it to adult cats. Too much protein can lead to liver and kidney problems.

Here is a comparison of the minerals and vitamins in food for kittens and adult cats.

 

Kittens adult cats

Proteins 35% 30%

Grease 20% 17%

Magnesium 0.1% 0.08%

Linoleic acid 3,5% 3,5%

Dietary fibre 3% 5%

Crude ash 6% 6%

Taurine 0.18% 0.19%

Liquid 12% 10%