How much food does she need?

I'm learning, so please bear with me.


So far, we've learned that Kittica needs four meals a day to be content, or to at least let US live through the day. And, even moreso - night.

But how do I know how much we should feed her? She's a year old and weighs around 8 pounds 3 ounces. Maybe a bit more. Doesn't look overweight, but is addicted to food and would eat a couple whole cows if she could. At once and probably with seven loaves of bread. (Speaking of which, is there something about cats and bread? Because she is nuts about it. She'd sell her soul for just a small piece, which she'll steal whenever an opportunity arises.)

Anyway.

We feed her Wellness canned food, or Wellness pouches, and only sometimes alternate with Merrick, or whatever those Grandma's pie and Thanksgiving Dinner foods are.

Then she also eats Wellness CORE for her dry meals.

Right now, she gets about 1/2 of dry food a day, as well as one 3 oz can. I split that into four meals:

- dry early in the morning
- some dry around my lunch time, always fed from Egg-Cersizer, which she loves
- 3 oz can early in the evening
- some dry before I go to bed, to keep us alive through the night

I wouldn't mind switching to more canned and less dry, but would love to keep this one mid-day meal as is because she really enjoys hunting down her egg and eating kibble from it.


So how much does a cat of her size and age need to eat a day? Especially if we switched to more canned and less dry.


(I hope I'm making sense here.)


Thanks everyone in advance!

What I do is trial and error based on the data from weighing my cats monthly. I bought a baby scale ($45 from Amazon). Maybe I'm obsessive about it, but I have one overweight cat, and I wanted to carefully monitor his progress on his diet.

I don't know about the bread thing. Personally, I'd discourage it.

It sounds to me that you are feeding good quality food, and have figured out a system to keep her satisfied. Good job!

As far as the amount, if she is now at a healthy weight (determined by vet input), I would monitor that it stays about the same, by checking her weight.

Robin

Depending on her breed of course here, but to me, 8lb sounds a bit overweight for just a one year old.

You are feeding fairly good quality food. Have you considered limiting her portions even more, even minimally? Like instead of 3oz of wet food at night, limit it to 2 oz. This subtle change might allow her to drop a pound in a months' time.

Plus it might show her that she doesn't need all that much food to be satisfied. Just a thought?

You could also try putting her on some weight restrictive food, or "light" as some call it. Just watch out for powdered cellulose as it's a filler used in light foods made from either cardboard or peanut hulls (the latter is preferred but both can be harmful for the cat).

But would she really need to drop a pound? This is the first time I've heard she could be overweight.

She's just a domestic shorthair and wherever I look, it actually says they should be anywhere between 8 and 12 pounds for females.

I think what she was saying is that 8lb is overweight for a 1 year old cat because although normal range is 8 - 12lb, a 1 year old cat hasn't finished growing, so should weight slightly under the 8lb mark.

Personally? I wouldn't worry about it. It sounds to me like you have the feeding about right. And I definitely wouldn't be putting her on a 'light' food... I would think that it's more important that she gets all the nutrients and calories she needs as a kitten than to lose a pound that she may or may not need to lose...

If you're worried about it, though, definitely take her to the vet! They're the best ones to know what you should do.

So far, even though they've been awesome and helpful when it came to a lot of things (all the issues one runs into with getting a stray...), they seem to not give out too much information on food that, in fact, makes sense.

I might not be weighing her correctly either, because right now my only option is to use my home scale, first without holding the cat, then with her and subtracting. So it can't be absolutely accurate.

She was 7 pounds 3 ounces (the vet weighed her) when we found her in November, when she was about 8 months old. I guess this information, sort of, makes me think it's not too bad to gain a pound or a bit more in four months. Even moreso because, when she was found, we were told she was a bit skinny and that we had to overfeed her for about a month. So we did give her more than what she's getting now, for sure.

But then again, I really am a brand new cat owner.

Kittica, you know what, it sounds to me like you are very motivated to do the right thing by her! That is absolutely the most important thing in my opinion. So, first cat owner you may be, but you're definitely ahead of a lot of the game!

I actually keep surprising myself - I am, by no means, a cat person. Or, well, I thought I wouldn't ever become one. But ever since Kittica walked through that window... I guess things have been changing.