What do you feed your cats?

[Fatcatchat]

If your cat is a healthy weight, please could you tell me what you feed them and how much/what times? I need to completely change how and what I feed my cat. She is too fat and I’ve tried to change it in the past but she meows and meows and meows and doesn’t give in until I feed her. I’m going to try again and would like to know how other people keep their cats a healthy weight please 🙏

Ours get a pouch of Sheba each, split over two meals, and then a small handful of biscuits each twice a day. They get fed around 6am, 8am, midday and 9pm.

They're all males and weigh between 3-5.5kg. They also have free access to outdoors during the day if they want it, though only one really goes out much,

A pouch in the early morning. Then Purina kibble she helps herself to. She's a grazer, never gains weight.

Do they ever cry for food between 12 and 9? Mine wants to be fed every 3 hours. I’ve tried to split the packets really small so just give her like two spoonfuls but she just looks at me and carries on crying. It’s really hard to ignore her when it’s so incessant, but it’s for her own good so I need to just do it!

So is the kibble down all through the day?

The main thing is to get quality complete food without added carbohydrates and cheap fillers. Good food costs a lot more though.

cats need meat and only meat. The supermarket cheap stuff is sometimes only 4% meat!

After a lot of research mine gets a daily pouch of Meowing Heads (pouches are bigger than most so it’s better value). Also 65g of scrumbles dry.

My cat is now 17. She has Hills Senior 11+ biscuits that she will happily graze throughout the day/more so in the evening and one pouch in the morning. Shes a healthy weight and the vet is very happy with her.

This is her, she was at the vets recently and the vet commented on her weight as soon as she saw her. She didn’t specifically tell me she needs to lose weight but she said she’s big for being so young as she’s about to turn 2 in February. I need to put a stop to it now

Thank you, my cat doesn’t seem to like dry food very much. She likes wet food in jelly. I’ve tried a few of the good quality brands before and I ended up giving them to my neighbours because she wouldn’t touch them 😫

Hills J/D to protect her joints and T/d to keep her teeth clean. (She won't eat wet food). She's double figures now. But she's tiny. For an overweight cat you need special diet food so you don't have to feed so little and they feel more satisfied . And you need to weigh/measure religiously.
Mine gets 50g a day in total but she's 3kg.

I feed our kitten 1-2 Whiskas kitten pouches a day depending on how hungry she seems and a smallbowl of biscuit that she grazes.
i also feed her fresh sliced supermarket chicken slices in the evening (i get it from Aldi for £1.99) and a pack last 4-5 days.
She loves that and eats it immediately.
Genuine question but if cats need basically meat why don’t people feed them more fresh meat?

Eden is very high protein, I think they do wet as well as dry.

For wet KatKins is good. I can offer you are referral code. They do a 2 week trial and if you go through Quidco you can get cash back.

It comes in frozen sachets as it's human grade meat that's been steam cooked to get rid of nasties like TB.

You can keep them in the fridge for days, defrost overnight.

I was a bit sceptical but I have one very fussy cat whilst the others are very happy on dry Eden.

Both these foods can look expensive at first but they don't need much quantity.

Oh you need to increase her activity levels and general entertainment helps distract them.

My cats have untamed wet and dry food

Regularly, but they don't get anything except for the odd bit of chicken or piece of grated cheese.

We had to put the oldest on a diet about 18 months ago and he's lost around 4kg since then on this routine. We used to free feed but he has absolutely no off-switch when left to fend for himself, lol.

Cats are obligate carnivores but they need a certain amount of taurine in their diets which they naturally would get from raw meat and organs. So just feeding them freshly cooked chicken (for example) isn't going to give them what they need long-term.

You can add taurine to their meals but for most people, it's easier/cheaper to just feed a commercial food.

Ours has two 50g pouches of Sheba, and Royal Canin dry. We split over breakfast/lunch/dinner/supper. He gets two Dreamies after his evening brush and the odd wee bit of chicken, ham, tuna or cheese here and there. He is generally only interested in human food if he steals it from your plate rather than it actually being given to him though.

Down!!! With a Labrador. 😁😁. No it sits on the corner of the worktop right on the inside. She's a very tall determined Labrador.

Then she's not really hungry just bored perhaps.

Does she go outside?

He gets 65g Tesco dry food split over twice a day - 7am and 6pm

He supplements this with an ample supply of mice from the farm next door.

Yeah she does go out

My two get a tin of untamed each in the morning, 15g of untamed biscuits at lunch and half a tin each of untamed at tea time. They seem to like smaller meals more often better than a big meal.

now they are on untamed they don’t beg for food, they eat it all up in one go and they no longer stink! Their fur is beautiful too

Mine have a handful of Hills TD in the morning. They don't eat it all at once but come back to it during the day. They have a tin of Untamed each at teatime and then a few Dreamies at bedtime. Little cat is just over 3kg and big cat nearly 6kg. They're both an appropriate weight for their size and frame.