Feeding Schedule

Now that Mango is getting closer to turning one, I'd like to stop free feeding him and try getting him onto a meal schedule, 2 meals/day.

He gets half a can of wet each morning along with 1/2 cup dry for the whole day. The problem is, he never eats the wet food as soon as I put it down -- he waits hours before finishing it and never in one sitting...mostly 3 or 4.

I don't want to leave the wet out for so long because of bacteria. I want to set up a feeding schedule so that I can slowly transition him over to an all wet diet eventually.

For the past few days, I've been taking away his dry food at 10pm so by the time I wake up the next day, 8am, I ASSUME he'd be hungry enough to eat the wet at a quicker pace than a few hours. But no, he doesn't do that. Only when I get home at 5-6 is the bowl ALMOST empty.

Does anyone have any suggestions on an easier transition for him? Do you feed your cats on a schedule?

P.S. Oh yeah, sometimes he holds out just to wait for the dry in the evening. It's quite frustrating.

I stop free feeding and start scheduled meals by 5-6 months old. But we give dry in the morning (its gone by noon) and canned in the evening. They will finish the canned food within 10-15 mins at the most.

Try giving the dry in the morning/day, and for supper offer the wet food. What kind of wet are you feeding?

Keep in mind that some cats just don't like canned and want dry. While its good to feed the canned, my adult rexes were fed dry Iams all their lives with no harm. They were healthy cats that lived to mid-late teens. Now we feed Royal Canin dry and in the canned its Natural Balance, Nutro-Max Cat, and a few cans of Iams.

Originally Posted by GoldenKitty45

What kind of wet are you feeding?

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The wet food varies from daily to every other day -- EVO, Wellness, Evanger's, Go Natural, and Merrick's, to name a few.

I don't know if this makes a difference, but by free feeding, I meant that I measure out half a cup daily and leave it there for him the whole day. There is always a bit left at night.

I continued taking the dry away at 10 last night and this morning, he finished all the wet in half an hour. Maybe he's finally feeling hungry now that the dry isn't there overnight...I used to hear him crunching on kibbles at 2 or 3 in the morning.

Thanks!

My guys will be 1 year old in May and I've noticed that they seem to be eating a little less in the morning. They are fed wet in the early morning, just over 1/4 dry between for them to nibble on during the day, and their big meal seems to be wet in the evening where they split a 5.5 can(sometimes a little more depending on their activity level) between them. We also leave them a little bit of dry overnight for snacking but very little......about 1/8 each. They seem okay with this. There is always some dry left in the morning when we get up and in the late afternoon when I get home.....so I think they are getting enough. I'm just wondering if they are just start to eat a little less as they are almost finished growing. They are very active and have grown a quite a bit in the last few months but I can't see them growing anymore.