My kitten is about 6 months old weighing close to 8 lbs. I feed him dry meow mix and wet fancy feast. He gets a cup of meow mix and two can of fancy feast a day, sometimes 3. This still doesn't seem to satisfy him. Am I doing something wrong or is he just being a lil chunker?
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He's always hungry! What should I do?
- Thread starter raejae42
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I would try switching dry foods to something with less fillers- the higher quality foods (grain-free) seem to be more filling for cats in my experience so he may eat less and be full faster. 1 full cup of dry food a day is a LOT of calories and carbs on its own, so if switching to a higher quality isn't an option, I would maybe do more wet food and cut down on dry at the very least. My kitten is almost 6 months old and actually has the opposite problem- she has a small appetite for a kitten. She eats one 3 oz can a day and 1/4th of a cup of dry and I actually keep trying to get her to eat more. occasionally I can get her to eat an extra couple of ounces of wet if im lucky.
Was he hungry before he lived with you? Some cats need time to regulate their eating when they have been hungry before. My cats have wet food, but they are also allowed to free-feed their kibble 24/7. They love being able to have a nibble between their mealtimes.
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- #4
destinyz12
The cup of meow mix is what the bag says. I thought it was quite much for a kitten to but he eats all of it right away and doesn't even allow for any nibble room for later. I'll look into higher quality food. I bet that could have something to do with it. That's also why we've been giving him wet food because the vet said it'll fill him up faster... Doesn't seem to be a difference whether he eats wet or dry. 
Primula
I don't remember him being this hungry when we first got him. We did find him as a stray so maybe he's in the mentality of "if I don't eat it all now, I might not eat anything later." I feel like we've had him for about a month or so now. I tried to do the free-feed thing with him but he just sits in front of the bowl and eats it all in one sitting! Sometimes he'll leave a little bit of dry food behind but never wet food.
If he was a stray he defnitely is worried his food source will disappear. Or there may have been food, but he had to compete with other strays for it.
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- #6
Do you think it'll just take him a while to get over that?
Look at the first ingredient of Meow Mix. Betting it is corn and that meat is way low on the food list or you will find meat by products (which are beaks and such). Meow Mix is about as low a quality as you can get. Go with a better quality of dry food like Science Diet for kittens and maybe the Fancy Feast turkey for kittens. It is packed with more solid substance than the other FF flavors and is more filling. A 6 month old kitten should be fed as much as he wants until he is about a year old when their metabolism starts to slow down.
Most definitely. Food is life & somehow we expect a stray cat to behave rationally around it when the world is full of obese people!
Yeah, I'd also recommend a higher-quality dry food. Meow Mix is terrible, almost no meat in it. If you can't get a really good brand, I've had success with Purina ONE, especially the kitten formula. At least meat is the first ingredient!
But, that said, he is a teenage boy and will be eating a lot for a few months. Just like human teenage boys! It's generally recommended to give growing kittens free access to dry food, along with a can or two of wet food, but if he gorges himself on dry food just go by the label recommendations to start with, and add more or subtract some, as needed.
But, that said, he is a teenage boy and will be eating a lot for a few months. Just like human teenage boys! It's generally recommended to give growing kittens free access to dry food, along with a can or two of wet food, but if he gorges himself on dry food just go by the label recommendations to start with, and add more or subtract some, as needed.
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I agree with @Primula's answer that, yes, he'll get over it. It can take time, though. We adopted our cats at 10 months. They were true rescue cats, too--from a hoarding situation where they'd been very underfed--and ate with reckless abandon for months. We just kept feeding and feeding and feeding them until they were at least a year and a half; they're now nearly four. One cat has definitely gotten over the food anxiety, though the other has a tendency to want to overeat. That has gradually lessened over the years, though feeding them regular meals, five times a day, helps a lot. (I work at home so that's not a problem.)
And I couldn't agree more about switching away from the Meow Mix to something much higher protein if you plan to keep feeding dry food. It's protein that fills up a cat and helps it grow and develop nicely.
