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Feeding Your Cat During Reproduction | Alaska Mill & Feed

Feeding Your Cat During Reproduction | Alaska Mill & Feed

Posted by Kimberly McCourtney on Dec 3rd 2020

While nutrition is always a key factor in keeping a cat healthy, its importance is heightened during gestation and lactation. The diet must supply essential nutrients in the proper balance to the developing kittens and prepare the female for the stress of lactation. Diets for adult maintenance, intermittent feeding or therapeutic uses are generally inadequate for gestation and lactation. Any diet fed during this time should be labeled as nutritionally complete and balanced for all life stages of the cat and this claim should be supported by actual feeding studies. The easiest way to ensure proper nutrition is to feed a good quality cat food that is complete and balanced for all life stages. If a maintenance diet is fed prior to breeding, a gradual changeover should be made to a diet appropriate for reproduction in advance of the time the female is bred.

Breeders sometimes believe dietary supplements are needed in addition to the regular diet to provide the extra nutrition pregnant and lactating queens require. This need for extra nutrition can be met by feeding a high quality complete and balanced diet. During these periods, food consumption should be allowed to increase slightly. During the final three weeks of gestation, body weight will increase more rapidly and the female should be allowed to eat all she wants. The hormonal and behavioral changes that occur during reproduction may cause periods of under-eating, overeating, or not eating at all. Diet changes are not needed during these brief periods of irregular eating habits. However if under-eating is prolonged, or if the female's body condition begins to deteriorate, she should be checked for health problems.

As littering nears, the female may lose her appetite. Food refusal during the ninth week of gestation is frequently a good indication that littering will occur within the next 24 to 48 hours. Usually within 24 hours after delivery the female’s appetite will return and her food consumption will increase.