Thoughts on this feeding regime?

[FollowYourOwnNorthStar]

Hi All,
I’m the proud owner of a michevious little boy I rescued from the Shelter about 12 weeks ago. After a lively (and bumpy!) start, we are settling down well.

He had terrible diarrhea for about 4 weeks on arriving, and so I am very cautious with his diet to try and prevent us going back to that. On advice, he was on Hills dry food for 8 weeks to let him settle down and I am about to try and start introducing wet food to supplement the Hills dry. I will start slowly and build to 1 pouch (85g) of Hills pouch in the morning and the same at night. He currently gets unlimited dry food during the day, this would continue although I expect him to eat less of it.

Hopefully this gives him the best of both wet and dry - moisture and higher protein from the wet, but teeth cleaning and as much as he wants from the dry.

I know people have strong opinions both for and against Hills, but after such a difficult start, it is working for us now, and I don’t propose to change that part of it in the short term.

Does this sound ok? Friends have suggested only wet food at night, or only half a pouch of food morning and night.

I realise either option is actually fine, but I want to spoil him and fatten him up abit. He has had a rough start in life and I want to treat him alittle. He came to me underweight and the constant diarrhea didn’t help. I thought if I do this until he is one year old, then maybe cut back to half a pouch morning and night, he will have had half his kitten life with good food, to make up for his first few months of poor nutrition/malnutrition.

Thoughts?

Picture tax as required :)

He’s trying to find a way to drink the water in the sweet peas in the second photo….but I love how it looks like he is trying to smell them :)

I do this with mine. She has a tin of gourmet spread into 2/3 meals, dreamies after brushing, a bit of dhs dinner at night so chicken, salmon etc and biscuits fresh every day.

He’s a beauty by the way.

My 2 get dry food left out and half a pouch twice a day each. They sometimes get half a pouch each at lunch too depending who is about at that time. Also partial to a bit of chopped chargrilled chicken if there's any in the fridge

Forgot the dreamies and webbox stick that they expect most days too!

Ours have half a pouch of wet food twice a day, so a pouch each per day in total, with dry food left out all the time. Your plan sounds fine.

Thanks for your responses. It seems like a typical feeding plan is the half a pouch morning and night, not the full pouch I am doing. I’ll have a think and might cut down sooner to the two half pouches sooner than I planned.

Thanks everyone.

Do they eat the full pouch?

Whether you give a full pouch/meal or half a pouch is really down to personal preference.

We have three cats so three x full pouches per meal would quickly get expensive, lol.

He is very handsome!

As far as the feeding plan goes, your best bet is to check what the guidelines are on the packaging for cats of his weight (& activity level, if they’re that helpful). They usually give options for mixed feeding, too.

On the tooth-cleaning front, I’d check the ingredients of the wet food: certainly their renal food has sugar in. You can get plaque-removing powders to sprinkle onto wet food; assorted dental health liquids to add to drinking water; & there is a brand of toothpaste you can simply feed as you would something like malt paste rather than having to full-on brush cats’ (or indeed dogs’) teeth - plus of course there are various dental treats available.

My cats have dry food in the morning then a pouch each in the evening. Heaps of ways to to do it, you will be grand.

Thanks everyone, lots of food (ha!) for thought, although it does still seem 1 pouch per day (whether given in one lot or two) is typical.

To answer questions, yes, after a suspicious start where he only licked the gravy from the meat, the dear boy wolfs down every bite of the wet food, morning and night. He used to just have unlimited dry food, so he didn’t bother to wake me in the morning, but now after a few days he is there, waking me up so he can get his wet food pouch!

The packaging for both the wet and dry food is only specific to giving just that food (or, just wet or dry). By giving 2 pouches and halving his dry food, I am giving approx just over half in both of what each packaging says he should get for his age/weight. My vet says over feeding isn’t an issue at this stage as he is growing and was v thin when he came to me.

I’ll have a think and see. Feeding just a pouch of food at night would make it easier for people to feed him if I went away, not that I have any plans. And yes, 1 pouch/day is slightly cheaper, about 90c/day, when you subtract the pouch but also add back in the extra dry food.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with making things simpler in terms of feeding logistics, nor in saving yourself a wee bit of money. Rearranging meals (in terms of wet/dry) so you don’t get an early alarm call may also appeal, depending on exactly how early/enthusiastic he is!

It is lovely to see them start eating properly isn’t it? My two were rather too small for 8 weeks when I got them, having gone onto the cheapest adult food (which appeared only at sporadic intervals) before 6 weeks old. They went straight to a kitten food (just Whiskas, had to work up to their fancy diets) & it was heartbreaking seeing them leave food when plainly still hungry because they couldn’t believe that the “four meals a day at regular intervals” thing was going to last. I could do without Nijinsky’s Battle Cry Of The Hungry Feline being blasted through the house (backing meyowls by Balanchine) the instant he feels slightly peckish; but I still treasure the memories of kittenhood realisations that There. Will. Always. Be. Food. Here.).

Enjoy seeing your v handsome chap getting to a healthy weight & growing up to be A Big Strong Cat. (Even my cats give me quite serious side-eye when I say things like that, so don’t feel bad for doing similar. Am sure there is a less-weird-sounding way to express what I want to, but unfortunately for everyone reading this, I cannot conjure it. Sorry. )