How much and how often do you feed your cats?

Julia

your feeding 2oz ...


Zoey is measure free feed ... most days she eat s 3/4 to 1 cup which is 3-4 ounce in her food ... and get s as much wet as she needs or wants ...


FEED the cat not the dish

Originally Posted by sharky

FEED the cat not the dish

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LOL! I really like this quote!

Zorro gets 1/8 of a cup of dry food in the morning (I'm in the process of weaning him off Medi-Cal Hypoallergenic and onto a full wet diet, then I may try adding raw). Then at night he gets half of a 5.5oz can of Merrick. Sometimes he eats it all, sometimes he doesn't(If its Grammy's Pot Pie, or Thanksgiving Day Dinner, its gone in an hour, lol)

Hmmm 1/4lb is 4oz

My cats eat wet only...they get dry as treats only. I was motivated to ditch the dry food because one of my cats (Beandip) struggled with bladder/urinary issues for a very long time. It's made an amazing difference for him and I strongly believe that all of my cats have benefited from the switch in many ways. Dry food's greatest benefit is it's convenience for humans. It's not needed at all IMO...quite the opposite of what your vet said. The article that Ping linked to is a very good one.

Leopold, Paisley, Pixel, and Pumpkin get 3oz wet in the morning and 2oz in the evening. They got a bit more during the winter when their appetites/activity levels called for it.

Precious gets as much wet as she wants to eat, 2 meals a day. That's usually around 8oz a day. She has a heart condition and can't keep up with her metabolism.

Momma eats about 2oz wet in the morning, and 2oz at night. Sometimes she likes raw and does about 1oz at each meal.

Beandip and Junior get 2oz raw in the morning and 1.5oz at night. Beandip doesn't always finish his but the opportunity is there if he's in the mood.

breakfast: 1 can friskies in gravy split 3 ways. 1/8 cup dry food in each bowl (3).

afternoon: 2 cans FF split 3 ways. 1/8 cup dry food in each bowl(3).

evening: 1 can FF or 1 Meow Mix pouch split into 2 bowls (stimpy doesn't usually eat wet at this feeding--if he does show interest, he often sniffs and walks away)

they don't always eat all of their dry food, so their next meal would be minus what's left in the bowl. their dry is Nutro Natural Senior. everyone seems to do well with this arrangement.

Fed wet food once a day with dry food refill at night and when bowl empty. They do , being cats, ofc get a few treats during day. They get 1/3rd of a wet food can shared and plenty of dry.
We use to have one cat and just feed dry but when we got the other two we had to include some wet and it made more sense they all got some. Wet food does seem to improve their moods and coats. So we give wet and dry now.

My 3 girls who are all fairly small kitties (our biggest is Lily who's a little over 9lbs and she's just long and lean) get 1/2 cup of Felidae dry a day between them, and 2 heaped teaspoonfuls of tinned food at night between them. There's always dry left over, and there's always a bit of wet left over.

Chase gets wet food 3x a day, generally. Occasionally 4x. He gets something like 2-3 oz. each meal. Sometimes he eats it all, sometimes he only eats about half, in which case my sister's cat gets the rest. Dry is left out all the time, but he rarely touches it. I'm trying new brands right now to try to get him to eat a little of it, as he needs to keep weight on, but won't really eat more canned than he's currently getting a day.

am I the only one who has a feeder and our two have free reign over how often they snack on it? They get to share one can of fancy feast each evening after I get home from work.

I feed Karma 1/4 cup of dry in the morning and 1/4 cup at night. She usually finishes all of it through out the day and night. She gets to free feed on it. I also give her half of a 3 oz can 2 times a day of Wellness wet. Half in the morning and half at night. She seems happy and has not put on weight or lost weight.

Originally Posted by mooficat

Not sure what a 'cup' measurement is - being European and all

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I found this link, it should help with all the conversions and knowing the difference when we all talk about amounts we feed.
http://www.curezone.com/conversions.asp

Jaffa has 250-300g wet food per day and Mosi has 150g wet food plus about 20g dry food. I give them 3 meals a day. I free fed Jaffa and his brother when he was a kitten but by the time he was about 7 months he would eat the entire days rations for both of them before I was out of the door in the morning, so that was the end of free feeding! I do think free feeding is good if you have cats that will control their eating, but meal times are useful when you have cats needing different foods. When I got Mosi, Jaffa was 8 years old so he was on adult food but Mosi was on kitten food for a while. Now, Jaffa has some senior food but Mosi always has adult food. I feed them both at scheduled mealtimes and watch over them to make sure they eat the right meal and don't switch places. As I feed mostly wet food I wouldn't want to leave that down for too long, and I dont want Jaffa to have any dry food.

We're feeding 1/3 cup dry and 3 oz wet each, but I think Stan is eating most of the dry and Bella is eating most of the wet Most days there is some dry left over that gets tossed.

He does drink out of the kitty fountain more than she does, so I'm not worried about dehydration. I would like to eventually get them both on to all wet all the time.

Originally Posted by KarmasMom

I found this link, it should help with all the conversions and knowing the difference when we all talk about amounts we feed.
http://www.curezone.com/conversions.asp

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thanks ! strange that the 'cup' measurement never crept over here.......thanks for the link !!

Originally Posted by berries781

we've been doing once a day and about 2/3 cup, but i'm not sure if this is the best way or not. what do you do? do you even control how much they eat? do you just keep their bowl filled? or do you keep a measured amount in there?

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Every cat is different but since you asked, I just pour a large amount of dry food into their dining room tray and when one decides it is time to eat, the other rushes over and eats right along. They free feed all day long and I weigh them twice a week with baby scales and they never very by more than two ounces. Here they are:

(I have since removed that plastic liner in their tray, after receiving advice to do so.)

Mine get 1 & 1/2 cup a day in grain free dry between the 4 of them and the two that will eat wet split one small can.

However, a quick side point that unless you know the nutritional breakdown of each food, knowing what others are feeding and the weight and health management needs of their cat probably wont help you. Even if you had 3 cats weighing the same and eating the same food, they could be needing different amounts depending on their activity level and if they need to gain / lose weight to be a healthy weight.

If you are worried about the amount you are feeding them, speak to your vet and they can give you a nutritional breakdown for your cats, that they should be getting x calories a day from whatever food you give them but it should include x mg of these specific things etc.