So How Many Times A Day Do I Have To Feed Him?

danteshuman

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I'm trying to switch my kitten from a dry food with 1, 3oz pouch dinner a day to mostly wet food (6-8 oz wet food in two meals) with some dry food while I sleep.

It didn't work. He refused to eat his leftovers. I tried holding his dry food ransom.... He ignored his wet food for over 6 hours!!!!!! So I have been breaking his pouches onto two plates, storing one in the fridge and feeding him his second warmed up dinner 3 hours later. He gets dry food while I sleep.

Now I might be willing to bend and feed him 3 times a day but 4 times a day is insanely crazy. I want him to switch over to a wet food diet with a tiny bit of kibble.
 

tabbytom

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I'm trying to switch my kitten from a dry food with 1, 3oz pouch dinner a day to mostly wet food (6-8 oz wet food in two meals) with some dry food while I sleep.
A kitten needs to be fed many times a day and be fed as much as he can eat at one sitting (wet food). He needs all the nutrients and proteins from the wet food in his growing up age and as a kitten, they burn off calories very fast as they are very active. And wet food will keep him hydrated. Dry food are full of carbohydrates.

Number of times depending bon how much he eats on one sitting. Some kittens eat more and some less. If he eats to the fullest, maybe less times. So it depends.

Keep him on a schedule and feed as much as he can east and from there you can roughly gauge how much he eats atone sitting.

He'll enter into the growth spurt stage when he approaches his one year and may still continue to eat lots but his food intake will taper off as he grows older and therefore eating lesser amount of food and lesser number of times a day.
 
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danteshuman

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Ok I check his wet food amount during the night when I get up to pee and give him dry food if needed. He is never without food.... He just doesn't like old food. I gave him a 3 oz pack at midnight. I will see how he does eating 3 times a day with some wet food. Trust me, he is good about letting me know when he is hungry!
 

tabbytom

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My boy doesn’t like stale food too. If a can is opened with left over from the previous feed, he’ll not touch it.

Dry food will go stale too as they are left in the open and they become moist and also invites bacteria to grow on them.

Try playing with him before his last meal. Once he’s wear out from the play and after his meal, he’ll most likely to sleep through and probably wake up early for food so that he don’t have to eat in the middle of the night when you are sleeping.
 

lisahe

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Try playing with him before his last meal. Once he’s wear out from the play and after his meal, he’ll most likely to sleep through and probably wake up early for food so that he don’t have to eat in the middle of the night when you are sleeping.
We used to do this with our cats when they were kittens, too! A long play session and a caloric bedtime meal really worked. (One caveat: it can be good to wait a short bit between playing and eating if the cat tends to be a vomiter!)
 

CatCrazy777

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Depending on which wet food we buy, some times our cats will eat the entire pouch, other pouches they will not finish and it will get left. Whenever we buy a pouch brand that they don't normally finish, we split up the feeds so they only get half of the pouch in one sitting (the rest is refrigerated), but their next feed will be sooner then if they had eaten the whole pouch. This seems to work for us - hope it is useful for you!
 

EmersonandEvie

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I feel this. Dexter (6ish months?) has officially outgrown the contraption we had to make for him to at kibble during the workday, so he is being fed in the morning, at dinner, and before bed, as much as he will eat. I would rather him at least have some food available during the day but that's not an option anymore :/ Friday to Sunday he gets a noontime meal because one of us will be home to give it to him.
 

mizzely

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Lydia sometimes takes 12 freaking hours to eat her food. I bought a SureFeed Sealed Pet Bowl which seems to have cured her "but mom... It's crusty!" look that she gives me and I'm not tossing food anymore! Sometimes halfway through the day I'll add heated bone broth or kitten milk to warm it up for her but otherwise she does lick her bowl clean by the morning :)
 

lisahe

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And this happens to fast eaters too.. Need to tell them to slow down and not chomp on their food.
Yes, that same cat also eats too fast and then vomits. The old "scarf and barf" trick! I think it's safe to say she has kind of a nervous stomach. ;)
 

She's a witch

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4 times a day is insanely crazy.
You can consider me insanely crazy :-) but I feed my adult cats 4 times a day. One of them will not eat more than 40gr at one sitting and she refuses to eat the leftover wet food that was out for more than 15 minutes. So we feed them when we get up at 7/8am, then around 9/10am the second breakfast, and then around 6/7pm and the last time around 9pm. Sometimes they get another meal just before we sleep if they have been extra active or we go to sleep very late. This schedule works for all of us. But - they are not kittens anymore.

EDITED TO ADD:
since I feed my cats at short intervals (around 2h mornings and evenings), and since one of them refuse to eat food that has been refrigerated, I don't place opened can in the fridge. I use half big can for first breakfast/dinner, cover it with the silicon cover (or transfer to the glass jar if they have food that is not their absolute favourite), and place it in the dry cupboard. And then serve 2h later. That's probably not something that should be recommended, but it's the only way my cats would eat bigger cans which I buy.
 
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lisahe

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We're insanely crazy with you, She's a witch She's a witch ! We feed five times a day: 7 am, 12.30 pm, 4 pm, 7.30 pm, and bedtime. Our cats aren't kittens, either, but one would eat everything at one sitting and then barf and the other one won't eat too much food at once. Quite a pair! It works for us, though.
 
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