Wondering because my 3 year old finally fully accepted the 11 week old kitten today and they started playing. So there isn't much need for her to spend the night in her safe room anymore *unless* unlimited grazing is actually important. Because I can't have him eating unlimited, and especially not eating high cal kitten food. Currently I feed them together moist food (non kitten) and let the kitten graze kitten food at night in the safe room. Now that they are buddies though, would be nice for her not to be isolated.
-
Too many ads? Join our community of cat lovers now to reduce ads by 90%! Click here to join for free!
Do Kittens Really Need Unlimited Grazing?
- Thread starter ArtNJ
- Start Date
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2018
- Messages
- 2,844
- Purraise
- 3,465
Cats and kittens aren’t grazers, so technically no, they don’t need to graze. The reason to leave food out for a kitten is if you can’t do enough small meals throughout the day. They need to eat a lot but they have tiny stomachs so they can’t eat a ton all at once.
I raised two kittens on fixed meals. But you need to do lots of meals. I work from home a lot so I was able to give them like 5-6 meals a day, and I just put down food and let them eat as much as they wanted. I think 11 weeks is still pretty young so leaving the night time food out is probably a good idea. At about 5-6 months you can probably move to complete timed feedings. But again, as I said, If your schedule allows for it you can probably do timed feedings sooner.
I raised two kittens on fixed meals. But you need to do lots of meals. I work from home a lot so I was able to give them like 5-6 meals a day, and I just put down food and let them eat as much as they wanted. I think 11 weeks is still pretty young so leaving the night time food out is probably a good idea. At about 5-6 months you can probably move to complete timed feedings. But again, as I said, If your schedule allows for it you can probably do timed feedings sooner.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #3
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2018
- Messages
- 2,844
- Purraise
- 3,465
I would do the transition slowly though. If she’s used to having food to graze on at night then I wouldn’t take it away all at once. Just slowly leave less and less food for her at night and just let her eat as much as she wants during her scheduled meals during the day.
It will take some trial and error. Some cats get really used to having food available at night and will meow for it in the middle of the night. If she does that then just wait till she’s a bit older to transition her.
It will take some trial and error. Some cats get really used to having food available at night and will meow for it in the middle of the night. If she does that then just wait till she’s a bit older to transition her.
This is what we did for our cats when they were about eleven months old. It worked beautifully.
The cats are adults now and we feed them five small meals a day, which works very well.
For sure, you can allow the kitten more access if they are friends! However for safety's sake you still might want to keep the kitten in her safe room at night depending on how safe your home is in general. Personally, we kept Luna in her room until she was 20 weeks. But our home has a lot of unsafe things that we couldn't figure out how to make safe, such as a free standing fireplace screen which she'd already tried to scale several times with us right in the room with her! Watched her go teacup over kettle and skittle away. Eventually though, she just got too big to be cooped up and we gave in and let her out lol. But, she still tries to climb up lamps, walls and grab pictures, etc and I do worry sometimes of what she will do while we sleep. But...oh well
As for the feeding, 11 weeks is still very young and at that age Luna still was eating constantly. Her kibble bowl would be pretty much empty every morning when I'd go into her room so I can't see not leaving food out for yours for the entire night. It wasn't until recently that she stopped munching on the kibble all day between wet food meals and she's almost 6 months. She does, however, eat a TON of wet food, luckily my husband is around during the day to be able to indulge her need for that. But at least now when I get up in the morning her kibble bowl is practically untouched so clearly she's beginning to self-monitor her intake of it. We'll probably be weaning her off of that once she gets past being spayed next week.
I've wondered this too, and have done a lot of Googling. A lot of vet websites say 'no' after the kitten is weaned, but the folk wisdom seems to be a solid 'yes.'
So, maybe a different question: Has anyone here witnessed kittens that ended up malnourished or worse because they consistently went 8 hours at a time without being offered food?
So, maybe a different question: Has anyone here witnessed kittens that ended up malnourished or worse because they consistently went 8 hours at a time without being offered food?
