Kittens, food, suckling

Question
Lisa,

I have two questions I hope you can answer. First of all, how long should I feed "kitten food" to my kittens? A year, 6 months, etc.? I feed them dry kitten food and canned kitten food (as opposed to dry/canned "cat food").

Second question involves behavior. I have two 3-month-old kittens, a male and a female (not related) that I adopted when they were 6-weeks old.  The male I adopted from the animal shelter and the female from a foster-care program. The male kitten constantly suckles on the female's belly. She doesn't mind, but it gets her belly soaking wet and makes a mess. I would like to know if I should discourage him from doing this or just leave him alone. It seems that he didn't get to spend enough time with his momma.

I appreciate any help you can give me.

Answer
you can feed them kitten food until they are 2yrs old. at 1yr6mths you might want to start mixing it with adult cat food and have them totally on adult food in 6 months.

now about his suckling. maybe he is wanting not just the closeness of his mother but also wanting mothers milk. try going to walmart and buying kitten milk for him. if that doesnt work then you will just have to remove him from her belly everytime you catch him doing it. however, if you dont mind him doing it, just make sure he isnt actually sucking on her nipples. she is way too young for that.