I want to start feeding my cat on a schedule and mix wet and dry food together during the feeding. I don't know how much the ratio should be for my cat. She's gonna get big since she's a ragdoll but right now she's a kitten around 12 weeks. The person I got her from didn't feed on a schedule so this'll be new for her and me. Right now I free feed like I do with my 2 outdoor cats, wet food in morning and dry food out all day. I don't want her to get overweight since she's only an indoor cat, but I don't want to under feed her. I don't know how much to feed her, how often and the mixing ratio. Can someone help me?
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Cat Food Amount
- Thread starter TransDino
- Start Date
A kitten at this age needs lots of proteins and nutrients to grow and all these comes from feeding her canned food (wet food).
Wet food is real meat and keeps her hydrated while dry food is full of carbohydrates and dry food does not clean teeth.
Feed her wet food 4 - 5 times a day and feed her as much as she can eat at one sitting. You can never overfeed a kitten.
They burn up calories very quickly as they are very active. What a kitten does each day is eat, sleep and play. Since she’s so young now, feed her at least 300 calories a day which she needs daily. If counting calories is a chore, just feed her as much as she can eat. Observe her intake as she grows and adjust the amount and feeding times accordingly.
She’ll go through a growth spurt and tends to eat more as she approach adult age and may continue to eat lots till at a certain point into her early adult age, her food intake will taper down.
If you want, give her a few dry food as a treat.
Forgot to add this in, feed her food meant for growing kittens and switch to adults’ food when she’s has become an adult cat or feed her food that’s labeled ‘For All Life Stages’ and you can continue on this all the way even she has become an adult cat.
Wet food is real meat and keeps her hydrated while dry food is full of carbohydrates and dry food does not clean teeth.
Feed her wet food 4 - 5 times a day and feed her as much as she can eat at one sitting. You can never overfeed a kitten.
They burn up calories very quickly as they are very active. What a kitten does each day is eat, sleep and play. Since she’s so young now, feed her at least 300 calories a day which she needs daily. If counting calories is a chore, just feed her as much as she can eat. Observe her intake as she grows and adjust the amount and feeding times accordingly.
She’ll go through a growth spurt and tends to eat more as she approach adult age and may continue to eat lots till at a certain point into her early adult age, her food intake will taper down.
If you want, give her a few dry food as a treat.
Forgot to add this in, feed her food meant for growing kittens and switch to adults’ food when she’s has become an adult cat or feed her food that’s labeled ‘For All Life Stages’ and you can continue on this all the way even she has become an adult cat.
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The only thing I would add to
tabbytom
is to stop free feeding her. That's a sure way to end up with a fat cat. She doesn't need all that dry food anyway.
tabbytom
is to stop free feeding her. That's a sure way to end up with a fat cat. She doesn't need all that dry food anyway.
A 12 week old kitten should be fed as much food as she / he wants. Growing kittens need a lot of food. Don't worry about scheduled feedings or ratios now. Most people offer unlimited dry food and provide canned food when they are at home. When the kitten approaches a year old, you can start introducing scheduled meals and play around with the dry/canned ratio. Ideally only canned food is best but a little dry would be ok.
I took in a four month old feral kitten a couple years ago. My "system" was to put down several meal opportunities a day with more food than she would eat. Five meals at 4 months, four meals at 5 months and at 6 months old, she went to the same 3 meals per day schedule as my adult cat.
The amount of food was "all she wanted to eat". I'd put a good portion of food down and picked it up after 10-15 minutes and refrigerated her leftovers until the next meal. My cats eat an all-raw diet, but you can do the same with canned or canned and dry. Offer her a saucer with canned food and separate little bowl of dry food several times through the day. If she eats everything in 10-15 minutes, you need to offer her a little more. If she's leaving "a lot" of wet food on her plate, you can cut back a little on how much you offer her. At various growth stages, kittens do eat 2-3 times the amount of food than they will eat as an adult.
Congrats on the new kitten!
The amount of food was "all she wanted to eat". I'd put a good portion of food down and picked it up after 10-15 minutes and refrigerated her leftovers until the next meal. My cats eat an all-raw diet, but you can do the same with canned or canned and dry. Offer her a saucer with canned food and separate little bowl of dry food several times through the day. If she eats everything in 10-15 minutes, you need to offer her a little more. If she's leaving "a lot" of wet food on her plate, you can cut back a little on how much you offer her. At various growth stages, kittens do eat 2-3 times the amount of food than they will eat as an adult.
Congrats on the new kitten!
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Right now my cats are getting dry food to graze on during the day and canned food at night. I would say they eat about a cup of food total each per day. They have never eaten more than 9oz each.
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