Change is often present in kitten’s first months of life, and their diet is no exception and their risks of suffering from feeding problems in this key phase is 55%, as showed by another analysis. Because spray dried bovine colostrum (BC), which is the milk produced shortly after birth, and has shown improvements in immune response in dogs in other studies, this study shows for the first time, the effect of a dietary change in the post-weaning phase of kittens fed a diet containing 0.1% of BC.

A total of 24 domestic kittens from 8 different litters were weaned at 12 weeks of age, and then placed either into a control group or the BC enriched diet. The parameters established were the diet’s effect on gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT), immune system, and microbiota stability at an intestinal level, and the study found that not only did this dietary change show an increased stability in the kitten’s intestinal microbiota vs the control group, it also helped improver their immune system increasing IgA expression and a higher (faster and stronger) rabies virus neutralizing antibodies in response to a rabies vaccine booster, while having no adverse effects on the growing kittens.