Healthy Bites Growth Support Kitten Treats - 65g

The Healthy Bites Growth Support Kitten Treats are small crunchy bites with a soft cream centre, made for kittens from eight weeks old through to about a year. Mark & Chappell build them around chia and alfalfa for calcium, with chicken and turkey for protein and a little glucosamine and chondroitin in the filling. They are a sensible treat to use while a kitten is being weaned and handled, and they are easy to count out and feed by hand.

Key Features

• Age Range: Kittens from 8 weeks to about 12 months. VetIQ also sell them as suitable for adult cats, so a bag does not go to waste when your kitten grows up.
• Calcium Sources: Chia at 4 per cent and alfalfa at 1 per cent, giving roughly 1 per cent calcium overall, for teeth and bone growth.
• Protein: Chicken at 13 per cent and turkey at 17 per cent, with crude protein around 24 per cent.
• Joint Ingredients: Glucosamine at 0.14 per cent and chondroitin sulphate at 0.05 per cent, which VetIQ include for bone and joint development.
• Omega 3 And 6: From canola oil and chia, for skin and coat condition.
• Format: A crisp baked shell with a cream-filled centre. Roughly 70 bites in the bag.
• Pack Size: 65g resealable bag.

What The Feeding Guide Says

• Mark & Chappell recommend six bites a day for a kitten between 8 and 16 weeks, and ten a day from 16 weeks onwards. They describe it as a supplement during and after weaning.
• Ten bites a day is a meaningful share of a small kitten's calories, and it works through a 65g bag in about a week. If you are feeding anywhere near that, take a little off the main meals to match, and treat the figure as a ceiling rather than a target.
• We would start lower than the guide and use them as rewards during handling, litter training and carrier practice, which is when a kitten treat earns its keep.

About The Joint Ingredients

• Being straight about this: at 0.14 per cent glucosamine, ten bites supply somewhere around ten to fifteen milligrams. Joint supplements for cats are dosed in the hundreds of milligrams, so this is a fraction of a supplemental dose.
• That is not a scandal, because a healthy kitten does not need joint support in the first place. Read it as a nice inclusion rather than a reason to choose the bag, and do not buy these expecting them to do anything for an older cat with stiff joints.
• The same applies to the calcium. A complete kitten food already has calcium and phosphorus balanced for growth, and more calcium is not automatically better. Growing kittens, large breeds especially, do best when that balance is left alone.

The Main Food Does The Work

• A complete cat or kitten food is formulated to supply every nutrient in the right proportion, including the ones a cat cannot make for itself. A treat sits on top of that; it is not a way to patch a diet that is falling short.
• If you think the main food is not working for your cat, the fix is a better main food, chosen with your vet. Adding supplements on top of a poor diet rarely works and makes it harder to tell what is causing what.
• Cats take to new foods on their own terms. Offer one bite, put the rest away, and try again the next day rather than leaving a pile down.

Who Makes It

• Healthy Bites is a range made by Mark & Chappell Ltd, a British company that sells pet healthcare under the VetIQ Healthy+ name. The brand is VetIQ; Healthy Bites is the treat line within it.
• Every bite in the range is built the same way: a crisp baked cereal shell around a soft cream-filled centre, with the actives carried in the filling. The shell is what makes them easy to hand-feed and count.
• Mark & Chappell state there are no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives in the range. The antioxidants used are vitamin E, vitamin C derivatives and rosemary extract.

How Many To Give

• The general rule for any treat is that everything outside the main meals should stay under about a tenth of the day's calories. On a small pet that allowance is genuinely small, and it is easy to go through it without noticing.
• If you feed treats regularly, take a little off the main meal to balance it. Weight gain from treats is one of the most common avoidable health problems in pets, and it happens quietly over months.
• Introduce anything new a bit at a time. A new ingredient in a large first helping is the usual cause of a loose stool that then gets blamed on the product.

A Treat, Not A Medicine

• This is a complementary pet food. It is not a veterinary medicine, and it is not licensed to diagnose, treat or prevent any disease. The VetIQ name and the phrase "vet approved" that appears on the packaging do not change that.
• The honest way to think about the range is nice treats with a sensible extra in them, chosen to suit a particular situation. If your pet has a real problem, the treat is not the answer to it and delaying a vet visit to try one is a bad trade.
• If your pet is already on medication or a prescription diet, mention any treat you are adding at the next appointment. Some prescription diets work by controlling exactly what goes in, and extras can work against them.

Storage In The UAE

• Mark & Chappell ask that the pack be used within four weeks of opening, kept sealed and out of direct sunlight. That matters more here than in the UK, because heat and humidity turn the oils in a cream filling stale faster.
• Press the resealable strip shut properly after each use and keep the bag in a cupboard rather than on a sunny shelf or in the car. A fridge is not necessary and can make the shell go soft.
• If a bite smells of old oil or crayons, or the shell has gone bendy, throw the bag away. Rancid fat is unpleasant rather than dangerous, but pets refuse it and it wastes the pack.

Good To Know

• Complementary pet food for kittens. Not a complete diet.
• Contains chicken, turkey and whey powder. Not suitable if you are avoiding dairy.
• Resealable bag. Use within four weeks of opening and keep out of direct sunlight.
• Keep treats to roughly a tenth of your kitten's daily calories at most.
• Made in the UK by Mark & Chappell Ltd under the VetIQ Healthy+ brand.
• Not for human consumption. Keep out of reach of children.