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

Yeah, she looks a bit like my cat did!

All you can do is be strict. It's is irritating but for us at least it did get better. More difficult with 2 cats - have you looked into the microchip feeding bowls?

My boy is very food obsessed. He has 3 punches a day, 1 at breakfast, another around 3pm and last one around 9. He also has a bowl of biscuits that he will graze throughout the day. He will also hover around you when cooking etc hoping for additional treats.

He is quite a large cat but not overweight. He does go outside so I imagine he is burning most of it off.

I’m always curious what others do… my cat has 2 or 3 pouches a day, and dry biscuits left out all day which he grazes on. He’s very lazy and despite being only 6 he spends the day moving from one sleeping spot to another, he doesn’t play or roam outside so he’s quite fat (!) I find it difficult because he’s a rescue cat and I don’t think they fed him very well so he’s a bit obsessive about eating. So I kind of feel lik I don’t want him to ever have to worry about food again - but balancing this against him being a proper sausage roll! 😬😂 I generally give him a pouch when we get up (around 7), one around 2 and one around 7ish.

We dont give wet food except for treats. There is a large tray of royal canin dry down all the time. But we have loads of cats and rescues, its the only way to do it.

he only has dry food and tends to graze so sometimes once a day, sometimes twice, but no fixed mealtimes. i've never seen him eat a bowl in one sitting but once you can see the bottom of the bowl he decides it's empty even if there's biscuits round the sides. luckily he's easily fooled if you shake them back into the middle!!

Our girl is a little bit overweight (also a tabby!) and has 30g of dry food (Yora insect food) at 7 and 1230, then a small tin (Untamed) at 530. She'll pester us for food for an hour or so before each meal, but when we dropped her dry food by 10g to try and get her to lose weight she went properly barmy for it (trying to push her feeder over sort of thing) so she was clearly quite a bit hungrier.

She has no issues scoffing two dinners given the opportunity (miscommunication as to whether she'd been fed or not!) and seems to be maintaining her current weight and active.

Knobhead gets complete dry food at 7am and 4pm. You could set your watch by his stomach! He has Acana high protein. He's a perfect weight, just a very big boy.

We have three adult male cats who are fed three times a day.

1/3 pouch Sheba plus biscuits for breakfast.
1/2 pouch Sheba for lunch.
1/2 pouch Sheba plus biscuits for dinner.

They also get a few dreamies each when we shut them in for the night, plus two little bowls of milk each a day as one struggles with constipation due to his arthritis and the vet recommended it to keep him regular.

You are clearly starving these poor cats, look how weak they are - almost wasted away!

We have a few cats and I put enough dry food down for all of them, some are grazers and some are guzzlers but as there's a few bowls even the guzzlers don't manage to finish it all. They also get pouches in the morning and evening.

We also have a couple of 4 month old kittens, they're still on kitten food and I take them off into a separate room for a few smaller meals of half a pouch each 2 or 3 times a day as well as them having dry kitten food down (that is mainly eaten by the cats 🙄)

My cat is overweight according to the vet. She has 2 x 85g pouches of weight food (exorbitant specialised "diet" food) and a miniscule amount of dry food in the middle of the day and she has lost a little bit. We tried just reducing the amount of normal cat food but she miaowed constantly. No treats allowed!

I haven’t heard of that weight food before, I will google it. We also have a “no treats allowed” rule in this house. Poor things 😂

I have microchip feeders for all three cats. Morning feed of a bowl of dry Royal Canin (weight?). Night feed top up so they don't wake me up to feed them. Oldest cat has a combination of dental food for grazing and a Whiskas pouch in am and pm. None of my cats is overweight, though one will finish his food before the other.

I live in the country and my large ginger hunts for field mice, which he prefers to kibble. His treat is a splash of kitten milk.

Which one specifically is your cat on?

Was supposed to say "wet" food but I obviously had weight on my mind!

We use Hills Metabolic but there are lots of different ones available. The vet mentioned one called "satiety" which is supposed to make them feel fuller.

Re the miscommunication. I bet she was not letting on that she had already been fed..... I know our tabby tries to make out that DH has not given her her dreamies and I need to step up when he most emphatically has.

Half a pouch at 7am, the other half at 4pm or later if I’m out during the day. She also has 15g biscuits at the same times but tends to save those for overnight.

She got quite fat when I first had her (rescue) because I was feeding on demand, but soon realised she would eat every half hour if she could. She’s lost a bit of weight but doesn’t mither me as much now. She’s 11 and won’t eat anything except Felix AGAIL which is shite but I have tried the expensive stuff and she refuses it.

My little semi feral rescue kitten has very fussy tastes for one who was found abandoned in a barn. She has so far refused point blank to touch any dry food and is very particular about wet food so I’m currently raw feeding her which means lots of smaller meals across the day. Fortunately I work from home otherwise it would be a nightmare!

My 2 share a pouch in the morning, have (100% meat) dry food available all the time, and a liquid treat each some days if they ask for it.

I've tried giving them more - but they won't eat a whole pouch in the morning each, and they'll just lick the jelly off and leave the actual food if I give them another later, so I rarely do that.

And they're substantial cats - rag-dolls so a fair few kilos, and they're indoor/outdoor cats so they have plenty of exercise. Nothing spare, but not skinny either.

Edit: So I think it depends on the cats - ours just aren't food motivated, they only eat when they're hungry.

Our 23 year old was a rescue as well.

We got her aged 19 and she had NO idea about treats. I would give her some chicken or hotdogs (for example) and she would hook it up in her claws and examine it carefully before trying a nibble.

4 years later? She has preferences and is not afraid to tell us off if she is displeased with the selection offered.

My boy is not a big eater, and doesn’t like wet food at all. He just has dry food which he grazes ok throughout the day and is topped up whenever the bowl is almost empty (once a day usually). He doesn’t like meat either and the only fish he likes is tinned tuna which he has at the weekend. One treat a day, in the evening. He was at the vet for a check up this week and is perfectly healthy and a normal weight. The vet offered him some tuna flavoured treats while giving him his jab but he turned his nose up. He used to love dreamies but has gone off them now. Fussy little sod.

Mine has 2 pouches of whiskas a handful of dry food and usually some temptations catnip treats 😊 she loves any food with gravy she'll eat that first 😺

My two each have…
2 x wet food sachets per day (1 in morning; 1 early evening)
1 x bowl of dry food to graze on throughout day
Small handful shredded chicken or tuna at lunchtime
1 x licky lix or a few Scrumbles snacks in the evening.

My boy would argue that this is nowhere near enough and is constantly looking for more food;
my girl doesn’t eat all of it (so boy comes
aling polishes it off!)

I can't believe all these cats on multiple pouches a day! I have 3, they get a scoop of Iams dry in the morning each, and a pouch of Sheba or Purina in the evening each. They have gradually trained me into giving them a pinch of dreamies each at lunchtime too. They are super-active, constantly up and down fences, trees, stairs etc. Even on what I don't think is a huge amount of food, the vet usually tells me at least two of them are veering towards the plumper side. I can't really cut back more and stay sane though.

I have asked my cat and he says that you are grossly under feeding. He also says that I am grossly under feeding him and that I should sue the vet for body shaming him at his last check up. The vet’s opening remark was “he’s a big chap”.

Ours was a big cat (a bit overweight - but just a big cat) - and would eat 6 sachets a day. And occasionally till we got wise to it - 8 sachets a day if he'd catch one of us off guard. He lived till he was a fine old age.