Please talk to me about your indoor cat feeding schedule

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I have a BSH, she is a neutered female, 1 year old. Indoor only, quite lazy.
Vet told me she seems to be carrying a bit of extra weight around her belly so might want to cut calories.
Breeder feeding guidance was to only ever stick to dry food (pretty much unlimited) past the first 6 months as they seem to self regulate and overall eat less/only eat what they need and this approach prevents eating disorders as they are natural grazers. I trust the breeder, he has a lot of experience, however I do sometimes question whether it is the correct approach given she has a) already gained weight and b) I am sometimes concerned that she is not getting enough hydration (normally find at least 2 wet lumps in litter but the other day just one).

If I switch to a combined diet, what is the best approach? I am thinking one wet can or pouch in the morning and then a handful of kibble (would follow guideline on box) in the evening. I also like that she has food down at night so doesn’t wake us up for breakfast and don’t have space for an autofeeder.

Keen to know what others do!

Does she drink water? I had one that wouldn’t and one that does. The one that didn’t I’d give half a wet food pouch in the evening one in the morning

I giver my 3 year old cat two pouches a day, morning and evening and leave dry food down the whole time. She self regulates really well and is not in the least fat - the vet says she is the perfect weight.

I will confess that my mental health issues mean I sometimes dont stick to the wet food routine but she seems fine as long as dry food is always there for her

I have 2 indoor only cats, the boy is more into wet and the girl into dry, though both eat both. She is (and her dear departed brother was) self regulating, but he's a bit of a greedy boy probably due to his time as a stray with food in short supply.

They get one pouch between them in the mornings and the same in the evenings, then dry down 24/07. At least 2/3 of their dry however is a "lightweight" formula, and Mr Podge is finally starting to get his weight back down on that.

You may also want to encourage her to exercise more by playing with e.g. feathers on a "fishing pole" type toy or a laser pointer; mine have the advantage of each other to play with and chase about but at least Girlcat is well into the odd play session with me as well

Same, mine is 8 and we've had her about 5/6 years, always been a wet pouch in the morning and one in the evening, and dry food available all day.

My 2 cats get ½ a pouch each in the am and pm and then I weigh out 50g of dry food between them am and pm as one of my cats was getting a bit podgy

make sure plenty of water always. my cat funnily enough doesnt like drinking out of her normal water bowl so I leave glasses of water around the house and she drinks from those. I have to remember that they are not mine though. she started drinking out of he glass on my. nightstand once which gave me the idea to put glasses down

Zelda has half a wet pouch for breakfast and supper and dry food at lunchtime and before we go to bed, to see her through the night. She has a water bowl changed once a day. She is also an indoor cat now age 11.

If I let my 4 year old male have unlimited food he would be as big as a house.

The vet said he’s the perfect weight and he has 15g dry food at about 6am, a sachet of Felix or Sheba at 2pm and 15g dry food at 8pm. Plus a few treats in the day but not too much. He has normal dry food, brand could be iams, James Beloved etc. it’s important to give both dry food (for teeth) and wet food for hydration.

My tiny five year old Persian exotic has a handful of dry food morning and evening, that she grazes on and a tin of thrive around 5pm that she inhales. I think she’s gained a bit of weight. But she needed too!

Pouch each morning and afternoon. Evening they get weighed out portions of prescription biscuits (one for bladder issues, the other is just greedy!). They are absolutely food obsessed, beg us for food for hours before each meal and would absolutely not self regulate. Tried with Dcat1 and he was a right pudding in a matter of weeks. Took months of weight clinic to get it off, turns out he is so lazy that he only started losing weight at 20% under the recommended calories for a cat his size
to lose weight on 🙈…. Got Dcat2 to encourage play!

Many cats. Everyone gets 2 pouches of wet food per day with sprinkling of dry food on top. First one at 7am and the second between 7 and 9 pm. Bowls of water all over the house. Can't leave any food out due having a cat with an eating disorder. Occasionally there is a snack of dry food late at night and some catmilk for the older ones.

what do you mean by the eating disorder?

No offence but it feels a bit miserable never to feed wet food at all, I have two outdoor cats and one who will occasionally venture into the garden. They get a small amount of wet food twice a day and unlimited dry food between them, well a 2kg bag lasts two weeks - the two girls are healthy weights, the boy is on the erm bigger boy side but he's the most active and outdoorsy and doesn't seem to eat any more than the other two.

I have two cats and feed them a pouch split between them 4 times a day with half a scoop of biscuits split between them each time.

I have to put the biscuits and wet food together because otherwise one cat eats only the biscuits and then gives himself a UTI. We buy special biscuits but don’t take chances. In summer we add water to their food too. One goes out and is slender but eats most of the food, the other is chunky and loafs about the house all day (like me!)

Hypervigilant for anything food related. He ate a whole sheet of kitchen towel because there's oil on it. I fried some falafels, drained them on kitchen towel and only realised he'd eaten the kitchen towel when he vomited it back up as a big sausage. Wiped my hands on a tissue after eating and found him going through the wastepaper bin to get to the tissue. Will rummage through abandoned takeaway boxes in the street and eat the box if there's no food in it. Has to be fed separately from other cats because he will attack them for their food. Has attacked us when we're eating to try and get at our food. It's a constant battle to keep his weight down and to try and stop him eating things that could do him some serious harm. It's a worry letting him out because we've no control over what he gets his paws on but we have seen him with takeaway boxes.

oh wow. bless him - the poor sausage!

I know. He can be a lovely cat and obviously had some struggles before he turned up and asked to move in. Don't know what his life was like before he found us. Sad really.

Mine does exactly the same! So I also started leaving a glass on the kitchen counter for her

Expensive premium wet food, fed on demand starting from first light and repeated anytime he meows at us! He's trained us well!

So breeder says a lot of these attitude towards food are due to the fact that they are fed on a schedule. As they are natural grazers, she said they should always have dry food down for them to nibble on as they please. Don’t know what to do!

I weigh out my cat's dry food but they dont eat it all at once and graze on it throughout the day. When they were younger I would replenish it throughout the day but now I just weight it out twice a day. Im hoping that my heavier cat puts on less extra weight by having less on offer

We always leave the dry food out and when the bowl is empty do top up.with more if she yells at us. She grazes her wet food too but sometimes leaves it after drinking the juice.

So I am thinking I could try:

• I sachet or can in the morning (I used to get Royal Canin, James Wellbeloved or Canagans when she was smaller so am thinking those brands on rotation - other suggestions welcome)
• a handful of kibble in the evening (do I need to be super precise and weight it as per packet instructions? I like the fact that her food lasts all night now too so don’t want to give her too little but maybe I should?)

Or perhaps I should split the sachet/cat into a morning and evening meal with kibble available during the night?

I am so used with her bowl being full at all times that this makes me feel as if I am underfeeding her!

Is she a good weight and is she active? I worry that unlimited dry food + wet is too much?

Ours is about half a kilo overweight, and got so by being allowed free access to biscuits. She doesn't self-regulate she just eats and eats like a labrador in a cat body.

At the moment she gets 15g dry food at about 6am, a tin of Untamed wet food at some point during the day (sometimes all at once, and sometimes split over two portions), and a tiny sprinkling of dry food (probably about 5g if that!) when we go to bed because she has somehow been trained to expect to be fed then. If this brings her weight down, we will increase the dry food a bit to keep her stable.