Here is When Your Kitten Should Switch to Adult Food

It's important for your kitten's health to transition to adult food neither too early nor too late.

As a pet owner, it’s crucial to understand the appropriate nutrition for your cat’s age. Below, we’ll review the essential nutrients for proper development, how often you should feed your kitten, and when to switch to adult food.

The Foundations of a Healthy Adulthood

As the VCA Animal Hospitals website points out, how you feed your kitten determines its health as an adult. A diet that is both qualitatively and quantitatively appropriate ensures three things:

• Normal growth (not too fast or slow),
• Optimized immune system function,
• Minimized risk of obesity.

Kittens are usually weaned from their mother around 8 weeks old, during which time they mostly consume only mother’s milk. After that, as an owner, you should choose food specifically formulated for kittens.

Although kittens grow quickly, they don’t reach adulthood until 10–12 months old. Their growth rate slows around 30 weeks, when they’ve reached approximately 80% of their adult size. It takes another 10 weeks for their bodies to reach their final size. The pace of growth is influenced by breed, genetics, nutrition, and environmental factors.

Optimal or Maximum Growth?

Experts emphasize aiming for optimal growth rather than the fastest growth. This means your kitten should grow at a rate that ensures its health. Slow, steady growth allows your cat to reach adult size without becoming overweight. In contrast, maximum growth results in rapid weight gain, often due to high-fat or excessive food intake or free feeding, where the cat decides when and how much to eat.

Veterinarians recommend regular weighing and physical evaluations to ensure optimal growth.

Nutritional Needs of a Growing Kitten

When planning your kitten’s diet, pay attention to three key nutrients: protein, fat, and calcium.

Fortunately, kitten-specific foods have the right balance of these. However, you should not feed your kitten adult cat food (dry or wet) or dog food, as they lack the necessary nutrients for a growing cat.

Transitioning from Kitten to Adult Food

As mentioned, cats reach adulthood around 10–12 months of age, and you can gradually switch to adult food. Start by replacing part of their kitten food with adult food, increasing the proportion over a few days until the transition is complete.

Scheduled Feeding is Safer!

The former refers to when the owner divides the daily food portion into several meals. Experts recommend splitting the daily amount into 3-4 (or even more) smaller portions and offering them to your pet at regular intervals.

Free feeding, on the other hand, is a method where the owner places a larger amount of food out at once, leaving it up to the animal to decide when and how much to eat. However, this significantly increases the risk of obesity, which can later lead to heart problems, joint issues, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and a weakened immune system. Overweight animals also have poorer heat tolerance compared to their normal-weight counterparts.

Dry or Wet Food?

Over time, your cat’s preference will determine this, but it’s important to note that dry food has a higher calorie content, while its water content is low, so ensuring proper hydration is crucial. If your cat accepts it, we recommend feeding a mixed diet, with a majority of wet food, to take advantage of the benefits of both types of food.