Royal Canin Kitten Food

Royal Canin kitten food is organised as a timeline rather than a menu. A kitten passes through three feeding stages before her first birthday, and the food changes at each one.

The three stages

Stage one, weaning to 4 months. Mother & Babycat is shared between the queen and her litter — the same recipe supports pregnancy and lactation and gives the kittens their first solid food. The kibble is tiny and rehydrates readily, and the mousse and can versions are soft enough for a kitten who has only just stopped nursing.

Stage two, 4 to 12 months. Second Age Kitten takes over once the milk teeth are through. This is the fastest-building period after weaning, and the formula carries an antioxidant complex plus prebiotics to support developing immune defences and a settled gut, with kibble sized for a small mouth.

Stage three, from 12 months. Move to an adult food. If she has been desexed — and most Australian kittens are done between four and six months — go to Sterilised rather than a standard adult recipe, because her energy requirement drops sharply while her appetite does not.

• Royal Canin Mother & Babycat — dry, mousse and 100 g cans for weaning kittens and nursing queens.
• Royal Canin Sterilised — includes Kitten Sterilised for desexed kittens from 6 to 12 months, dry and in gravy.

Wet kitten food comes in three textures

The kitten wet range is sold as gravy, jelly and loaf in 85 g pouches. Nutritionally the three are equivalent within the line; the difference is purely texture, and it is the single most useful variable when a kitten turns her nose up. Loaf tends to suit kittens moving off mousse, jelly suits cats that like to chew, and gravy is the usual starting point. Buying a box of 12 first is a sensible way to find out which one she will actually finish.

• Royal Canin Wet Cat Food — the kitten pouches in all three textures, plus the adult range for later.
• Royal Canin Dry Cat Food — Second Age Kitten and the breed kitten formulas.

Pedigree kittens

Two breeds have their own kitten recipe, both shaped around the adult jaw the kitten is growing into: Maine Coon Kitten, with a larger kibble and support for a slow-maturing giant breed that is not fully grown until around fifteen months, and Persian Kitten, whose almond-shaped kibble is designed to be picked up by a very short, undershot jaw.

See the whole Royal Canin cat food range, the full Royal Canin index, or browse kitten food from every brand we stock.