COMPARISON OF KITTENS FED QUEENS MILK WITH THOSE FED MILK REPLACERS

Fifteen 2-week-old kittens were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 milk treat ment groups as the sole source of nutrition for 4 weeks: queen's milk, commercially available kitten milk replacer (CMR), and an experimenta l milk replacer (EXP). Kittens fed queen's milk suckled ad libitum, wh ereas CMR- and EXP-fed kittens were tube-fed every 6 hours. kittens we re weaned at 6 weeks of age and were fed a feline growth diet ad libit um for an additional 4 weeks. Kittens were examined at 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 weeks of age; the procedure included an ophthalmic examination and blood sample collection for CBC and serum biochemical and amino acid a nalyses. Kittens fed CMR and EXP diets had weight gain greater than th at for queen's milk-fed kittens. The kittens fed CMR, however, had dia rrhea throughout most of the milk-feeding trial and developed diffuse anterior and posterior lens opacification and vacuolation at the poste rior Y-sutures. The lens opacities noticed in the kittens during the m ilk treatments resolved to a residual perinuclear halo, and a few inci pient cortical opacities were observed by the end of the growth diet-f eeding period. Serum arginine concentration was significantly (P less- than-or-equal-to 0.05) lower in the CMR-fed kittens, but was not diffe rent during the growth diet-feeding period. We concluded that the EXP diet supported normal growth in 2- to 6-week-old kittens; CMR supporte d normal kitten growth rate, but resulted in diarrhea and cataract for mation; and serum amino acid data indicated that low arginine concentr ation may have been related to the CMR-induced cataract formation.