When to feed my cat

[Nosummerontheagenda]

I just wrote a whole post about this and it disappeared in the ether, so here goes again!

I have a seven year old overweight female cat. I’ve been weighing out her dry food to try and rectify this. She has a pouch of wet food when I wake up and 30 grams dry food at 5 pm. She paces around her food bowl for at least an hour before 5 pm feed and screams outside my window to be fed at 6 am most mornings. She has a cat flap into an area by the back door but I shut her out of the kitchen as she brings live mice in regularly. I tend to get up and shut her in the kitchen unfed until I wake up . Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m permanently sleep deprived and we often play a game of catch me if you can.

She hates being kept in overnight and will do all she can to avoid that too. I’m sick and tired of being woken up and her constant greed. What can I do?

I’ve tried also feeding her 15 oz at 5 pm and 15 oz at bedtime. It’s a pain weighing it all out and she still screams at me from dawn .

Twice a day means she's waiting a long, long time between meals.

We have three cats who are fed four times a day - it's greatly reduced the manic screaming and pacing, though they still try it on if we go into the kitchen.

They're fed at 6am (wet), 8am (dry), 1pm (wet) and 9pm (dry). Random timings but it's what fits with our work schedules. It works.

You could try a timed feeder for overnights?

Yes I’ve got one but haven’t set it up. I must do that.

You might also think about revisiting which food she's on. Yes it's a bit more expensive, but some of the more premium brands do weight loss dry foods - mine are on dry ad lib (as well as their wet "meals"), and since I tried an appetite control dry food my boy has definitely dropped weight. DSis used a "lightweight" dry, and the difference to her rather large cat is very noticeable.

Buy a box of small zip-lock bags and spend half an hour weighing out 15oz portions (that's nearly a pound - does it comtain uranium?)
Then at least you have the meals readily available.

What a great idea!

What brand do you use? Mine is grain free high meat content.

I think I mean grams actually! Why would it contain uranium?

Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element in the Universe.

15 grams sounds much better ( you've obviously taken the Uranium out!)

😂😂😂

Oh God really? Who has time for that! What do you do when you out?

😂😂

I've always fed our cats on demand (or when their bowls are empty). Never weighed a feed in my life.

OP, do you think you may be making life more complicated than it needs to be?

I use Royal Canin, though there's a few people on here that don't like it. I use the neutered exigent, DSis used the Lightweight. Or you could try Hills, another brand that does various specialised dry feeds. These are the brands my vet recommends mostly.

Making a fuss an hour before meals is normal for my cats.

It has slowly dawned on us the trick is to get a naturally quiet cat, then the fuss is easier to cope with. Although an hour of silent death stare can be unnerving.

Making meals take more effort with a slow feeder also helps.

I was doing that but she was very overweight. My last cat was also free fed and got very fat.

Why not give her a couple of low fat treats at lunchtime?

I’m not always in.

I'm surprised your cat is overweight if only getting one pouch at morning and 15 grams evening. My cats eat 3 x 100g pouch wet food morning between them a few crunches at lunch time which one cat eats more of than the other and 3 pouches between them before bed. Once they've eaten that I put a handful of dry food to see them over the night. Despite having more food neither of them is overweight. Have you had your cats thyroid checked?

I have 2 cats. One larger breed male and one smaller female.

Ours gets two pouches (Sheba) a day, which are split into three or four meals, depending on if someone is at home during the day or not, plus dry Royal Canin. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper - but breakfast might be a full pouch with no lunch if we’re both working in the office. His last feed is about 9pm and he generally just nibbles on it, but it’s been eaten by the time we get up (he’s shut in the kitchen overnight).

He gets one “chicken yoghurt” most days and a couple of Dreamies when he comes in from being out.

The vet just says reduce her food every time she gets her jabs. I have wondered about her thyroid.

I mean, it only takes 30 seconds to feed them each time - we have three cats.

If we go out then they just wait longer or get fed slightly earlier, it's not set times by any means, just whatever fits around our schedule. Generally DH gives half a pouch when he wakes up, I give dry just before I leave for work. Then they get half a pouch for lunch (I'm self-employed so pop home everyday) and some more dry at dinner. They're mostly out all afternoon/evening anyway.

But you could always set a timer for her if you know you'll be out, you can get ones with multiple compartments so you can put multiple meals in there.

Our oldest is on a diet (used to be 8.5kg) and giving smaller, more frequent meals has made a huge difference to him. He's no longer absolutely ravenous each meal so no longer shovels everything down in 30 seconds.

Cats are usually hyperthyroid which causes weight loss and hyperactivity.

Hypothyroidism leads to lethergy and weight gain but is rare in cats.

Also worth remembering that pouches are not the same in calorie and protein content so hearing 'my cat gets 3 pouches a day' isn't necessarily helpful without knowing exactly what pouches, the age and activity of the cat and so on.