Do you leave dry feed in bowl all day?

[maggiethecat]

New cat owner here. We've had our 2 year old rescue cat for a couple of days and I've been leaving out her bowl of dry food (Hills Science) once I've portioned it out in the morning. She has a good feed first thing but there's always some left over which she comes back to at various times throughout the day.
Is this ok or is it better to remove the remaining portion after her morning feed and return it in the evening?
I've also been toying with adding some water to her dry food to increase her water intake. She's drinking but it doesn't seem to be a lot and a bit of blood at the end of her poo may mean she's constipated (I'm watching this of course, as although she seems well and active, if it continues I'll take her to the vet)

Yes I leave dry down all day. I give wet food twice a day too which goes towards their fluid intake. No i wouldn't add water to the dry food

Ours have dry food in the morning and wet food in the evening. They tend to pick at the dry food over 24 hours. (It’s gone by the next morning). The wet food has to be in a different bowl, they won’t eat the dry food anymore if it gets wet/damp.

Mine luckily self-regulate, so I leave a full bowl down 24/7. They graze at it off & on all day & night, and I top it up when I do their meals of wet. Sadly that doesn't work if you have a greedy cat, but it sounds like yours is another "grazer" type.

Ok, I'll leave out the dry food which I would like to encourage for teeth condition but give a wet feed in the evening.
I'm really hoping that the poo is just a bit of settling stress/constipation.

Hi OP. I've got 3 cats. I leave dry food out all the time. They graze on them day or night that way. When any of them don't seem to be drinking enough water I give them a can of tuna in spring water each and add extra cold water to it. Makes a massive difference x

Mine has dry down all day which he picks at (and then not my cat comes in and scoffs it all!)
Then he has wet three times a day whenever he asks as he's teeny and prone to dropping weight

6 month old kitten has gone from 4 small portions of wet to 3 a day with dry food available all day and night. He eats the dry when he wants sometimes the measured portion is gone in 24 hours sometimes there is a lot left. I chuck any left dry after 24 hours and measure again.

I too leave a bowl of Hills biscuits down all the time, topping up as required and a tin of tuna on an evening.

A tip for helping with fluid intake is to have the water bowl separate to the food as they don't like it close to their food source. Have always kept ours in the bathroom since having cats as a child and mine drinks regularly from it throughout the day. I put fresh down daily it as required if it's been hot. Easy to monitor too.

It can take four days or more for a new cat's feeding - and arse - to settle down. Don't be overly concerned until Wednesday.

Leave the crunchies down. As Mykittens says, use the water bowl level to judge intake - fill it to the same each day. Although as to putting it elsewhere, we've always had ours within a couple of feed of the food and not had any refusals, so I guess it's a cat-by-cat thing.

You could do feeding the other way around, wet in the morning then crunchies.

My cat doesn’t drink any water out of a bowl, she will only drink from the bathroom tap she gets the bulk of her water from her pouches.
She has biscuits down all day to graze at and a pouch morning and evening. She’s greedy but very active and not overweight, she’s a big hunter as well.

Yep leave it down 24/7. Regularly topped up during the day. Otherwise I’d get eaten alive.

When mine arrived I seem to remember it took a while for her to use the litter tray. She can still really hold it in now and she's 9.... She hates a litter tray

I feed my 2 Dcat 3 times a day
Dried food of 3 different varieties for each meal
1 Tin of fish in jelly between them per day so 1/3 can per meal
Don’t eat treats
Hunt far too much 😬
It works for me
DP also has 2 Dcat they hate fish - eat only chicken - prefer different brand of biscuits and love Dreamies

No as ours is a hoover and inhales his food so it would be gone quickly and he would become very fat! He usually has half his dry food in the morning and half in the evening with wet during the day.
Our last cat would regulate her food intake and not overeat. It varies so much between cats.

Cats would never naturally eat twice a day, but little and often. Restricting access to food can actually train them to eat it all quickly before you take it away which isn't great.

Try a no bowl feeding system or puzzle feeders for providing small amounts of dry food through the day and providing enrichment

I leave dry food out all day. We haven't had our cat very long and I want to make sure she knows there always food here when she comes back.

I weigh out my cats' dry food and they eat it all in one go, mostly. If they leave anything I remove it. They are both slightly overweight and I fear they would balloon if given unfettered access. When they have spent two weeks in a cattery, where they insist on biscuits being down all day, they come back chonks. We called it the fattery.

I free feed mine but they are house cats who just graze. The food is constantly topped up. The ragdolls don't eat half as much as the Norwegian forest kitten.

Our cat refuses water unless it’s on the lid of the wheelie bin, so we tend to add a bit to her wet food and mash it down with a fork. I assume she must drink from her dish sometimes when we can’t see her, but I have never, ever witnessed this. She goes crazy for cat milk, but only gets it once in a blue moon.

She has dry down all day, but if she wolfs it it doesn’t get replaced until morning (we use a scoop thing to measure it out) and then wet morning when I get up, and again about 6.30. She is greedy, and we were shamed into putting her on a diet at her jabs appointment this year!

We leave dry food down all the time but Dcat still gets excited when we shake it! Weirdo!

No, because she is another that inhales her food. The standard advice is to make dry food available all day, but this just doesn't work for greedy cats. If there is any left in the bowl - and this has happened once or twice with catsitters - it's generally a sign that the portion was way too big.

I always add some water to the wet food given in the evening on a vet's advice. Doesn't put her off at all, but I suppose it might do a pickier cat.

Yes, dry food left down 24hrs a day, and they get fed wet twice a day.

My cat always liked drinking from the tap but she's very happy with her fountain now. It's much easier, we're not late for things waiting for the cat to get off the tap, and it's always there for her

I have the dry food in a refilling bowl - so I just empty the packet into the tub and it falls into the bowl as and when its needed/eaten.

He takes a wet pouch of food 2 or 3 times a day depending on if he is home at lunchtime or not. He is a outdoor cat and I know he hunts out in the woods around my house.

He gets fresh water each day but I rarely see him drinking out of it unless he has been in the house all day so I assume he is drinking water outside aswell.

My old cat had lots of issues, and was on a special diets throughout the last few years of his life. One of the suggestions from the vet was to add water to his dry food and it didnt go down well, he went on hunger strike! However adding room temp water to wet food went down ok.

I'd definitely look to add some wet food to her diet if you havent already, and look to try different temps of water (my boy will not touch the water bowl at all if the water is too cold whereas my old cat loved really cold fresh water so we got a cooling water fountain )

I've a very old cat and leave dry food down all day as want her to eat when she fancies. She get wet food morning and evening which normally goes. Have found she'll only drink from a glass bowl which is in the bedroom so I can monitor how much she's drinking. As pp said keeping the water in a separate place from the food does work.