How Much Food For A 7 Month Old

[Letta]

Hi,
I am sorry I am sure you answered this question a thousand times but for a reason I can't find it.
My Luna worries me she is 7 month and is already starting to get some weight. The vet suggested I weight how much food I give to her daily. All my previous cats were experts are self-regulating so I never had to worry. But I have now. She is really young and I am afraid of her becoming too fat for her own good. I give her a mix of dry food and wet food.
How much should I give?
I don't want to make her hungry but don't want her to gain weight.
How do you know what is right for her? When she is hungry or when it is too much?
I always try to give her food with the least carbs ect.. The wedfood I give her is usually a mix of fishes. The dry is still kitten food, when should I switch to adult food?
I truly think she is exercising enough. I play with her a lot every day. But she is still gaining too much weight.
And in case you are wondering yes she is neutered, she already was when I adopted her from the ASPCA at 2 month old.

 

[tabbytom]

Hello Letta , if you are afraid that your kitty put on weight, skip the dry food and just feed wet food. Dry food will make her put on weight if she have too much of it.

As Luna is only 7 months old, she is still pretty much a kitten. To roughly gauge how much to feed her, observe how much she can finish in one sitting. If she walk away with food left, that means you can cut down on the amount. And if she still wait after she finish, that means it's not enough so give her more and see how mush more she eats. From here you can gauge how much she eats at one sitting.

It also depends on how many times you fed her in a day. Some cats eat more and some less times a day some more or less food. Just play around with the amount and number feed needed.

For dry food, leave some for snacks if you want or just feed entirely on wet and no snacks. My boy is on wet 100% and he does not get snacks.

As Luna grows older nearer to the one year old mark, she'll slowly taper down on her intake.
Wet food is a good way to weight management. Wet food is proteins and dry food is carbs. You can feed her with wet food that says for all life stages or better still with kitten food as she is still growing and she needs all the nutrients from kitten food and after that move on to adult food or stick with those that says for all life stages. I presume your cat is not a Maine Coon as they take up to 4 years to reach maturity as with most cats it's one year.

So she is spayed and she'll be less active. It's good that you play with her all the time and keep doing so. In my opinion, I'll stick to wet food.

 

[tabbytom]

The other way is to count calories. An indoor cat needs around 200 -250 calories a day.

Here's a discussion on that - : Calculating Calories

 

[orange&white]

Did the vet agree that she is too fatty at 7 months old, or was that just a general recommendation to weigh her food?

My kitten's weight gain and appetite levelled out right around the time she turned 7 months. Through the first 6 months during her rapid-growth period, she would sometimes appear to be getting "fat" and would eat a lot, then she'd have a growth spurt and look long and lean again. It's like the energy and "baby fat" was needed to convert into bone and muscle growth. At 9 months old, I think she still "cycles" like that as she is still a growing kitten, but slower and less noticeably.

I'm wondering if your kitten is just in a normal growth phase, or if she is actually too fatty. Regardless, it is a good time to put her on scheduled meal times right now and not free-feed her. If you don't know how much to feed her, start by putting down more food than she will eat, then after 30 minutes pick up and measure how much she did not eat. After about a week, you'll have a good idea of how much food she wants to eat and can cut back a little from there if she needs it.

 

[maggiedemi]

My cats usually eat between 7oz or 8oz per day each and they are normal weight. I go by the ounces on the can and use 1/8 cup as 1oz and 1/4 cup as 2oz to measure dry food.

 

[di and bob]

At 7 months she is still developing so to cut back too much would not be good. You might switch out the kitten chow for a higher grade dry, even one for inside cats. I give that kitten dry to fatten up my old or too thin cats, so I know it is high in calories. She will most likely go through spurts, my 17 year old looked somewhat heavy for many times in his life, now he is way too thin. Give treats that are low calorie and to fill her up, like thin sliced turkey or chicken breast.