Do you "free feed" your cats?

I free feed my cats. They are both indoor cats and so they're a little overweight, but not to the point that I'm concerened. I would expect a little weight on an indoor cat. I try to make sure they get lots of exercise chasing the lazer throughout the house.

We free feed the catroom cats Holly, Sophie & Bridget. Elmo, Dance & Lonestar have free fed biscuits too, but they get wet food twice daily also. Sophie & her kittens have free fed biscuits too but frequent wet meals throughout the day.

I do both. I always have dry kitten food down for them at all times and then sometimes I will give them a can of food to eat as a side dish since my girl isn't all into the dry food.

Scheduled meals. I raw feed my cats so there's no way I could free feed. I actuarally don't wanna free feed either since one of my females can't regulate the food intake on her own, she eats to much if free fed.

Originally Posted by Talon

Actually we keep dry food out at all times, and they get canned food twice a day.

Click to expand...

Same here although wet food is left out all the time it's changed 2 times a day or when Moss asks for fresh. Buiscuits are always available

I chose other. I free feed Dori's dry and give her half a can of wet food every morning as well. She doesn't have a weight problem. She did weigh 10 pounds and the vet recommended scheduled feedings and light cat food. I switched her to light food and started getting her to run around and play more and now she weighs which is fine with me. She looks good.

I put down other. I measure out a specific quanity of dry food in the morning and night and that is what they get. Sometimes they eat all of it sometimes they don't. My kitts are grazers. They will come over eat a couple of bites and leave and they do that all day. And they will not eat wet food. I don't know why.

i free feed 1/4 cup dry per cat bowl daily (3 bowls) and it is split in 2 feedings. they don't get a lot of dry food, their diet is mainly canned. they won't make the jump to all canned. and with the dry, it's not the same cat eating dry all the time. depends on if they like their canned food that day & how they are feeling, etc. they get Sensible Choice Chicken & Rice dry. they don't eat all of the dry most of the time.

they get 3 canned food meals. it ends up being a total of 6oz per cat daily. my vet recommended 6oz-9oz per day for feeding all canned. since they prefer the cheaper brands (fancy feast, etc) i feed 6 oz per cat, and they get their dry nibbles in between. that way i know everyone is getting proper nutrition.

I feed fixed mealtimes twice a day, morning and evening. In nature, cats hunt mainly at dawn and at dusk, and they eat when they catch prey, so in my view, it's logical that eating twice a day is more in tune with what their systems are built for.

I free feed all the time. He doesn't much care for canned food so we just feed him the dry food. Picky picky kitty.

I give scheduled meals 3 times a day, morning, late pm and bedtime. I sometimes supplement it with a little dry food, if they are acting as though they are starving and there's still some time to go before mealtime, because the Burmese are still growing, and Raffles doesn't eat much anyway, so I'm happy to give him more. They don't particularly enjoy dried food though. If I free fed it would be wolfed within minutes especially by Bruno, who is happier eating dried then the other two are. All three far prefer wet food though and you can't really free feed wet food.

My bunch free feeds - Meeko has anxiety issues when his food supply is limited - when given scheduled meals only, he paces all day, crying for food, and then *inhales* the food when finally given it only to throw it right back up. Free feeding has solved that problem (he doesn't gorge at all, either, he only eats a reasonable amount, so it's not that he just wants to eat and eat, I guess he's just anxious about the *idea* of not being able to eat whenever he wants, if that makes any sense), and the others do fine with it, so it's the best choice for us.

Oh, I should add, though, that I do measure out the food, I don't just fill the bowl - they get two cups of food a day to share between the four of them, one in the morning and one at night. That's actually much less than recommended (it should be more like four cups, twice as much), but if I give them more food, it doesn't get eaten (and in fact there's always a bit left over even from the two cups), and they aren't hungry, so I guess for some reason that's all they need.

I free feed both of them - they both get a pouch mixed with dry food but then I do top them up with dry food so they always have something to eat.

They only really eat when they're hungry - neither of them are overweight. Plus because I work full time its just easier to place a bowl of fresh food down in the morning before work and then top it up when I get home if needs be!

My outside cats are kinda free fed, they get canned every night, and i usually refill their dry food bowl every 2nd day.
They seem to work well on this schedule, though occasionllly going off canned food for a few days.
My two of my inside cats get dry and wet food twice a day and whenever they can beg some more out of us.
The other two inside cats get dry and wet once a day.
My two new kittens get dry once a day and usually there is some left over, my mom has started sneaking them some wet food at night though.
And everybody always gets fresh water.

Jamie and ZsaZsa get scheduled meals: half a daily ration of dry food in the morning, and a can every evening. Jamie prefers dry food, and "free feeding" him dry would mean he wouldn't touch canned food at all. I want him to eat canned out of fear of later kidney problems. ZsaZsa doesn't seem to have a dry vs. canned preference, but she has adopted Jamie's "insistence" on little cans of food; they can smell the difference, apparently.
Jamie generally eats half to three-quarters of his dry food right away, and then finishes it up later. He's now doing that with his canned food, i.e., he "saves" two mouthfuls for later. ZsaZsa eats her dry food over the course of the day, but finishes up her canned food in one "sitting".

Sierra receives scheduled meals. She eats only wet food, so I take it up after about 20 minutes. The number of meals she has in the day depends on how well she is eating at the time. More frequent small meals when her appetite is not at its best.

When i had Ginger and Snowy, they would get wet food morning and teatime, and if they asked for supper (which Snowy generally did, Ginger rarely) they got it, but there was always a bowl of biscuits as i work full time and i used to have to travel an hour to get home from work, so just in case i was late, they could eat. Then Snowy went and i decided to try and take the opportunity to get Ginger to lose some weight, so he gets his wet food twice a day, and he has 20gr of biscuits put out once a day, it is his choice when he eats them. Tried to do the same with Pebbles, but she is mainly a dry food kitty, which i dont like, but cant change. I try to give her 20gr twice a day, but she has rarely eaten the morning's ration when it is teatime (they get tea 5.30 or later, never earlier, no matter how insistant they are), so i just check it before going to bed. She does need to put weight on at the moment. Luckily they now eat in different rooms. Fosters are fed the same, although the current ones will get supper.

I used to free feeed dry and provide wet several times a day however I elimniated all dry food so I must schedule the meals now. They get a mixture of high quality canned food and raw chicken organ meats 3 times a day. (with fish oil and brewers yeast added)