Do I have to free feed my kitten, kitten kibble?

November 27,  2015

Dear people-who-know-more-about-cats-than-me,

I have a kitten that is about 5 months old, a dark tortie, and she is SO SWEET!! She is a rescue. I want her to be as healthy as possible so I have a big bowl of kitten-kibble down for her all the time plus she gets 2 meals of wet food.

The problem comes from the fact that my roommate has a cat, too, a little over a year. She is wonderful, too! She was in our house for a while, when the roommate moved in, before I got my kitty, and she when I got her, she accepted the little kitten, no problem.

The problem IS that my roommate's little cat loves the kitten-kibble and helps herself to it, day and night, and she is blowing up like a balloon.  She has always been free-fed with cat kibble and meals of wet food, and her weight was fine.  But she absolutely LOVES the kitten's kitten-kibble, with its extra protein and fat, and she's going over and eating it all the time.  I'm trying to tell her not to, but what can I do? I'm not always there. My husband and I and our roommate all work, so there are times when no one is in the house.  We would like to just train her to leave that food alone, but she is very determined.

Now she looks like she swallowed a little football. Her stomach area is sticking way out all around. My neighbor thought she was pregnant! But she is spayed!

What can I do to take care of my little kitten? Doesn't she need to free-feed on kitten-kibble? She looks very good right now, not over or underweight.  I don't want my kitten to suffer because her big friend dips into her kitten-kibble dish all day long and and in order to correct that, I would have to take away the kitten-kibble my poor little kitty should have.  I really want her to have her kitten-kibble down all the time, so she won't get too hungry and lose weight, or become malnourished.

We are all home and at work at different times, and I might be able to set it up between me, my husband and our roommate to feed several meals to her and make sure the other cat doesn't push her aside.  But that would take a lot of effort and cooperation. I just don't want her to have to go without food for any amount of time at all.

Just because I'm wondering—how would a person feed a little kitten if they decided the kitten should only have wet food? You can't free-feed wet food, right?  (This is not a problem for people in homes where someone is there all the time, but that's not the case with us.) 

SHOULD all kittens get plenty of kitten-kibble by free-feeding?  How important is it for kittens to have kitten-kibble, since their mothers can't bring them freshly caught prey.

Please help!!

Wendalore's friend

If you are giving her two meals of wet food a day, I would just offer the adult cat food as the 'free food' and just offer kitten dry food when you are there to monitor. It sounds like she is getting nutrition, and is already half grown. I have the same problem, a senior cat that needs the extra calories and a younger one that is getting fat. They both absolutely insist on dry food to supplement what I give them.  Many times I'll dish up adult food for one, and kitten for the other on separate plates about three foot apart and that works well, for a while! Your older cat needs more exercise, a wand for her to chase would be good. All the luck!

Wendalore said:

Just because I'm wondering—how would a person feed a little kitten if they decided the kitten should only have wet food? You can't free-feed wet food, right?  (This is not a problem for people in homes where someone is there all the time, but that's not the case with us.) 

SHOULD all kittens get plenty of kitten-kibble by free-feeding?  How important is it for kittens to have kitten-kibble, since their mothers can't bring them freshly caught prey.

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I don't have much recent experience with feeding smaller kittens -- we adopted our cats at ten months and they were very underfed so my impressions are a bit skewed! -- but it most definitely is possible to leave out wet food for a cat.

I'm big on wet food over dry (and our vet gave us the same advice with our kittens because it's meat-based protein they need to grow, not carbs) so might suggest considering timed feedings of canned food for your kitten. It sounds like that's probably what you're already doing with wet food but maybe increasing the number of wet meals would keep Wendalore fed and happy, while cutting down on the need for free-fed food, be it wet or dry. The most important thing is to be sure the kitten gets as much food as she wants and needs... they really can eat! If you're not already feeding caloric wet foods (pates tend to be more caloric) you might want to compare calories: low-cal foods like Weruva don't keep kittens or hungry adult cats happy for as long as rich, caloric foods like, say, Wellness Core or Hound & Gatos or Nutro Natural Choice. (I say that from personal experience!) 

Based on our experience with our cats, I'll also add that they're now almost three and still eat a ton, so establishing feeding patterns now is a good idea, both for your kitten and your roommate's cat. It may take some time to find a way to keep everybody happy but cats do adapt and the end result is worth it! Our cats eat at very different speeds so we use what I might call modified timed feedings: they're fed in meals and one gets shut in a room for some of them so she can eat slowly without having to worry about the other cat poaching her food. We often leave a little food out for them during the day.

There are a couple previous threads that have ideas about kittens and timed feeding that might be helpful for you. Thread One. Thread Two.

I would just free feed wet food. I have 3 kittens that are 5 months old and another 7 cats that are all different ages and they really don't even like kibble and prefer to eat wet food throughout the day. But i feed a kibble that is for cats and kittens (Orijen) so if my older cats get into it its not an issue. I leave wet food out all day too, no problems.