Hey everyone.
I was just looking for some advice on when is the best age to swap a Bengal Kitten from Kitten Food to Adult?
I've got an 11 month old kitten. I know that on the packaging it says to use that food up till they are 12 months but I've also heard the Bengals grow till they're 18 months old.
Any help and advice would be appreciated as I want to do the right thing. I always make sure she has food but she also seems very small for a Bengal.
I currently mainly feed her Royal Canin in both Wet and Dry.

Welcome to our forum. I would think a cat 12 months old would no longer be considered a kitten, even though a bengal may continue to grow. If you have been feeding kitten food, the brand should allow you to transition the kitty into adult food -- wet and dry. I wouldn't think it would be a problem to start feeding adult food at one year. Ontario may want to chime in because she is a breeder and knows a whole lot more than I do.

I used to think that a kitten was no longer considered a kitten at one year but was corrected on that when I adopted a 1-1/2 year old. I put her on adult food and she wasn't thriving on it. She wanted milk.

As it turns out, cats can take up to 2 years to fully mature, even though they can produce kittens well before that.

I switched Aiko from dine kitten wet food to a raw diet plus high quality sry not long after we got her.
Is there anything I'm the kitten food that she may be missing out on?

I never fed Quasar kitten food. He was weaned on raw and has eaten it ever since.

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~ Kyenta

I don't think she'd be missing out on any nutrients but if you believe the food companies they say kitten food contains things to help them grow.
Plus I've been told by some people that bigger cat breeds need to stay on kitten food for longer as they are still growing up to 18 months.
That's why I thought I'd ask people on a Bengal forum as they actually have experience with the breed and would be better to trust.
I'll try attaching a photo of my little girl so you can see her.

Varclaw Sparkling in Frozt
I just call her Frozt.
She's a Seal Mink Snow Bengal.Resized_20170818_151441.jpeg

She's gorgeous!

I was told that kitten food provides additional calories and nutrients, and I gradually moved my two to adult food at around one year. They had slowed down with their consumption then too - as previously they were eating loads whilst they were growing. After a year they weren't growing so rapidly and had pretty much reached their adult size. If I remember rightly they were eating 7 to 8 pouches between them plus dry food up to about a year, but now they are down to the equivalent of three pouches and dry between them.

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Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

If I had to do this over again, as far as dry food I would put out a bowl of kitten food and a bowl of adult food during the transitional period. Also, make sure that the adult food is not large pieces, because this creates difficulty for small mouths.

Frozt is gorgeous! I would love to add her to my bengal database. Do you have any info on her mom and dad? Or a pedigree that I could go off?

You can always test her on adult food and see how she does!

Hi Sherry,
Yes I have information on Frozt's Parents and I also have her Pedigree papers which go back for 8 generations.
What information do you need? Do I just send you a copy of the Pedigree papers?
In the meantime if you wanted to start, her Sire was Quicksilver Eskimo Joe and her Dam was Amazebengal Luna Moon.

I have the parents in my database as UNKNOWNS. I'll send you a PM with my email address so you can send the full pedigree.

Okay Sherry I sent you an email. Please let me know if you get it.
If the email doesn't go through I'll try sending it again after I drop the file size of the image in case that's the reason it didn't send.
Looking forward to seeing what F Generation she is.
Also if it helps I live in Australia.

I know we have changed the subject here -- and I sent you an email with the information on your beautiful girl. There is probably not a single pedigree that goes back to an ALC that does not have an "unknown" factor, thus ... when I give F generations, it's the highest F generation the cat can have in case an UNKNOWN down the pedigree is a lower generation. My database has thousands of unknown bengals. And once you start with a cats named Feliz and SnowTops Snowflake which nobody knows whether they are an ALC or a bengal -- you can already start off on the wrong track. TICA registers cats and does list "unknowns" for parents. We are talking in the early days of the bengal when registering the cats had just started. Many were registered incorrectly.

I always try to research the unknowns and most of the time, there simply isn't any information out there that will help me. I've contacted breeders and 99% of them do not seem interested in replying. Now that the F generations are getting into the F12's, they don't care any more what F generation their kittens are.

It is really difficult to find much information on Australian bengals. Beckett and Tijah are major breeders, however, Australia just passed a law against the importation of ANY bengal, period, into Australia. This means the breeders are going to have to exchange their sires to prevent major imbreeding of the litters.

Thank you Sherry for getting that information to me, it was very interesting. Hope it didn't take up too much of your time.
We certainly have derailed this topic though. To at least try to get it back on track I think I'll mix both Kitten and Adult food till I'm sure that she's finished growing.
She may have already reached her full size. At the start she was growing so fast I thought I may have a lion on my hands but then she just stopped.
It appears she's going to be small for a Bengal but she's a beautiful looking cat and has a funny personality.