How much should we be feeding our kittens??

[ChatterMonkey]

Not sure if we are under feeding them or whether im just being tricked by their 'I'm starving!' faces that cats are so instinctively good at...!

They are 10 weeks old, are about 1.5kg in weight.

Currently they get around 25g-30g of dry food in the morning, another 25-g-30g of dry at around 2pm, and then half a pouch of wet food in the evening around 6/7ish.

At every feed they act like they are starving, and wolf down their meals. I was hoping they would be grazers so that we could have dry food available all the time and then wet food for 'meals' but i dont want to start that in case they just eat and eat...

I was thinking of adding in another 25-30g of dry at around 10pm before we go to bed but not sure if that would be too much?

I think they should be getting more food, but Dp thinks that they have enough and im just falling for their tricks to get more food...!

I always thought you never could over feed a kitten. I've always given mine what they needed while they were little. And then gradually reduced the amount and times of day to twice a day so they know to come back in the evening .

We just keep our kitten’s bowls constantly full as they need to eat little and often when they are small. Just swap out the wet food after a couple of hours if not eaten.

If i did that now, they would demolish the whole amount...!

The guide on the back of the dry food says that they should be having 40-70g for their weight bracket, theyve already had 60g today and still have to have half a wet sachet and some more dry, so they are already getting more than the guide? Cats Protection where we got them from made a big deal of making sure we knew not to overfeed them.

But they seem so hungry!

Until a year old, kittens need as much food as they want.

I never had restrictions with mine, I just fed whatever he wanted. They grow so fast you have to give them the fuel for it.

When their adults they regulate more but their doing 18 years or so if human growth in one year.

Our Siamese who are 7 months have always got both wet and dry food available , neither are overweight.

I wouldn't worry too much about overfeeding them.

You might want to offer more wet food than dry, it's generally better for them due to lower carbohydrate content and dry food putting stress on the kidneys.

Canned or dry food: What’s better for cats?

We feed wet food twice a day and leave dry food out next to the water for them to free feed on.

Theres so much conflicting advice out there, i read that dry food is better than wet as wet food isn't as nutrition dense, and more like 'junk food' for cats compared to the dry??

I put down another dishfull each for them of the dry, and they wolfed it down again. And are still looking around for more food. Surely two bowlfulls of dry food in the space of 2 hours is more than enough and they can't actually be hungry??

i read that dry food is better than wet as wet food isn't as nutrition dense, and more like 'junk food' for cats compared to the dry??

I think it really depends on the brand of food you are buying. The cheap supermarket brands are literally garbage - meat "by products". Look at the ingredients. We use a brand called Wellness for both wet and dry. Out vet recommended it. It's grain free in both versions.

It’s a kitten, food, play, sleep. Rinse and repeat.

It depends.

What brand(s) are you feeding them? Are they very active? Is the food agreeing with them?

We've always fed our kittens as much as they want and we've never had issues with any of them (five over the years) being overweight or unhealthy. I tend to do wet 3-4 times a day and unlimited dry.

Wet is always preferred to dry. Cats are obligate carnivores, they don't drink anlot, this could be problematic especially for a male. I'd recommend raw meat and bones (think chicken wing tips, neck etc) for dental health. Don't be fooled by vets saying dry food cleans their teeth, it's the equivalent of eating crisps, kibble just crumbles. Vets are kept in business by sick animals, let's not forget that.
I mainly feed raw to my cats, my kittens get introduced to a variety of options, as soon as I have no kittens it's only raw food for mine.

It depends on the quality of the food. If it's not a high meat content they will feel hungry all the time.
I've always fed my kittens on demand.
You wouldn't restrict a human baby. They are still babies.
We feed Unamed cat food. It's very high meat content, human food grade chicken and fish. He eats less because it's nutritionally dense.

My friend has 2 new kittens, just coming up for 4 months, who were about the same weight as yours at that age. He feeds them wet 4 times a day, and they have dry kitten food out 24/7 (though they prefer to try to get to the adult cat's dry if they can).

Both are happy, healthy, not too fat or skinny, highly energetic.

I feel the guidance you have seems rather stingy for growing kittens, and unless they were getting very fat I would feed them more.

Forgot to add - friend uses very high meat content food both wet and dry, and obviously special kitten wet food as well as dry.

The dry food we've been giving is purina pro plan kitten food.

When we got them the rescue said that they had upset stomachs when they arrived as theyed been given really bad diet at their original home. So maybe the restrictive diet is from that? But all has been fine with us gastro wise so will start upping the food.

This is exactly what we did. Kittens need a lot of food to grow!

Unless they're starting to look a little round, I'd let them have as much as they want. Mine had wet food little and often (4x a day) plus access to dry food all the time. Once they got to a year we switched them to adult food and portion controlled a bit more.

I gave wet food 2 or 3 times per day and left dry food out all the time. Still do tbh and they're now 5

One issue can be that giving restricted food almost trains them into wolfing it down when it arrives regardless of actual hunger whereas free food means they can choose as they feel. It can take a while to undo that mental conditioning - especially if it started very young with poor diet. It's not easy once they have it in their heads that food needs to be hoovered