My 3 month old kitten is wasting so much food!

[lightgreen]

I’ve never had any kind of pet, so I’m not sure what I’m doing.
She has Felix kitten food - both the light and dark blue boxes. She has James wellbeloved dry kitten food.
I feed her wet food at 7am, 1pm, 5pm and then a little dry in the evening.
She will tuck into her wet food happily but realistically will only ever eat about a quarter of a pouch.

She then won’t touch the rest of the pack, no matter how much I try to seal the open packet with bulldog clips, vacuum bags etc.

If I put the rest of the pack out as the next meal, she sniffs, paws hard all around the bowl in a sort of dance, then tries as hard as she can to over throw the bowl (she’s not quite heavy enough yet, but the time is coming)!

Should I be letting her get more hungry before giving up? I’ve tried a couple of times to leave it late and I’ve ended up with a crying 3 month kitten that’s not eating and then ignoring a full bowl of fresh food.

Unfortunately that's fairly normal for cats 😹

Mine demands a pouch every morning but mostly only licks the gravy off.

You could provide pouches at only 2 meals and free feed dry the rest of the time. Just make sure she has easy access to water.

You could also try different wet food.

Or lightly heat (briefly in the microwave) pouch contents you've sealed/refrigerated.

Welcome to cat ownership

I only feed dry.

I would just give the kitten a small part of the wet pouch and keep the rest in the fridge once opened

Feeding her a wet pouch three times a day plus dry food sounds like quite a lot

Are you putting down a full wet pouch each time then throwing it in the bin when she doesn't eat it?

You'll bankrupt yourself!

I'd just put a small amount down and if she ET's it all put some more out later

Hard to remember what our two were like as it was 12 years ago. Have a small amount of dry food available throughout the day and always fresh water nearby, not too close to the food though

I'd also ignore what it says on the boxes of cat food as they want you to use it and buy more. Vets are better placed to tell you the real deal

We were told that wet food is basically lazy food and it's not great for them. Dry food is better, it also helps their teeth keep sharp

I'd bet that she doesn't like it cold from the fridge.

I think that is a lot of food myself.

We got 2 kittens not long ago, they're six months old now.

When they first moved in at about 10 weeks old we fed them half a pouch of wet food in the morning, a small handful of dry in the middle of the day, then half a pouch of wet in the evening. That seemed plenty, they finished it all up every time.

They have Whiskas wet food and Go-Cat dry.

Sorry I can't help with what to do with un-served meat left in the pouch because they share a whole one between them so get a new pouch every time. However, portion wise that was right for them.

We have since moved up to a whole pouch in the morning each and more dry food but they still share half a pouch in the evening.

I wonder if it's gently warmed up that might encourage your kitten to eat the second half of the pouch?

Yeah ours don't like warm meat or cold sachets. They sometimes just go off a flavour, no rhyme or reason. They'll eat it one day, then go off it the next. I've donated tens of sachets to our local cat shelter over the years.

But also yes that does sound quite a lot!

^ gosh that really made no sense.
They had half a pouch each morning and evening. Now have a whole pouch each in the morning and half pouch each in the evening.

thank you for so many replies! I’m on a two day (failing) regime . I’m putting a half packet out in the morning at the moment, and squeezing as much air as possible from the rest of the packet with a bull dog clip. I try a different flavour at lunch and then try the rest of the morning pouch for evening. In a circle, but she’s literally never eaten the second half of the pouch. She only eats the newly opened pouches!

I leave dry out and give wet food (½ a pouch each) 2 or 3 times a day.

Are you only serving ¼ of a pouch at a time and then she's refusing the rest later?

Are you putting the pouch in the fridge or leaving it at room temperature?

hi - I’m not very savvy so don’t know how to reply to specifics. Thank you!

She eats less than a quarter of a pack, so I push out a half and cut my losses on the waste on that portion, but I would like her to eat the other half.

I bulldog clip it and keep it at room temperature. She’s never touched the second half.

she eats dry food and has water.

Fussy buggers, cats! I gave up completely with wet food a month ago. The cat is nearly 3 and she’d been getting both dry and wet food since she was a kitten. We tried loads of different brands of wet food and put it out twice a day once she was about six months. She sniffed the wet food, sometimes licked a little, sometimes tried to bury it and left it to congeal.
She eats the dry food and is good at drinking water so I don’t think it’s too much of a problem.

I have twin kittens the same age. Rescue charity said feed 3 times a day not 4 so I feed dry food in the morning and then wet lunch and evening but they don’t finish a whole pouch each yet. I suggest you try cutting out one of the feeds and see if she will be more hungry at mealtimes. It’s a battle of wills with cats…. 😀

I would try a different brand. Ours hated Felix kitten food but he liked their adult food 🙄🤣

My cat wouldn’t eat wet food at all, no matter what I tried.
she had biscuits and always ate them.
after 6mths of trying we gave up and started feeding her biscuits in a morning and fish, cooked meat etc on an evening. If you buy off cuts of deli meat, cheap packets of chicken, square frozen fish, it works out cheaper and she’s actually ate it!
she lived till she was 20 on that diet before anyone says it’s too processed’

Sympathies! My 16-month old boy cat is a huge fusspot and contrarian too. He won’t touch any dry food at all (except Dreamies, which he will steal from apparently safe storage places and tear the bag to shreds for every last Dreamie). Wet food needs to be expensive tinned steamed fish or chicken. Unless today he’s decided he’s a beef or lamb pouch guy. Or suddenly hates both tins and pouches and requires fresh prawns from the Waitrose deli counter.

In any case, no food will be touched unless he has seen it emerging fresh from the previously sealed packaging - because leftovers are most definitely not EVER acceptable. Even his favourite chicken Lick-e-Lix will be rejected if he doesn’t witness me tearing the top off the tube.

Ah well. I remember when I thought toddlers were hard to feed! But my fussy boy 🐈‍⬛ is healthy, lean, playful, glossy and happy, and definitely worth all the angst.

I'm not in the UK, but my cats are the same and so I feed them something like this. It's about 85g of wet food per pack, but it's sealed into two smaller portions, which is perfect for my cats who will only it wet food if it's fresh out of the pack.

www.uk.sheba.com/wet-cat-food/gravy-sauce/perfect-portions/perfect-portions-turkey-chunks-gravy-3-x-2-x-375g

Mine eats human grade meat, like meat off drumsticks, chicken mince, a couple of sardines, bit of canned tuna etc. So I portion it up into about the right serving size (freezing the rest in portion sizes - I use giant icecube trays) and that's what he gets.

Dry food is out all day so the meat is really just a small amount. I found that reduced the waste and was cheaper because I can buy on offer.