How much to feed this kitten!

Ok help! I call uncle. I have NO idea how much to feed my voracious kitten. [emoji]128516[/emoji]

I have read "feed kitten as much as she wants 3-4x/day, and leave dry kibble down to snack on."

If I feed her as much as she wants, she'll eat an entire 3-oz can 4x/day plus snack on dry food (now that I found one she likes). I cut back to 3/4 can because she was throwing up sometimes with 1 whole can. Now she hasn't thrown up since 2/20.

She was at vet yesterday and I asked about her belly seeming bloated lately. She is negative for parasites. He isn't concerned, but was flabbergasted at how much she eats. He thinks she's just kind of obsessed with food after having been so horribly ill and unable to eat for a long time.

He seemed uncertain as to what she really should be having, though. He suggested 1/4 can 3x/day?? I LOL at that- she'll eat 1/4 can in

I fed her 1/2 can at 6 am- then gave her another 1/4 can before leaving for work, at 730, because she's not great about eating while I'm gone. She snarfed that. Then I put down her fresh dry food for the day. And she went to that and ate some, too!

Hello marblesmom, at 18 weeks old, she is very much a kitten. She needs lots of proteins for her growth. You are right, feed a kitten as much as they can eat with wet food at least 4 times a day.

3/4 cans of 3oz 4 times a day is not much. Some cats eat more and some less. Looks like the one you've got eats more. So if she's fed not enough, definitely she'll ask for more. Furthermore if she's the active type, she need to eat more as they burn off the calories faster.

You can continue to feed 3/4 can for one sitting since you mentioned that she'll throw up with 1 can. Space out the feeding time. So roughly it'll be like every 4 hours between feeds. At the same time, leave some dry out for her and always make sure there's fresh water available for her.

She'll slow down her intake of food once she is around a year old as that's the age most cats will become adults.

Once she has enough food to eat, she will stop wolfing down her food. It's only that she does that is because she is really hungry.

As for the bloated tummy, has she been dewormed?

Hi Marblesmom!

I am a new kitten-mom and she is 6 mos/24 weeks and also a very hungry kitty.

Her previous owner she was only giving her dry food (Delicat - ugh!) and said Luna was always hungry.

When I got her home, I started feeding her 2x a day because I work during the week.

Each meal: 1/2 can 3oz can of wet food at 7am + 4 tbsp dry.  She would gobble up the wet food and graze on the dry all day.  When I would come home from work at 7:30p she would have almost all the food eaten. I give her the same meal for the night and when I wake up in the morning, she almost always has eaten all her food.

In the last week I've upped her meals to 1/2 can of 5oz wet + 3 TBSP dry and monitor how hungry she is or isn't by what she eats (to guard against vomiting).

Luna will get up in my face no matter what I'm eating even if I she has fresh food just given to her. Just the way some kittens are I guess!

I read that kittens should eat as much as they want until adulthood aka 1 year old so, leaving food for them to graze is a good idea.  Thing is with the wet food, if it sits too long Luna won't eat it, not sure if your fur baby is the same way.

Good luck!

I have such a dilemma with this. My kitten is 8 months old effective 2 days hehehe...and I have been portioning his food now for maybe 2 months? I've been feeding him 1.5 - 2 cans per day, depending on the size. If it is a 6 oz can, I feed 1.5 cans. If it is smaller, I will obviously feed more. No dry food though, as he is on wet only. He is always hungry. I am sure if I gave him 5 cans a day he would eat those no problem. In between sometimes I will give him some cooked chicken or raw gizzards and necks twice a week as a snack. I don't know if I am underfeeding him but my vet said just to be careful because it so easy with indoor cats to gain weight quickly. Right now he's at a good weight. Last time we checked he was 6.5lbs I think? He doesn't look scrawny, but he is pretty slim. You can feel his ribs, but he also has a bit of meat on his underbelly.

I just don't know. I want to make sure he's healthy....so confusing.

How many calories should he have per day? How many cans? I'm doing my best...I dunno.

TabbyTom said:

As for the bloated tummy, has she been dewormed?

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Yes, before we got her (which was at 9 weeks), and afterward at around 10 weeks, also. And yesterday the vet tested her for worms and other parasites and all was negative. I had been wondering that, too.

yogakitty said:

I have such a dilemma with this. My kitten is 8 months old effective 2 days hehehe...and I have been portioning his food now for maybe 2 months? I've been feeding him 1.5 - 2 cans per day, depending on the size. If it is a 6 oz can, I feed 1.5 cans. If it is smaller, I will obviously feed more. No dry food though, as he is on wet only. He is always hungry. I am sure if I gave him 5 cans a day he would eat those no problem. In between sometimes I will give him some cooked chicken or raw gizzards and necks twice a week as a snack. I don't know if I am underfeeding him but my vet said just to be careful because it so easy with indoor cats to gain weight quickly. Right now he's at a good weight. Last time we checked he was 6.5lbs I think? He doesn't look scrawny, but he is pretty slim. You can feel his ribs, but he also has a bit of meat on his underbelly.

I just don't know. I want to make sure he's healthy....so confusing.

How many calories should he have per day? How many cans? I'm doing my best...I dunno.

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Our male kitten was fed 3 meals a day - about half of a 3 oz can each time. He was allowed to free-feed dry kibble 24/7.

yogakitty said:

I have such a dilemma with this. My kitten is 8 months old effective 2 days hehehe...and I have been portioning his food now for maybe 2 months? I've been feeding him 1.5 - 2 cans per day, depending on the size. If it is a 6 oz can, I feed 1.5 cans. If it is smaller, I will obviously feed more. No dry food though, as he is on wet only. He is always hungry. I am sure if I gave him 5 cans a day he would eat those no problem. In between sometimes I will give him some cooked chicken or raw gizzards and necks twice a week as a snack. I don't know if I am underfeeding him but my vet said just to be careful because it so easy with indoor cats to gain weight quickly. Right now he's at a good weight. Last time we checked he was 6.5lbs I think? He doesn't look scrawny, but he is pretty slim. You can feel his ribs, but he also has a bit of meat on his underbelly.

I just don't know. I want to make sure he's healthy....so confusing.

How many calories should he have per day? How many cans? I'm doing my best...I dunno.

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Your kitty at this age should be weighing around 7.5 - 8 pounds. If you can see his ribs, he is kind of underweight.

Since your kitty is always hungry, and he's only 8 months old, he is very much still a kitten and still growing. You can increase a little more of his food intake. If he's active, feed him more.
Guideline for calories are 20 calories per pound for indoor cats. Roughly 200 calories for a 10 pound cat. So it's ok to feed more now as he'll slow down on his food intake as he reaches 1 year old and his eating pattern might change too.

Is your kitty spayed or neutered? It is not true that indoor cats gain weight easily. They only gain weight if they are neutered or spayed, as their activities level are much lower and if they are fed on dry food as dry food has more carbs. So if the kitty does not excercise much and sleep and eat whole day, definitely will put on weight.

Actually the whole cats who are fixed put on more weight is a myth. I do believe indoor cats are generally not as active because they don't have the room and environment to move like outdoor cats. But if you play with them and keep them active hopefully it's not a problem. Of course, you have to know how much to feed regardless. That's where I'm a bit clueless.

We have a 12 year old girl at my parents place who is fit and quite energetic. She is spayed. She's only starting to slow down a little. Not a spring chicken anymore lol. Mind you, she was a stray as a kitten and before my parents took her, she belonged to my husbands mother who let her run outdoors. So she was an indoor and outdoor cat until she hit about 5 or 6 years. Maybe that made a difference. I don't know.

Yes, my little guy is also neutered and his energy level is exhausting. He's always moving around. Sometimes I just don't know which toys to buy him to keep him occupied. He's always getting into everything and so curious. He jumps like an acrobat! It's just that he can eat and eat and eat all the time. I almost feel like he won't slow down even when he hits a year or so! My vet sort of scared me too with the whole "be careful how much you feed" bit.

That's exactly what I meant. If they are inactive, chances of putting on weight is sure.

As for the feeding, feed as much or as often as you can or as he can eat. Your kitty has a good 5 or 6 months to go before hitting adult age and let him eat more as she is still growing. Once he reaches a year or so, you'll notice his change of intake and frequency. Unless he belongs to a certain breed that may take up to 2 years or so before reaching maturity. And as long as he's active, don't worry so much that he'll put on weight.

My boy eats a lot too till late. He's now 14 months old and he has slowed down on his amount and frequency. Sometimes I give him food at the times he's supposed to be eating but he runs away or try to cover up the food when he sees it. I don't free feed him and he's on wet food only. And sometimes he don't even finish what he's supposed to finish.

I weighed my little guy this morning. He's 7.2 lbs already at 8 months.

yogakitty said:

I weighed my little guy this morning. He's 7.2 lbs already at 8 months.

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Think he can afford to put on a little more weight

I am trying to space Marbles' feedings out more to 3 feedings/day wet, with the vet's feeling that her belly bloat is prob due to eating so much so often. But still leaving down dry food with intent for it to be for snacking...

I fed her 3/4 can of wet food at 7 am. She just went and ate a whole meal's worth, probably, of dry food, 6 hrs later. Which is how frequently I had been feeding her wet food up til now (4x/day, with the last one being a top-off before bed.)

Don't see point of extending the time between her wet food feedings if she's just going to eat a meal's worth of dry on her own instead. I'd rather her main meals be wet.

So maybe I'll just keep doing what I had been doing??

After looking at a site showing a normal body type for an adult cat, I took another look at my Sheeba.

She's healthy, a bit more energetic than most cats and she does eat, albeit she's picky.

She seems a bit underweight, but I can't really tell. She's only 1-1/2 years old and never been sick. Do I have any worries or is my cat more the athletic type?

marblesmom said:

So maybe I'll just keep doing what I had been doing??

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I guess you can keep doing what you've been doing. Just as long as she has enough to eat.

seallim1966 said:

After looking at a site showing a normal body type for an adult cat, I took another look at my Sheeba.

She's healthy, a bit more energetic than most cats and she does eat, albeit she's picky.

She seems a bit underweight, but I can't really tell. She's only 1-1/2 years old and never been sick. Do I have any worries or is my cat more the athletic type?

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Hello seallim1996, welcome to TCS

It's good that your kitty is the athletic type. It keeps her fit and trim. She should weigh around 9 -10 lbs at that age.

Run your both hands along the side of her body from front to back and see if you can feel her ribs. If it feels boney, likely she is underweight, but hope she's not under nourished. If you can slightly feel her ribs, that means she is ok but if you can't, then it means she is overweight.

Do introduce yourself and your kitty in 'New Cats on the Block' under the General Forums and post photos of her for us to see. Also if you have questions, feel free to ask and do check out the interesting reads in the Articles section on the red tab and also there are great informations in the forum threads

I've got a little boy who's creeping up on 6 months who eats two 5.5oz cans a day! He gets a third at a time. He is on strictly wet food with no dry and has had some digestive issues so I try to feed him more frequent smaller meals, though I guess to some a third of a can may not be small. 

Well. So. She was just sitting on my lap, and when she got up, on my lap was a 1-2 cm light brown round something which I thought was poop- but was not. I'm positive it is a worm!
Called vet and, though her stool tested neg for parasites last week, they're just going to treat her.
Will see if she eats and drinks less after treatment. (I've noticed her drinking noticeably more in the past week or so, too.)
Has anyone else ever had a negative stool sample for worms, but it turned out their cat had worms anyway?

marblesmom said:

Well. So. She was just sitting on my lap, and when she got up, on my lap was a 1-2 cm light brown round something which I thought was poop- but was not. I'm positive it is a worm!
Called vet and, though her stool tested neg for parasites last week, they're just going to treat her.
Will see if she eats and drinks less after treatment. (I've noticed her drinking noticeably more in the past week or so, too.)
Has anyone else ever had a negative stool sample for worms, but it turned out their cat had worms anyway?

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Did you take a photo of it and show to the vet?

Nope- I offered to bring it or another stool sample in and they said they'd just treat her.