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Pet Health & Nutrition Guide / Feeding Queens During Pregnancy
ARDEN GRANGE KITTEN food is the ideal diet for your pregnant or lactating queen since this provides a concentrated source of nutrients ensuring that sufficient calories are available to meet her increased metabolic demands.
ARDEN GRANGE KITTEN food is a super premium pet food containing human grade chicken as its primary ingredient. This highly digestible diet ensures that the perfect nutrient balance is attained for optimum health during pregnancy and lactation. This, coupled with the inclusion of fish, means that our kitten food naturally contains high levels of the essential amino acid taurine. Research has shown taurine to be an important factor in promoting a healthy heart, vision and nervous system, as well as a requirement for normal reproduction in queens.
Pregnant queens usually exhibit weight gain and an increased appetite beginning around the second week of gestation. The amount of food received should be gradually increased as the pregnancy progresses, and by the time kittening is due, consumption will be approximately 25-50% more than usual. The amount fed will be dependent on the queen’s appetite, condition and how many kittens she is expecting. A pregnant queen should be fed small, frequent meals at regular intervals or you may prefer to allow free access to her food, allowing her to choose when and how much to eat.
The provision of adequate calories is essential in order to allow sufficient milk production and to prevent drastic weight loss in the queen. Water intake is also vital for a sufficient volume of milk. A queen with a large litter or with minimal body energy stores at the time of parturition (birth) has a greater risk of malnourishment during lactation. Litter size is the biggest determinant of the quantity of food required. The table below gives a guideline:
First week of Lactation
|
Second week of Lactation |
Third / Fourth weeks of Lactation PEAK LACTATION |
Fifth week of Lactation Plus |
1.5 x maintenance
|
2 x maintenance |
2.5 – 3 x maintenance |
Start to slowly reduce the queen’s food intake as the litter begin to eat more solid food |
Once the litter are 3 weeks old, it is sensible to feed the queen separately from the kittens to prevent them from consuming her food.
Fresh drinking water should always be readily accessible. We would recommend the use of stainless steel, glass or pottery bowls, as plastic can deter cats from drinking.
By the time the kittens are 6-7 weeks of age, the queen’s food consumption should be less than 50% above her normal maintenance requirements.
When feeding ARDEN GRANGE, it is important to remember that cats and kittens do not require additional milk in their daily diets. In fact, kittens lose the ability to digest the lactose (milk sugar) that is found in any mammals milk, shortly after weaning and its consumption could lead to diarrhoea.
As we have included all the essential vitamins and minerals your cat requires, there is no need to add any extras to the diet. To do so would upset the fine balance our nutritionists have created for your cat.
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