How much do/should you feed your cat ?

BettePorter

have two cats and they never stop eating. if i leave the house and come straight back they think it's dinner time again ! its my own fault as i fed them too well from the off. they eat cat food and nuts as a snack. i didn't realise how much they ate until i was in a friends house and her cat eats a tiny lump of cat food in the morn and eve and is quite happy with that, but mine are vultures. how much is enough without letting them starve ? i know some ppl whose cats only eat cat nuts ! if i tried that with mine i'd be smothered during the night !

p.s. worms isn't an issue, they're up to date with all that........they're just greedy cause i allow them to be !

petergfiffin

We feed ours dry-food, pretty much have food in the bowl most of the day and they just eat it when they're hungry. Spoke to the vet about it and he said cats will eat when hungry unlike dogs who eat..full stop!! Ours aren't overweight haven't seen any reason to change. I wouldn't worry that somebody else's cat eats less, I imagine it's like people where there are so many variables like age, activity, breed and whether they've been neutered. If you're with the vet might be no harm to get them weighed though

MsFifers

Are they overweight? If not, maybe there is no problem. I wouldn't compare the amount of cat food your friend gives because it could have a different metabolism/energy levels etc. Also maybe your friend's cat goes to neighbours for food (very common!) or eats a lot of birds/rodents. You never know!

I free-feed my cats - I just fill up their bowl with dry food whenever its empty and they just nibble away at it all day. Both my cats are big but not at all fat. They get a lot of exercise running around the garden.

There is recommended food amounts on all cat food products so you could compare your feeding amounts with that. Again - its only a guide. My cats eat slightly more than the guide - but I'm not bothered about that as long as they stay in good condition.

morganafay

I only feed mine dry food and I just leave it out most of the time (unless the crows eat it all!) Mine don't overeat dry food, so I can leave it out. One of my cats wouldn't eat dry food, so he had tinned food, and recently had to have half of his teeth pulled out because of it. My other cats have great teeth though, so I prefer dry food, and it's cheaper.

If you feed them just tinned food then a tin a day per cat is about right. If they get both, then maybe half a tin and a little bit of dry food. Dry food is much more concentrated so they don't need much of it.

My old neighbours used to give their cat about three spoons of tinned cat food a day and she survived fine on it, but I think that's kinda cruel. She had a missing paw so couldn't hunt either and my cat used to chase her off if I tried to feed her. She survived, but was underweight and always seemed hungry. Like a person would survive on much less food, but they'd have no energy all the time . . .

storm2811

I just leave two bowls of dry food and sometimes wet food out for my two cats,they'll eat it when they want and they know where it is!
They're not overweight at all either but when there's chicken about they just won't stop eating it.:pac:

BettePorter

thanks for that, but is it cruel to suddenly cut out the cat food and solely give them dry food......i'd prefer dry, as its less smelly and messy.

storm2811

BettePorter wrote: »

thanks for that, but is it cruel to suddenly cut out the cat food and solely give them dry food......i'd prefer dry, as its less smelly and messy.

I cut out the wet food last week as it was just a big smelly disaster!:pac:
They weren't too happy for a while but they got used to it soon enough.

DeadlyByDesign

I feed my 2 once in the morning and once in the evening. An maybe some snack kitty milk in between if they are good. I find its better to give them allocated feeding times as that way they are in no confusion when they are getting fed

mymo

I have two cats, one is 9years and eats practically nothing, the other is about 3 or 4(not sure he was a rescue) and he eats like a horse. Neither are overweight or too skinny(thin but not skinny) and they both like to pick at the food. I leave dry food out all day up until about 7pm, so by bedtime they're both hungry and I give them one pouch of food with some water added, between them. On hot days I give one pouch between the two in the morning too(also add water).
The reason I add the water is that I had one cat that had serious problems with stones in his bladder, the vet said cats are not great for drinking and advised trying adding water to the wet food to get more liquid into him, as this could help dilute the urine(also feed special dry food for this).
I have kept this up since.
No two cats are the same, if your cats aren't overweight the amount they're eating isn't a problem.

waraf

My one year old cat eats half a tin of food in the morning and then a handful of dry food in the evenings. Sometimes if I pass by his bowl during the day he'll go mad like he's starving but anytime I've put food out in that situation he's taken two bites and left the rest. I just stick to the standard two meals a day for him now.

The Sweeper

I reckon I feed my six two cups of dry food per day, plus about 300-500g of raw meat in the form of beef strips, or three chicken drumsticks, or a chicken neck each. I will occasionally feed commercial wet, but it's usually two tins or pouches between six, just for some variety. Those tins and pouches are usually recommended at a rate of three per day per cat. If I fed a cheap commercial wet, like whiskas, at that rate, I'd be up to my eyeballs in cat****e.

The raw meat is good for them (has to be human-grade, and fresh - no handing off rank meat to the cats instead of the bin) and is also good in the litter tray because their bodies aren't eliminating a whole pile of undigestible cereal as enormous, smelly poos.

If your cats' weight is good, don't reduce their food. If you feel comfortable with it, substitute in some raw meat as described above. It can take them a little while to adjust to it, but it's very good for their teeth. It also seems to keep them satisfied for longer. Raw meat on its own is not a balanced diet, unless you're also feeding skin, liver, heart and bone.

I used to measure religiously, but then stopped, because I can tell just from the cut of the cats whether they're getting too much or too little. At the moment they're getting a bit too much, but that's also because it's winter and they're getting no exercise. Once spring kicks in they'll be up and down the garden like racehorses when they're let out, and that extra padding will all come off.

variety

petergfiffin wrote: »

Spoke to the vet about it and he said cats will eat when hungry unlike dogs who eat..full stop!!

I knew there was something wrong with my two - obviously the dog should be a cat and the cat should be a dog! :P

My dog free-feeds but still only chooses to eat maybe once every 3 days - she doesn't get treats, either, until she's eaten her own food.

The cat gets 30g of dry food in the morning and again in the evening (60g a day) and would eat me out of house and home if he could.

The dog is the perfect weight (in fact she's about 2kg heavier than when she was younger) but the cat is definitely overweight (he's only little but has a belly on him like you wouldn't believe!!). He hunts but only for the fun - he's never eaten any of the kills.

Heroditas

We have two cats and I put about 30g of dry food in the one bowl in the morning and again late in the evening.
They then share a pouch in the early evening for their dinner.

It's amazing, there's never any issue with both of them using the one food bowl and then the same saucer for dinner.

They only kick lumps out of each other when the treats are produced!

Graces7

If feeding dry food, please make sure they have plenty of water.

Our two also eat when and how much they want and are not overweight. Only a lilttle kibble though; mostly raw chicken and they love the scraps from the butcher we get for the dogs; ie not what one poster has called "human grade"

The Sweeper

Graces7, human grade means fit for human consumption, e.g. not gone off, not of dubious origin, not contaminated. That includes offcuts, offal, bones that you'd make soup out of if you weren't giving them to your dog, so on. That's what 'human grade' means. Feeding your cat meat that's gone off, and therefore not fit for human consumption, may make them just as sick as it'd make you.