Wet cat food & the heat

[WanderingWisteria]

How long do you leave your wet cat food out for in this heat? DCat is a snacker and eats inconsistently - some days she’ll wolf down 2/3 as soon as it is down; other days she’ll eat a bit every time she strolls past and other days she’ll ignore it for a couple of hours before tucking in - so we’ve always left it out until we next feed her. Having dealt with maggot issue this week, I am re-thinking the approach but I’m not sure what else to do.
Also, what do you do with the leftover wet cat food? Our food bin gets collected weekly.
I did consider putting down 1/3 of a pouch in the morning, putting the rest in the fridge and then giving her a bit more when she’s finished the first bit but that only works on the days one of us is at home.
She has dry food out all of the time. And a bowl of water, not that anyone has ever witnessed her having a drink in the 5yrs we’ve had her.

Put wet food down what hasn’t been eaten after 20mins gets thrown away until next meal time. She’ll soon learn to eat it all. This is what I do I feed three small meals a day.

will she not eat dry food?

It says she has dry food

Sorry I meant just dry food

This is an issue for me as well. I am also out at work all day so I can’t be faffing around putting food out at intervals. Our cat gets fed in the morning and the evening (and also has access to dry food and fresh water 24/7) but at the moment he seems to be too hot to eat and so I come home from work to find leftover food still in his bowl, which is a bit smelly and unhygienic 🤢

I used one of these motion activated feeders with my last cat. It has a really good seal to keep flies out.

I leave mine there for longer than I should because I usually have to go to work and when I come back there is still some in the bowl. But the cats seem to know when something is off and won't go back to it. I don't even put a full pouch down but they aren't very hungry in the heat.

Morning food when I get up 1st thing, if they've not eaten much it goes back in the fridge and they have another chance after I've had my cuppa, then it stays down until I leave the house when the bowls go outside for the birds to finish the leftovers. Next feed is when I get home from work and final feed is as late as possible in the hope they'll sleep all night and not disturb me! Flies seems to sleep overnight so that food stays down all night.

Get a feeder that has a motion sensor and an ice pack in the bottom to keep the food fresh.

We don’t have this issue as our cat eats all the wet food immediately the bowl touches the ground

I would probably put out less at a time in your situation - we have a Catmate timed feeder that serves two portions with space for an ice pack underneath.

So I’d give 1/3 first thing, then the other two portions in the feeder at 2-3 hourly intervals.

Breakfast 05.30 set amount of complete dry food each
Tea 16.30 1 x tray of pate or small tin of meat shared half each
Supper 20.00 set amount of complete dry food each with valerian calming biscuits to help with a good night's sleep plus any appropriate dinner scraps.
Very regimented and everything snaffled up as soon as it hits the ground 😀

I would try to encourage her to eat all her wet food in one go and snack on dry if she's still hungry or if you aren't around for set meal times. Mine have their tea & supper closer together than I'd ideally like but it's the only way I can do it with my work & bedtime plus they do have a good breakfast and excel at doing absolutely nothing all day while I'm out 🤔

My husband feeds our girls at 6am when he gets up. I chuck what is left at 8.45am just before Inleave the house and then they have dry kibble for the rest of the day. I can’t cope with the thought of flies/maggots so I just can’t leave it down.

Mine has small amounts out at a time (if I’m in and she doesn’t eat it all I can keep an eye on it, and she’ll tell me if she wants to eat and what’s out isn’t ‘right’ for some reason), and if I’m going out she has those timed feeders with an ice block underneath the food compartments.

I only put wet food down when they shout for it. They soon notice that its not there to snack on

Op I would put down smaller portions or get smaller pouches??? My cats diets are erratic at the best of times so I buy smaller pouches so less waste. If there sre any leftovers the other cat tends to finish them 😮. Currently using gourmet mon Petit intense

I have a timer cat feeder which you put an ice block under. It usually just gets used if we are going to be out still when their meal is due but in the heat, I serve their food in it and just don't use the timer part

I know this is somewhat off topic but I saw an instagram post from Bake Off Nancy (can’t remember her surname, sorry) with an idea to deter flies. You cut a lemon in half and stud the flesh with cloves. Balance the lemon on something like an egg cup and bingo! Apparently flies hate the smell of both citrus and cloves. We have one in the kitchen and one in the utility room where DCat is fed and they work brilliantly. If a fly comes in, they go straight out again!

I think this was on This Morning recently. I must give it a go!

Thank you for the ideas about both the timed cat feeder and the lemon/clove thing. We will be giving both a go! I was around today so was feeding DCat little and often which she was very confused by but that plan won’t work on days when I’m out.

How cold does this make the food? Her Majesty will not eat chilled food or even food that's previously been chilled (stored in fridge then brought to room temperature or microwaved).

I leave her morning wet food down for ca two hours, during which time she'll return to it and eat small portions before wandering off; I take it up at the point when she returns to it but turns away in disgust :) By that time she's generally eaten half to two-thirds of it.

In hot weather my previous cat liked a bit of water mixed in with his wet food, to make a kind of soup. Her Majesty though will not touch this no matter how thirsty she is, so she gets extra Lick-e-Lix.

Such an easy solution surely! Leave only dry out when its super hot, if you can't guarantee cat will eat it and won't be in. Give pouch on your return. Refrigerate any remainder for the next day.

@ohime there are 2 plastic feeding dishes that slot in above the ice pack and it's good quality (not too thin) so keeps the food fresh but not like it's been in the fridge or freezer. My cat is fussy too and wouldn't eat the chilled fresh food I once tried her with but she eats her usual food from this with no problems. I leave the battery out if just using it due to the heat. They are on sale at the moment and available with 1, 2 or 3 dishes ...

amzn.eu/d/e0j71oq

I have a terrible maggot phobia so invested in a Surefeed and it’s the best thing I ever did. It’s expensive but has paid for itself many times over as I’ve had it for several years now and it’s still going strong. Family members with cats have also bought them for their cats and have found them to be excellent. Stops the flies but also keeps the food fresh as it stops it drying out.
https://www.google.com/search?q=surefeed+microchip+pet+feeder&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

I tend to give mine her full pouch, she eats what she wants & then I put it in the fridge in her own little lidded tupperware until she's ready for some more. She doesn't seem to mind it being colder on hot days & as I'm out of the house at work it saves any nasty surprises when I get home. She also has a dish of water in the back garden in a shaded spot.

We put out "soup" and call her for it. It gets wolfed down. Otherwise she just has dry cat food and water. Our vet says she is beautifully healthy.

I stopped giving cat wet food twice a day due to this. It’s hot all summer where we live and he never ate much in the morning so we stopped.

Dry food available 24:7 via food automat

Wet food I give once a day between 4-7pm roughly if he’s around then looking for it. He still doesn’t eat it all at once, but the day is then cooling down rather than warming up so it’s usually ok

It’s also easier now if we go away a night or 2 as a neighbour only needs to come in once a day to feed. Any longer we get a pet sitter stay, but again they also have to just feed wet once and no hassle in heat