Hill's Science Plan Sterilised Kitten Dry Cat Food with Chicken - 300g - 1.5KG

Sterilised Kitten Dry Cat Food with Chicken is a complete dry food for kittens that have already been neutered, up to about a year old. It is the one recipe in the range built for a specific awkward moment: a kitten that still has growing to do, but whose energy needs have just dropped.

Key Features

• Still A Growth Food: Protein, calcium and phosphorus at the levels a growing kitten needs, so neutering early does not mean compromising on development.
• Controlled Fat: Energy kept in check, because neutering lowers what a kitten burns by roughly a fifth while often increasing appetite.
• Urinary Health: Controlled minerals, since neutered cats are at higher risk of urinary problems for the rest of their lives.
• Immune Support: An antioxidant blend including vitamin E and vitamin C.
• Pack Size: A single 300g bag.

Why A Neutered Kitten Is A Special Case

• Most kittens are neutered somewhere between four and six months, which is right in the middle of growing. From that day the energy requirement drops by about a fifth, and appetite often goes the other way.
• Feeding an ordinary kitten food through that window is the commonest way a cat arrives at its first birthday already overweight. Feeding an adult sterilised food instead short-changes the growth that is still happening. This recipe is the answer to both.
• Move to an adult sterilised food at around twelve months. Weigh your kitten monthly through the first year; catching a hundred grams is far easier than taking half a kilo off later.

When To See Your Vet Instead

• A cat straining in the litter tray, going in and out repeatedly, producing only drops, crying while trying, passing blood, or urinating outside the tray needs a vet straight away. In male cats a blocked urethra can be fatal within a day or two, and the early signs look exactly like constipation.
• No everyday food treats that. This is maintenance for a healthy cat, and the time spent hoping a food will fix symptoms is the thing that does the damage.
• Water intake does most of the real work: wet food, several bowls away from the food, a wide shallow bowl or a fountain, and one litter tray per cat plus a spare, scooped daily.

Feeding A Growing Kitten

• Kittens need more of almost everything per kilo than an adult cat, especially protein and energy, plus DHA for brain and eye development. A kitten recipe is built for that, so feed it as it comes rather than supplementing.
• Offer food little and often, around four meals a day while small, dropping to twice daily by about a year. Kittens have tiny stomachs and high demands at the same time.
• Get a kitten used to both wet and dry early. A cat that has only ever had dry food is often impossible to switch later, which matters if it ever needs a therapeutic diet.

Why Cat Food Looks Like This

• Cats are obligate carnivores: they cannot make enough taurine, arachidonic acid, vitamin A or vitamin D for themselves and have to take them in ready-made from food. That is why a complete cat food is not just a dog food with a different picture on the bag, and why cats should never be fed a vegetarian diet.
• Taurine is the one most people have heard of. Without enough of it cats develop heart muscle disease and go blind, which is why it appears on the front of every bag. Any complete cat food supplies enough, so this is a reassurance rather than a differentiator.
• The balanced minerals Hill's mention are about keeping magnesium, phosphorus and calcium in proportion rather than simply low, because both too much and too little cause problems.

Cats And Water

• Cats evolved to get most of their water from prey and have a weak thirst drive, so a cat on dry food alone often runs mildly short of water. That matters for the urinary tract and the kidneys, which are the two things most likely to shorten a cat's life.
• Practical fixes: more bowls than you think you need, away from the food and the litter tray; a wide shallow bowl so the whiskers stay dry; and a fountain, since many cats drink more from moving water. Adding some wet food to the day is the single most effective change.
• In UAE heat and air conditioning, check the bowls twice a day. Cats drink less from water that has sat out and gone warm and dusty.

Feeding, Storage And The Range

• How much: start from the chart on the pack by weight, then adjust to what you can feel. You should find the ribs easily under a thin layer of cover. Weigh the food rather than using a cup, and count treats towards the day's total.
• Changing over: move across gradually over about seven days. A sudden switch is the usual cause of a loose stool that then gets blamed on the food.
• Storage here: keep the bag sealed, cool and out of sunlight and use it within about six weeks of opening. UAE heat turns the fats in kibble stale faster than the packaging assumes, and that is the usual reason a pet goes off a food it used to like. Keep it in its own bag rather than tipping it into a bin.
• Who makes it: Hill's was founded by an American vet, Mark Morris Senior, who formulated a kidney diet for a guide dog in the 1940s. They run feeding trials on their recipes, which is why they can say clinically proven where most brands cannot, and the main reason the range costs what it does.
• Science Plan is not Prescription Diet: this is the everyday range for healthy pets. Prescription Diet is the separate therapeutic range for diagnosed conditions, sold on a vet's recommendation. The names overlap confusingly and they are not interchangeable, so if your vet has set a diet, ask them before changing it.

Good To Know

• This listing is the 300g pack.
• For kittens that have already been neutered. An un-neutered kitten does better on the standard Kitten recipe.
• Complete dry food. Nothing needs adding to a complete diet.
• Keep fresh water available at all times.
• Store sealed, cool and out of sunlight. Use an opened bag within about six weeks.
• Science Plan is a non-prescription everyday food, not a veterinary therapeutic diet.
• Made by Hill's Pet Nutrition, part of Colgate-Palmolive.