How much/often do you feed your

Kittens/cats? We leave dry out all the time. Two small bowls and one large... bowl that refills as my big cat or dog eat. Kittens get wet once every other day. Various water dishes around the house.

I have one 12-lb cat. He gets 1/4 cup dry food in the morning and 1/4 cup at night. I'm not big on providing wet food every day, but he does get half a can mixed in with a smaller amount of dry food a few times/week with dinner. Treats include Greenies when I get home from work and I will occasionally give him small amounts of tuna fish when I open a can for myself. On very rare occasions I'll give him some scrambled eggs (unseasoned). There are two water dishes in my house; one upstairs and one downstairs next to his food dish. This feeding routine seems to be working well, as the veterinarian says he is at a healthy weight. He also gets compliments on his teeth.

rachelinaz said:

Kittens/cats? We leave dry out all the time. Two small bowls and one large... bowl that refills as my big cat or dog eat. Kittens get wet once every other day. Various water dishes around the house.

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I leave dry out most of the time between 1/8 to a quarter cup - sometimes a bit more. He does get wet food (1 tablespoon or so mixed with some dry from the bowl) 3 times a day (before work, after work and before bed). I may try to cut the wet to two times and some dry.

I feed my adult cats twice a day.  They don't need more than that.

Mo, our bigger cat, gets about 2-2.5 tablespoons of wet food plus some raw, which lately has been chicken breast or gizzard, with some watered down gravy per meal twice a day.

Kismet gets closer to 1.5 tablespoons of wet food plus some raw, with only a bit of extra water per meal twice a day.

About 1/3 cup of dry is available between the two of them in two separate bowls whenever wet food isn't. As it is, after the first few bites of wet, they roam away and as they come back they mix and match wet food saucers.. as long as they both get fed, I'm happy. The dry left out doesn't get finished everyday and it isn't enough to sustain either one of them anyway so I know the amount of wet for the times they get fed suffices.

Our kittens nibble through out the day. We have done it with all of our pets since I was a small child. It wasn't until I came here did I find out different. So I was just curious.

Our two cats are 9 & 10 months old. They get three meals per day... early morning, late afternoon, and before we go to bed for the night. Our 9 month old, Dory, eats canned food only and gets 2.5 to 3 ounces at each meal. Our 10 month old, George, still prefers some kibble. At each meal he is eating just shy of 2 oz canned, and one tablespoon of kibble. We are working to get him to 100% canned, and he's been very agreeable with the change thus far.

My preference is for scheduled meals. This way I know without a doubt that they both are eating, and exactly how much. It allows me to easily keep their weight under control, and monitor for food related issues or illness. I have had many cats & several dogs over the years, and I've never free-fed any of them.

6 times a day, small amounts (1/5-1/4 can) of wet food, when he asks. When he was given the dry kibble (Hill's t/d dental), it was always available, changed daily.

How do you guys measure wet? We have 3 teenager kittens and one baby/young man (Wally... who is appx 7/8 weeks old).

We put down 1-2 5.5oz cans 2-3x a day plus the unlimited dry. All are lean except Wally. He is slimmer than a week or two.

The school sent home tuna (a packet with each kid) in the kids weekly bags. I have never tried.
I am wondering if the kittens might like it. WE are not tuna fans.

When l feed raw l don't know how much l feed them, l eyeball it.

Canned, l'll give them either a 3oz can each or a 5.5oz can and a 3oz can between the three of them, twice a day on work days and 3 times a day on non-work days. No kibble.

All three are slim.

I eyeball it too. I usually use a soup spoon, but I just know what each portion looks like when I see it on a saucer or in a bowl. It changes depending on the food, mix-ins, and season (if it's really hot in the apartment, the cats eat less and the food spoils faster) so if I need to instruct my boyfriend on feeding them, I write it down differently each time. I've since removed the kibble from free feeding, and now the cats receive 20-30 pieces of kibble in a rolling Kong or hidden in a box for them to work and get it out of.

If you want to feed the cats tuna, definitely limit it. If you can open a can and refrigerate it to portion it over the course of a week or so, that would be better than feeding it all at once or as a meal or anything. Tuna has a strong smell and most cats love it, so it makes for a good treat if you can manage to store the other packs. If you feed too much or too frequently, it could spoil their appetites and the cats could expect tuna all the time! Or of course, you could send the tuna to me. I LOVE tuna, but it's too expensive here for me to justify buying any. When I crack open a tuna-flavoured cat food, I'm so envious of the cats.

Thank you guys.... I worry Walter doesn't get enough. He is a lot younger than the girls. Sometimes he doesn't even come when I open the wet. But his tummy is not empty!


@pinkdagger. Where are you? I would... we get it weekly. 2 packets. After opening a can years ago that went bad.... no more tuna. I use to love it!

Weekly!? So lucky! I'm up in Canada.. might be expensive to send, and I don't know what foods can get sent, lol.

Oh my goodness, such careful feedings. I feel like a slob in comparison! My Mama kitty and her baby get free-fed pretty much all day. Whenever I notice their plate is empty, I put more down. They're former strays, and when we first got them they were very underweight. Mama is quite a tiny cat - she is the same size as her 8-9 month old baby. She was under 3 kg (under 6.6 lb) when I took her in. She has plateaued at 3.3 kg (7.2 lb)  for months now. You can feel she has a good shape now, and I'm glad to have her up to that weight, although I wouldn't be unhappy if she put a little bit more on. Meanwhile her baby is still growing so I want to make sure she has enough energy to supply her growth and all that kitten activity! They get fed together; originally I tried feeding them apart so the kitten got kitten food and the cat got cat food, but they always wanted what the other was getting. They get fed from 690g tins, and per day they'll go through 1/3 of a tin to an entire tin, depending on how they feel. Most days they have 2/3 of a 690g tin. The kitten definitely eats over half of what gets put down. 

They don't get many treats, but occasionally they'll get offcuts from my flatmate's steaks/bacon. And very occasionally, I'll give them some fish from my dinner and they get tuna on special occasions or when I have to placate them after giving them pills. 

They also get pet milk, which I'll be stopping soon. I started giving it to them to try to stop the kitten from suckling. It hasn't worked, btw, and she's 8/9 months old, the same size as her mother, and still trying to suckle. Mama has no milk left but baby does try! It's kind of ridiculous. 

They have a bowl of water near their food dish. I don't see them drink from it often. They probably don't need much water because they get fed purely on wet food, no dry food at all. After my mother's cat got terribly addicted to dry food, none of my cats will be having dry if I can help it! 

Generally twice a day for my two adults
1/2 5.5 oz can each in the morning and half at night (5.5 oz total for the day)
Sometimes I'll give them 1/4 cup of dry instead of wet, once or twice a week. This helps stretch the wet food budget

if I am working both jobs in the day, I give them less than a 1/4 dry in the afternoon or some treats (since on these days, they eat at 3am, and won't eat again until 6pm- a snack in between is helpful!)

Sometimes I'd like to free feed dry- but they'd eat all the food in one sitting, they won't nibble during the day. It's helpful when I am gone overnight somewhere. No such luck here!

I have a 5 year old and a 5 month old. They get fed 2x a day. Morning I put down 6oz of wet food (That is watered/mixed into a liquid "soup") which some days gets eaten right away and others they snack on over the course of a few hours. At night I put down 1/2 cup of dry. If they eat their breakfast up pretty quickly and seem hungry still, I might put down 1/4th cup in the middle of the day but normally they're satisfied till dinner and then through the night on the 1/2 cup for dinner. A few times a week I mix 1oz of raw into their 6oz of wet which is the only way I can get my oldest to eat raw foods, though my kitten has no problem eating it plain. Those are the total amounts that go down each day, I let them sort out how much each one eats. (Normally Oliver walks away first and Pinball, the kitten, will finish the rest of it)

Angel gets half of a 5.5 oz can for breakfast, & the other half for dinner. Both meals get water from the PUR filter mixed in (to an oatmeal consistancy.) I have just continued this sense his cystitis to make sure he gets plenty of water, & stays flushed out. Because of the past cystitis episodes, no dry for him.

I also give him a few treats  in the afternoon, & before bed. (the ones before bed, I hide his 1/2 of an allergy pill in, (itchy skin), & call it his night night treat   ).

I only feed Muffin canned wet food which she does real well on.  No more urinary tract infections.  I opted not to do the raw food diet.  Originally when I started feeding her canned food, I was feeding her by the recommended guidelines on the cans.  She is around a 12 pound cat and she was losing weight to the point that my vet thought there was another health issue.  I now feed her half of a small can about every 2 1/2 to 3 hours with her last meal being right before bed time.  So I no longer go by the recommend guidelines, I feed the cat when she is hungry and she is now very healthy with no reoccurences.

My cats eat 3 times/day.

On average, they eat:

Breakfast - 9 am - about 2 oz wet food each

Evening - 7 pm - about 2 oz of raw food each

Night - 11 pm - about  2 oz wet food each

I do not feed dry anymore.