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 have a large 6kg cat. He gets one 85g can split between morning 6-7am and evening anywhere from 4.30-6pm. He also has a weighed portion of biscuits. I have a plastic cup with a piece of electric tape round the outside, to mark quantity. His biscuits are poured into that in the morning and that is his days allowance. He then gets some in the bowl am and he's free to graze. Any remains at the end of the day gets dumped in the bowl for overnight. Can your cat access enough water if she's bared from the house overnight? We just shut the kitchen off so he can come and go as he wishes.

I leave water out for her in the back area she has access to .

I have a very food-orientated cat, although not overweight - she was a rescue who had come from a situation where there were too many cats for the available food and was exhausted and underweight from feeding a litter of kittens.

What has worked:

• using a licky-mat to spread the food out so it takes longer to eat
• Using a timed feeder, with two compartments timed to open about 15-30 minutes apart so the meal is split in two. Cat knows the food is there so doesn’t need to demand it.
• Feeding at different times so there isn’t the build up in anticipation of it being feeding time.

With your cat, if despite your best efforts, she isn’t losing weight, could someone else be feeding her? Vet told me a story of a cat she knew like this. Owner, on her advice, put a paper collar on asking people to text a number if they were feeding her. Apparently ELEVEN people responded within a couple of weeks!

I always have dried food available 24 hours a day. Wet food twice a day. Never weighed anything. This is for every cat I have had. He doesn't over eat He is 16 now weighs the same as he did 10 years ago.

The other people feeding is possible. Put a do not feed collar on. There is a cat where I live seems to be always hungry you would thought it was a stray.

I have wondered that actually. However she wouldn’t be starving all the time if so.
My last cat was grossly overweight . I feel really guilty about it . He just grazed all day on dry food.

Mine has dried food auto machine. Available all day. But it generally it’s set so he can only eat x amount so it doesn’t throw out unlimited amounts. I think it’s schedules three times a day. There’s always a bit in there so he doesn’t at gorge it all

Then we give one small tin 80-100g of wet food each evening (5-7pm )

😲😲

I have wondered that actually. However she wouldn’t be starving all the time if so.

Less so now, but when she first arrived, DCat could have convinced anyone that there was a famine and she was the most underfed, neglected, starved animal in this universe. The other possibility is rather than being fed, is your cat stealing food? DCat would never, ever, ever have done anything like that…😂

My cat is tiny but eats a lot- should I be worried?
Thing is she doesn't always finish stuff so is sometimes asking for attention- so gets a licky lix instead.
But here we go (the shame of it)
she likes an early breakfast around 5am- this is of a own brand chunks in jelly- she sucks the jelly off.
7am she has a pouch of wet food and eats half leaving the rest to congeal and dry up
bowl of dry food always out and water- has to be in a pint glass
at 5pm she would like some dinner - a wet pouch
At 8pm it is time for a teaspoon of tinned tuna- in spring water or a bit of whatever we are having if she fancies it. may then ask for some other food (and gets it)
She is not overweight and quite small. Maybe she is eating then chucking it up somewhere I have not found yet?
Should I be worried about her appetite or accept I am under the paw.
Need to go now as she has turned up and fancies a licky licks...

Ironically she is called Breadcat as she was starving when she came to us and eating the bread for the birds. She is more of a RoastChickenCat now- though she did eat bread this weekend to make a point.

I can’t believe that amount of food. My cat would be like Garfield.

@Nosummerontheagenda
This is why I am somewhat ashamed. But she is not fat.
When she first came to us she was so fixated on food as she was starving, she used to eat so fast she threw up straight away. She is more settled now ( for the past 6 years) with the dry food always there but after showing any - rare -attention goes and sits where she is fed!
I am a mug but she is 16 now so what the heck.

It is a bit much though when you choose Sunday dinner on the basis of what the cat likes best!

😂😂

I believe the dry food is problematic. I’ve been feeding my cats Lily’s Kitchen as it is high protein and grain free however one of my cats is definitely getting a little overweight. Although the biscuits are 80% protein/meat that leaves about 20% which are mainly potatoes/carbs. Cats are obligate carnivores and simply don’t have the digestive system to cope with that amount of carbs.

Apparently they can end up diabetic as they are having sugar rushes and crashes and it’s messing with their insulin. It’s a bit of a con that all these companies are producing and marketing these biscuits as a healthy option for cats, they are an addictive unhealthy junk food.

I am now weaning them off the biscuits and making the switch to all meat/canned, and next step is to get them on to raw.

My cat was only fed raw food as a kitten. She was very very fussy about commercial cat food as an adult .I wonder if that’s why she’s overweight. She prefers meat and fish to cat food.

You have to be careful with what you feed, as not everything contains enough Taurine for cats - they can't make it themselves, unlike humans & dogs. If you feed chicken or turkey, you need to make sure they get plenty of the dark meat as the white (breast) doesn't have much. Internal organs such as heart & liver have plenty, but too much liver has other issues. Any mass produced cat foods that don't have the word "complete" on the packaging are also likely to be low in taurine.

It’s a bit of a con that all these companies are producing and marketing these biscuits as a healthy option for cats, they are an addictive unhealthy junk food.

To be fair they are healthier than many cat foods on the market, so it's sort of like saying a good quality ready meal with plenty of veg & not many additives is better for you than a McDonalds. But of course it's not as good for you as a proper meal home cooked from scratch with fresh ingredients.

@Nosummerontheagenda I'd be asking for a thyroid test. It's just a sample of blood.

Yes I’ve been thinking that. The vet is useless despite being mega expensive .

I think your cat is unlikely to have thyroid issues, it tends to be over active thyroids in cats which causes weight loss. My cat is ancient (was a rescue and previously a stray so who knows how old) and has hyperthyroidism and I have the opposite problem. He's around 2kg, eats 4 pouches of wet food a day, plus 2 lick-e-lix and I still can't get him to gain weight. He does a lot of vomiting (for reasons that have stumped us all, including the vet, who has concluded he's just a puker). I think it is most likely other people are feeding your cat if they spend a lot of time outdoors, as you aren't giving it too much food going by what you've written.