Feeding wet only to a kitten

There is nothing wrong w/ some dry food (not all dry is created equal, there are very low carb excellent protein source grain-free varieties available), but for a kitten feeding just wet you'll likely find its as many times a day as it takes to meet the feeding recommendation on the can. I would wager about five times a day, which is impractical for people with an outside life that can't be home all the time IMO.

Wet food is approximately 80% water so its not very calorie packed, and kittens tummies are very small, so if you give too much at once they either leave it or puke from overeating and kittens need lots of calories (around twice as much as an adult per pound) if you want them to grow up big.

That is why for my kittens, I left dry out 24x7 along with two nice water fountains, and gave wet food three times a day. At about 8 months I started portioning out the dry instead of free feeding. At one year they only get dry from an autofeeder at night, and then get two wet meals morning and afternoon. If I'm on vacation, they get two dry meals from the autofeeder and one wet meal afternoon since its cheaper or easier on friends to just come once a day.

I'm glad you want to feed only wet food After all the problems caused by dry food, that my cats had, I wouldn't go pack to dry if I was paid to

Cats and kittens are perfectly fine going without food for a few hours. Actually, it is more harmful than helpful to leave food available to them all the time.

Morey & Mitch were fed a raw diet from the start, so they couldn't have food available at all times either. I fed them typically three times a day then and still do try to feed that much. However, if you are home more often, it is good for them to have a few more meals offered to a kitten, because they are growing and do need to eat several small meals a day.

I personally let those two choose how much they wanted to eat at each meal, however, everything was put away after each meal as well - no food left out in between meal times. I fed at 7:30 am, 4:30 pm, and 10:00 pm...however if I was around to feed them in between those times, they did get meals at differant times as well (typically 10 am and 7 pm were added to the above times).

I pretty much adopted the same approach as Ducman has. At the time I was not able to feed the number of times needed if I was going to feed just wet. I also had other cats of varying ages in the household as well. When Swiffer was tiny she got wet 3x daily and I free fed dry.

As adults all of the cats get fed wet 2x daily and I still free feed dry food. Nothing wrong with dry kibble in their diet as long as they are getting enough water to remain hydrated.

Congrats on the new additon and glad you joined the forum!

I must agree with Ducman. Kittens need to be fed more than morning and night and if one is working that is difficult to accomplish.

Kittens will be just fine with leaving some good quality dry food out for them 24/7 so they can snack when they are hungry and until they are about 10 months old to 1 year, it won't hurt them at all. As Ducman said, their little tummies cannot hold a large meal easily so small meals are best and the way to do that is free-feed dry.

Not all dry foods are bad.

You could also experiment, if you want to, with freezing some wet food and then putting it out to thaw, for your kitten to eat during the day.

Most cats are very good at judging whether food has gone bad or not. They have very acidic stomachs, and can handle bacteria, unlike people. If your house is cool enough, you could try leave wet food out.

Morey & Mitch did do very well with their feeding scheduale - they aren't going to eat whenever they want if they were living on their own

Welcome to TCS, Lily'sMom! And congratulations on your newest furry family member.

In making the choice to feed a healthier, canned, diet, I have to believe you've done some research into a cat's nutritional needs, so I'd like to start off by saying KUDOS!!

Now to answer your query - I always recommend feeding adult cats three times a day and kittens four times a day. Very generally-speaking, adults will eat about one 5.5 or 6 ounce can of wet food a day; kittens can and should be eating about twice that amount.

(Cats evolved to eat many small meals a day, and their tummies can get rather acidic if they go too long without eating - "too long" being specific to each cat. Once that happens, they're prone to vomiting, and, sometimes, that vomiting can upset their systems even further and cause them to lose their appetites altogether. This isn't a regular occurrence, but it's happened often enough that I stick to the three times for adults / four times with kittens rule.)

I'm quite positive your kitten would be deliriously happy if you gave her a middle of the night meal, but I don't think it's truly necessary and you'd be starting a pattern that might be doable now, but would probably get old real quick. I would make her first meal as early as you possibly can and her last meal as late as you can, though.

Maybe you could pick up an automatic feeder for those days you expect to be away from home for an extended period of time?

Also, something that might stand you in good stead in the future - never, ever feed your cat when you first get out of bed. Find another activity... taking a quick shower, pouring your first coffee of the day and sitting at the kitchen table for a few sips, anything distinctive and likely to be repeated every day. Lily will associate this activity with her meal and NOT your awakening and will be disinclined to wake you to be fed.

I have six cats and I always feed them immediately after I've showered and thrown a bathrobe on. I haven't been awoken by a cat in years (although I do have quite the audience while I'm showering... cats on the counters, the toilet seat, the shelves... )

Best of luck to you!

AC

We got Tumbles just about a year ago and he was about 9-10wks old. We did 4 small wet food feedings a day, 6:30AM, Noon, 6:30pm, and bedtime (10-10:30PM). We left dry kitten food down for him at all times, but he was confined to a separate room of his own. By the time he was 6 months old, we decreased the number of wet feedings to 3 (morning, noon, evening). When he was about 9 mos, he went to the current schedule of twice daily wet food meals with a bit of dry spaced out through the day.

I've taken the mixed approach when it comes to my kittens. I also want to feed wet only (I actually want to get them on raw very soon) but there are times when I might get delayed at work or have to run to a store before it closes, etc., and they might end up going almost 12 hours after their morning meal until the next. So I do leave a pan of grain-free dry food out, just in case. The good news is that the more wet food you feed, the less dry they eat, so I rarely have to fill up the pan more than once per day, if that, for two growing, crazy, energetic kittens! I use a little measuring cup to scoop (not because I want to measure it, just because it's handy lol!) and it works out to about 1/4 cup of dry, split between the two, per day.

I could be wrong, but I don't think a cat comes preprogrammed to stuff itself and overeat just because there's food out. For a kitten, even if you leave dry out, if you are able to feed mostly wet, and you let them eat as much of the wet as they want, they shouldn't be that interested in the dry food unless you're gone and they get hungry. Simon & Garfunkel rarely eat the dry when I'm around, and I feed them when I get home from work, about 5 hours before I go to bed for the night. Most of it gets eaten overnight, and the rest during the day when I'm at work. When I'm at home they're too busy driving me crazy and wrestling with each other to eat!

It's not a perfect system - I'd love to be feeding them wet food exclusively. Frankly I'd love to be feeding them raw exclusively. I'm just too nervous to leave them without food while they're babies and growing, and I like to think I'm not harming them by having some kibble-based insurance around.

Yup!! I wake up, let the kittens into my bedroom, lay back down and read news sites and facebook (sign of my age), get up, get ready, then jingle my keys. The jingle lets them know it's meal time!!! This was actually an accident originally, lol. Several days in a row I hadn't slept well and was rushing to get out of the house after oversleeping. Picked up the keys and started down the steps - then I haven't fed the cats! The third or fourth day, I didn't forget, but jingled the keys as a joke to myself, and I haven't stopped since. They're almost 16 weeks and I've had them since they were 6 weeks and they have never scratched or mewled at the door to wake me up or get in in the mornings. Great advice from AC!