Cat grazing on wet food for too long....

dthlo

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I've been slowly transitioning my 4yr old female cat over to wet food. Yah! But she just grazes her wet food meaning that it can take 2+hours for her to finish her wet food portion. I understand that wet food shouldn't be left out for more than 30min? Working from home, I can better monitor her eating habits and give her small portions at a time, but if I start going into the office, I simply can't wait 2+ hours in the morning for her to finish her breakfast. Any thoughts?
 

LTS3

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No, canned food can be left out for up to 12 hours, less if the room temperature is hot and humid like in the summer. Canned food is a cooked product so it won't go bad quickly.

You can buy a programmable timed feeder to give your cat portion sizes of canned food throughout the day. Some feeders have ice pack features. You can even freeze canned food and put the frozen chunk into the feeder compartments to slowly defrost.
 

fionasmom

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I have always left wet food out during the day for several hours.....for years....and no one has ever gotten sick from it. I only have one cat who cleans her dish immediately; the rest are grazers.
 

lollie

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My cat is also a grazer, it can take her two hours to finish her meal. I was alarmed when I read you weren’t supposed to leave it out, because, how do you get them to eat faster? I finally read elsewhere, that unlike humans, cats are not affected by the same types of bacteria humans are. Of course, it makes sense when you think about it. You’ve seen wild cats on tv stuff a carcass in a tree and leave it for two days.
 

TardisDance

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I too have finally gotten my cat to eat wet food and she is also is a grazer. The only thing that I’ve found that helps is a smaller portion. I’m giving a 1/3 of a can of one flavor in the morning and then a 1/3 of another flavor at night. And that’s for a 3 oz. can. I hope to build her up to an entire can but I had to leave the entire 1/2 can out all day and then have 2 dishes out with breakfast and dinner! She does still go back 2-3 times but it’s at least not all day thing. I did try the whole can at once for a while but she’d just eat around half throughout the day. I think she likes the variety of different flavors.
 

LTS3

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mizzely

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It takes my cat several hours to finish 3 oz. Averages 4 to 10 hours depending on how she feels about what I've offered her that meal lol
 

blumarine916

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Yeah same here. Mine rarely eat the whole thing at once unless it’s something I cooked. So the food is left out for the entire day until I’m home from work. Sometimes it’s not even finished 😓
 
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