What is the best way to train a kitten from soft to hard food?

Question

I have a stray kitten that is maybe six weeks old.

Answer 1

Why would you want to do that?

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html

http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm

Answer 2

Try wetting dry food ( made for kittens) with some warm kitten formula which you can get at a local pet store. Decrease the amount of formula each week for 3-4 weeks so his teeth have time to strengthen and will be able to handle the dry food alone. Also make an appointment with your vet to get his vaccinations and worming. Good luck with your new baby. One more thing never give him cow's milk or and dairy products made from it. Their intestines cannot handle it and it could make him seriously ill.

Answer 3

At six weeks, it needs very soft mushy food. It's barely old enough to be away from its mom. Mix the dry food with warm milk until it's about like oatmeal. As the weeks go by, reduce the amount of milk gradually, and it will begin to eat the more solid food. By the time it's 3 months old or so, it will eat crunchy food. Be sure to feed it kitten food, however, because that is higher nuitrition. Don't swtich to food for grown-up cats until it's about 6 months old. Be sure to have plenty of fresh water for it at all times. Good luck.

Answer 4

Mix small amounts of dry with the canned and gradually increase the amount.

You don't have to be on all dry or all soft food however. What's more important is to have a high quality food, i.e not a supermarket brand. Probably best to feed a mix of canned and dry since there are benefits to both.

Chalice

Answer 5

Mix it. Start with about 75% soft and 25% hard, and then go to half and half, and then down to 25% soft and 75% hard food. Then you can go to all hard food.

I would suggest leaving hard food out for the cat to eat whenever he wants, and then give a special evening or morning food of a little bit of soft food.

The whole "weaning" process from soft to hard food should only take you a couple of weeks. Before you make any more decisions, however, you should consult a veterinarian.

Answer 6

Use a dry kitten food and soak it in warm water for a few minutes then drain it. That softens the food and when it's teeth are strong enough- feed it dry food without soaking it first. Provide it with clean/fresh water throughout the day so it will stay hydrated.

The person below me said use milk- Do NOT use regular cow milk because it will cause diarrhea- if you use milk at all use milk replacement formula from the pet store, but warm water works fine.

Answer 7

Why transition away from wet food? It is much better for your kitten than dry.

Answer 8

start adding hard food to the soft food, increase the ratio everyday slowly, and eventually you will be giving all dry food.

Answer 9

mix the hard food with the soft food and then in about a week just go to hard food
Thanks,
Jillian.c.

Answer 10

every week add a little more and a little more dry cat food until it has complete cat food.