How many times a day do you feed your cat?

[Fromthediningtable]

If you have a cat, how many times a day do you feed them and at what times? Also how much food do you give at each meal?

I feel like I’m not getting this right. I think I feed them too much but they still always mither me for food as if they’re starving! Just curious about what other cats get

Not sure if I am normal so i'm also looking for answers

2 x 85g sachets of wet food a day, one at like 7.30 and one at 4
A bowl of dry food for whenever she wants it
A handful of snacks
One licky lick thing

Please also share photos 🤭👀

Mines gets half a pouch in the morning. Biscuits throughout the day & half a pouch in the evening. Then biscuits throughout the night.

Biscuits are in a bowl all the time, and she'll have half a pouch at 7am and the other half around 5pm. Some Dreamies at 9/10pm ish when we go to bed.

30g biscuits in the morning

Lick-e-Lix late afternoon

30g biscuits in the evening

I have tried the biscuits thing but the problem is, they both eat the full bowl of biscuits that is meant to be grazed throughout the day, straight away! And then a few hours later are back to moaning at me.

I give them one pouch for breakfast, one pouch for lunch and one pouch for dinner. I tried to just give 1 or 2 pouches a day with some biscuits for them to graze on in between but they just scoff the lot in one 🤦🏻‍♀️

Is your cat a healthy weight?

Pics of my fatties attached

My cat can be left with a bowl of cry food all day, but friends who have cats getting overweight stick with feeding 3 times a day. They will hopefully stop mithering you eventually if they get used to when they are fed. Some cats are just greedy.

Ours get a 70g can of Applaws and their biscuit half of their bowl topped up (although unsure how much that weighs) once a day officially, but if their bowls are empty in the morning I'll put more biscuits in. Two are a healthy weight, one is an enormous bastard but he's just generally a bigger cat AND he's the one more likely to have the empty biscuit bowl in the morning. The vet concluded he was on the chunky side so we're trying to reduce his extra biscuits and he's not happy about it!

Is it possible they are competing against each other (as in, Tiddles feels he needs to eat all the food otherwise Fluffy will)? Have you tried feeding them in different areas, so they aren't watching each other.

I have dry food out all the time for my cat + the stray Maine Coon cat that moved in 6 months ago + the feral cat that I have made a bed for in my garage (he comes and goes when he likes). These are rarely empty. Then a pouch morning each and a pouch late afternoon. Might share another pouch later on if they give me the eye.

It depends on the quality of food. The higher the quality, the less quantity they eat. Supermarket food has very little nutrition in, so they won't feel satisfied. It's also very watery. It can irritate their gastrointestinal systems due to bulking agents and additives.

I feed half a tin each of high quality food and a dessertspoonful of biscuits each morning. They get a small snack with some vitamins in mid afternoon, then another half of wet food each and a few more biscuits in the early evening. I feed stuff like Canagan, Catit, Applaws etc. Their biscuits are from Virbac. Look on zooplus for a range of higher quality foods.

Not enough

(signed, Tiddles)

Awww OP, how can look at those faces and refuse food? 😘

I’m probably not in a position to give advice because on average, I feed my 5 year old cat about 4 Sheba wet food pouches a day. 🫣

I wish this were true for my cats. I did try it out. They were on whsikas at first and I changed them to untamed and fed the recommended amount. They really liked it but my smaller cat unfortunately gained even more weight on it and still didn’t stop meowing at me for more food. So I’ve had to go back to whsikas for now while I contemplate my next move. I’ve tried “weight loss” type food as well thinking at least if they are eating a lot, it’s less calories but they won’t touch it so that was a waste of money.

Are their teeth okay?

Ours (two smallish middle aged females) share a small (85g?) tin at about 7am plus a scoop of dry food between them for the day. Then share another small tin at about 6pm and another scoop of dry food at our bedtime for overnight. The dry food bowls rarely get completely empty. The dry food is a high meat no grain one (Canagan) and we use Untamed tins.

Depends on time of year, mine seem to be in the pre-hibernation phase at the moment and want food every 40 minutes very frequently. They have up to 5 pouches (usually purina) some days....but in summer and winter they barely eat.
They always have a very hungry phase in the Autumn and the smaller one noticeably puts on weight, but then thins out after winter

I've a few cats and it was only the last one I had who was food obsessed! I'd had 4 cats previously and we just fed them morning, evening and left out dry food/biscuits during the day. None of them overate and they were all a healthy weight.

Then I got a cat who was totally food obsessed! Based on previous experience, I did the same and pretty much fed him when he asked (which was a lot!). He gained 1.5kg in a few weeks!!

He had to lose weight so we just fed him twice a day with NOTHING in between. We fed him whatever it said on the packaging for his target weight. It was soooo hard at first. But he did eventually learn that he only got fed twice a day and then it got easier. Incidentally, he only really got back to a healthy weight when we moved house so I think he was stealing food from neighbours cats! He did used to come home smelling of fish sometimes!

Mine are grazers.
Bowl of dry food down all the time. I had to stop buying their favourite food as two of them would overeat and vomit.
Wet food maybe 3 times a day. Small pouches/half a small tin each.
Fresh fish or chicken as a treat/instead of wet. Lickelix at bedtime.
None overweight.
Outdoor cat gets similar - but not grazing biscuits and he's a right chunk.

2xcats. 24/7 access to biscuits since they were tiny kittens and 1xWhiskas pouch when I'm eating my dinner to try and avoid them treating my plate like a cat buffet. (Yes, i know Whiskas is the MN cat food of the devil but my last 2 cats got nothing but very expensive premium food and that didn't help them live longer so if junk food is their favourite wet food, that's fine by me).

And, generally a few Dreamies for breakfast from spare human while he's half asleep and his guard is down and, a few more Dreamies just as I'm heading to bed otherwise they refuse to move from the kitchen to let me close the door 😆.

p.s your cats don't look particularly overweight from the photos but I know it can be hard to tell. Has the vet said they are overweight? Mine had a bulging goat belly!!

Yeah, the older cat had a dental last year. He just needed them cleaned and they are perfect now. Younger cat had her last check up about 5 months ago and they were fine then so as far as I know, all good

The tabby is overweight but the black cat isn’t. She is the greediest one as well! I will attach a pic where you can see better. She tore her cruciate ligament earlier this year and getting her weight down will really help with the arthritis that is forming (she’s only 2, bless her) so that there’s no extra strain on her legs, so I’m determined to get her feeding right but I don’t know how to stop her from constantly wanting more. I do mostly just ignore her but it’s really irritating

Biscuits always available in a special bowl where he has to use his paw to get them.
1/2 sachet of wet food for breakfast and dinner. He gets fe with the children so around 6.15 am and 5.30pm.

I wfh and have four cats that probably get fed more than they should because they start joining me on Teams or walk over the keyboard otherwise. I reckon they get fed three or four times a day (sometimes meat, sometimes a pouch or tin) as well as unlimited biscuits. If one of them needs medication then they will all get some lick e lix and dreamies as well.

I also have two cats who live in the stables. They always get fed at least once a day (they have to be around for me to feed them) but can be more if I see them. They also have unlimited access to biscuits via a microchip feeder. I never see evidence of any additional wildlife supplementing their diet but I also don’t see any evidence of mice or rats in the stables so I assume the cats are responsible for that.

We are both at home full time so pretty much whenever they ask!

To be fair both are elderly (23 and 15) and on the lean side so we give them food on demand. There is quite alot of demand also.

So to break it down- dry food down all the time. A pouch each when I go down for breakfast. Probably another pouch each sometimes during the day,. A pouch early evening and one before bed. Plus one cat likes porridge with milk which she shares with DH. And the other gets some nasty tasting medicine twice a day so she has some poached chicken pieces after her syringe. She prefers the poached chicken to be fresh so I cook it early afternoon usually.

ETA- the 15 year old is on the upper end of healthy weight. The 23 year old has a thyroid issue and keeping weight on is an issue for her.