Could the kitten food make that much of a difference?

It makes you wonder how cats and dogs survived before we had these specialist foods doesn`t it? perhaps your mother just was not feeding the kitten enough, or perhaps it was the runt of the litter and it would have caught up anyway, just because they advertise the specialist food as essential for kittens does not mean that it is essential for kittens , they do, after all want you to buy their product and these are generally much the same as conventional food with perhaps a little more protein or vitamins, which you could give them anyway but not at twice the price, my son is a cat lover and he has ten cats all are extremely healthy and none have ever been given anything other than standard cat food..