How Much Food Should I Feed My 11 Weeks Kitten?

[tinnkp]

I have an 11 weeks old kitten, he is a little less than 3 pounds. I have already asked the vet and the vet said that to feed him as much as he wants but I'm not really sure if he is eating enough. He seems to want to eat about 3/4 of 5.5 oz of Friskies canned food and I split the wet food over the course of 3-4 meals a day and I let him free roam on the dry food, I think he eats about 1/4 cups of dry food (Friskies) Is that normal for a kitten? or should he be eating a lot more than this?

Also, I do plan on switching his wet and dry food to something better but his previous owner was feeding him Friskies and I have not gotten the chance to change his food just yet because I'm not sure what brand is good. If anyone has any recommendation, let me know!

 

[tabbytom]

Hello T tinnkp , I second your vet's answer. Yes, feed him as much as he can eat at one go and a kitten needs to be fed 4 - 5 times a day. He needs all the proteins he can get from the wet food. Dry food is full of carbs.

Here's how to find out how much roughly your kitten will eat at one sitting. :-

xxxx amount of food xxxxx times a day or xxxxx food xxxx times a day. So leave a fairly good amount and see if he finishes it or not. If he doesn't finish, cut down some on the next feed. If he finished and wants some more (usually he'll hang around the bowl looking for more food), then give him some more. From here, you can roughly gauge the amount he eats each time, and you can never overfeed a kitten.

Kittens eat a lot and play a lot and sleep a lot and they burn off calories very fast. Here's a recent thread discussing on feeding a kitten and some links to why wet food is better than dry food.

Several Questions For Feeding A Kitten

As for the food, I would go for timed/scheduled feeding and no free feeding of dry food.

Use either ceramic, stainless steel or porcelain plate with shallow lipped, as these materials are safer as they do not breed bacteria and shallow lip does not cause whiskers stress.

 

[orange&white]

Sounds like he's the right weight. Three pounds at three months is average. If you're offering him more canned food than he eats per meal, then he is eating all the food he wants and needs.

Most canned kitten or all-life-stage foods will be good for him. The medium-priced and more expensive brands have more meat and animal fat and less cheap fillers like rice or vegetable products. He'll thrive on more animal-based and fewer plant-based ingredients.