Figuring out a food plan for my cats! ^^

[NicAn]

Hello! I'm NicAn! Please help lol​

I have two cats who are almost 2 years old--not that it's important but I have a black cat named Dot and a calico named Pixel, both girls ^^
Since I've gotten them when they were young kittens, they've had the common dry free eating diet. When the food gets low, I fill it up. With previous cats in the past, this hasn't been a problem. These two, however--especially Pixel--have gained a bit of chub, haha. I also learned recently that dry food isn't the best for them and is basically the worst cat food (in general).

I'm about to move out of my parent's house, taking my cats with me of course for various reasons, and while budgeting I realized I won't be able to give them the best diet. I can feed them of course, or I'd redo my budget so I could, but I can't afford a raw diet or even a complete wet food diet. I should, however, be able to give them mostly dry food with wet mixed in--which is better than just dry, from what I've gathered.

The dry food I give them is Rachael Ray's Indoor Complete--which says for cats 10lbs should be given 3/4 cup daily and cats 15lbs 1 cup daily. (Dot is 10.2lbs, Pixel is 13.2lbs). The wet food I plan on giving them is Authority pate canned food (chicken, if you were curious). Based on my current budget, I can only afford giving them mostly dry with some wet, half and half was just over my limit. (Leaving them with my parents isn't an option. Besides, they'd just continue to get a completely dry diet with no restrictions.)

So I have two questions I need help with... Firstly, how do I measure how much of each (dry and wet) to give them? Should I give both 3/4 cup dry (in total daily) with a spoonful of wet food? Should I measure the ounces of wet food I give them? Should wet food be mixed in both times I feed them or once once a day? I don't think I should lower the dry food number to 1/2 cup, that seems like too small of an amount and I'd rather over feed them than under feed them. (Now that I think about it, is the 3/4cup daily accurate? Again, I don't want to under feed them, that's worse.)

Secondly, how do I transition them from free feeding to scheduled feeding? Luckily I've been keeping my sleep schedule consistent, waking up at 8:30 and sleeping at 10:30 so I'm not worried about not being able to keep the schedule. I'm just not sure how to transition from "constant food all the time" to sudden "only food sometimes." Most transition guides talk about proportions from one food to another but this is different and I'm not sure how to go about it.

Sorry for typing so much, I just try to be detailed in case something is important when I didn't think it was! Anyway, thanks for reading and please help haha ​

 

[maggie101]

Budget friendly, fancy feast classics. Or sheba roasted chicken or Turkey perfect portions. From what I've read, transitioning to wet should be no problem or mixing in dry is better than all dry!
They are fed scheduled meals 3x a day. A wild cat eats morning,snack during the day,and meal in the evening. Hunt,catch,kill so play,eat, then play again or clean themselves and take a nap. Dry food I'm unfamiliar with but there are many people on this site that can help more. Fancy feast and sheba are addicting so that should help

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Some cats take to wet food immediately, and some don't. Mine didn't. They were all free fed when I did the same thing you did and realized 1) one was getting too pudgy, and 2) it wasn't as healthy as wet food (IMHO). So, I read some articles about how to transition them to scheduled feedings, and how to transition them to a different type of food. It took some time finding a wet food they would accept, but that may have been because two of the cats I was transitioning were seniors and had no idea that wet food was actually cat food . Hopefully your girls will take it better, especially if you mix the wet food right into the dry. Speaking of which, you could either mix the food together, or you could feed some meals of dry and some of wet, your choice.

I also feed three meals a day to my guys, and I think many people do. Some folks only feed two, and some feed four or five. It really depends on what you are able to do. If you are away from home during the day, some people feed their cats when they wake up, when they arrive back home, and right before bedtime to be able to squeeze in three meal. I think feeding them right at bedtime is a good idea so they don't have to go too long without food.

Calories is the name of the game for cats, just like with people (only a different kind of calories). Normally you would feed between 20 - 25 calories per pound of cat per day. If they are extremely active, you would feed more. So if you have a 10 pound cat you would feed between 200 and 250 calories per day. You need to do the math to figure out how much of that is based on whatever foods you are feeding. I will tell you this though, most cat food manufacturers say to feed much more than necessary, both wet and dry. AND, it is much better to have a lean cat than a fat cat, healthwise. And BTW, my smaller boy eats more calories than my larger boy, just because he's more active.

Here are a few articles you may find helpful:

Transitioning Free-fed Kibble Kitties To Timed Meals – TheCatSite Articles

Transitioning Your Cat From Kibble To A New Type Of Food – TheCatSite Articles