How much is the right amount of food?

[zafferana]

I apologise for the length of this ...

Got a rescue cat 3 weeks ago. She is around 2 years old, in good health, was a stray when the RSPCA took her in. She was with them for about 6-8 weeks and during that time she was fed Royal Canin dry cat food.

When I got her I got some RC for continuity and asked on here for recommendations of other food that might be better and was recommended grain-free cat food, which is the same advice as I got at Pets at Home, so I purchased some grain-free dry food and I also got some tins of wet food (Thrive and Encore) and figured I'd mix them up to give her some variety and she likes everything I bought.

Now to my question - on the bag of dry food it says to feed cats who weigh between 3-5 kg 55-70 g of dry food per day. She weighed 4.2 kg when we got her so I reckon about 66 g of food per day should be good, right? But if I then add in a small tin of meat at tea time that's got to come off the daily food allowance, right? If you feed the wet food only then the label recommends 2 tins per day and that should be sufficient, but for my greedy cat it isn't. I've been feeding her 22g of dry food at 7am and 10pm, plus one tin of meat at around 4pm, but I find she's constantly pestering me for food from lunchtime onwards. The meat at 4pm doesn't seem to fill her up at all - she's back hanging around the food cupboard again within an hour or two and she is a complete nuisance from 6pm-10pm, leaping up and running to the cupboard any time anyone enters the kitchen. She has tried to eat the fish food, has savaged the bread, licked plates left in the sink, it's driving me a bit nuts tbh.

I feel like I'm actually over-feeding her probably, because she gets a few Dreamies here and there during the day too, but if I don't feed her how much SHE wants then I don't get any peace. If I'm trying to work she lies on my desk or across my keyboard. She doesn't have a worm (she was wormed at the RSPCA) and has had a thorough vet check. She is also currently an indoor cat so bored (I'll be letting her out next week), and I'm guessing as a former stray has learned to eat whenever/whatever she can, since she didn't know where her next meal was coming from. Any advice? If I put out extra food it's gone immediately, so leaving 'a few biscuits' out for her doesn't really work as she gobbles them up instantly and asks for more.

Our rescues had been completly starved (trapped inside an empty house) for about a month before rescue, and had then been with the RSPCA for 6 weeks before coming to live with us.
The amount they ate in the early days was incredible. I used to feed them small amounts 4 times a day, switching between wet and dry food. Just like you, food went down, and disappeared. They were getting way over the recommended amounts.
BUT, over time (they have been with us for 4 months now), they have started self regulating. Food gets left. I now feed twice a day, and reckon they take what they need, and leave what they dont.

I'd work out a way to feed her just over the recomended amounts, but spread over the day into micromeals.

Enjoy being a cat slave!

Why do you wait until 10pm to give the dry food? I tend to leave dry food out and then give half a pouch twice a day. They get the wet food at 8ish and 6ish

P.s I dont weigh the dry food, I just stick a couple of handfuls in the bowl

Our boy gets fed at tea time with us. He gets a small bowl of dry food and a pouch of wet food. Very occasionally he will go through a phase of being hungry in a morning, so he will get a pouch before we go to work. He also has morning dreamies, after work dreamies and bedtime dreamies. But dont let anyone tell you he is spoilt 😂😂

@dementedpixie so do you give all the dry food at once at breakfast time? And, if so, do you give the full amount it says on the bag or do you take into account the wet food you're giving and try to figure out how much to deduct from the dry food allowance? Two handfuls of dry food is what she gets, but over two meals, plus a small tin of meat and few Dreamies here and there. Maybe 10pm is too late and that's why she's being a nuisance.

@KittenVsBox I hope that happens over time too. She is definitely starting to relax and trust us, so hopefully she'll start to trust the food supply too and not feel she has to clear her bowl as soon as it hits in the floor, for fear that it will go away otherwise!

One of mine is an eating machine. He has a sachet in the morning and then asks for more, which he does not usually get. Dried food left out all day. I try to limit the sachets to 2 a day, but it can be 3 even 4 on a bad day.

One of mine did this (both mine are also rescues) - on vet advice, one of their foods is now RC appetite control. I mix that, dental and hairball for both of them and it has stopped her constantly asking for food, though she's still good at the starving kitten act at 6am 😂

Might be worth seeing if there's a grain free version which helps keep her fuller? Some neutered cats don't self regulate - she is one of them and I can't free feed as she'd just eat all of it 😳

I tend to top the bowls up once they are empty but yes I put the full amount down (unweighed) and they go back and forth during the day and night. They dont eat it all at once so they do self regulate. They used to eat a lot more tbh. One prefer dry and the other 'asks' for wet food when it is wet food time and the bowls arent down

Split it into small meals as the pp said. When I first got my rescue, I was feeding him six small meals a day. They need time to understand that there will always be food.

You need to weigh her regularly, if she start8ng gaining weight your feeding too much (assuming she's a adult and finished growing) if she's loosing weight they feed abit more.

Weigh her once a month or every 2 weeks for now, stand on you bathroom scales then stand on with your cat and just subtract how much you weigh 🙂