How Much To Feed Kitten

[Sward4]

i apologize for another post asking how much I should be feeding my kitten. My kitten was extremely malnourished when i found him around 3.5 months old about a month and a half ago. I fed him 1.5 oz of wellness kitten food 5 times a day until he got healthy then reduced it to 4 times. I know I technically should be allowing him to eat until he doesnt want to but good quality wet food is expensive so i bought him Wellness Kitten dry food and i leave it out all the time so he is not hungry. I know I should change his feeding habits around the 5 or 6th month mark but I am not exactly sure how much or often i should do that or if i should continue to leave out dry food and refill it whenever it gets low (i dont measure anything). Could i get but with doing only one can of wet food (i only ask because its expensive)? I want the best for my little guy I just keep reading different info everywhere. He is a domestic shorthair and i have read they do have a tendency to over eat so i want to be mindful of that.

 

[RajaNMizu]

When my girls were your kitten's age, I fed them half of a 3 oz can in the am and the other half in the pm. I gave them 1/2 cup of dry during the day that decreased to a third around 8 months or so while their wet increased. The average cat needs about 20 calories per pound to maintain weight but kittens need to eat more to support growth. Most days they ate about 160 calories. Your kitten's mileage may vary

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

If your kitten is only about 5 months old, I would say he should still be eating as much as he wants, unless you can see that he's actually getting fat! When my two guys were kittens, one was actually getting fat, while the other stayed on the skinny side. when they went in for their one year check-up, the pudgy one was overweight, just as we thought. He's now been on a diet his entire life and he'll be 10 years old on his next birthday. He managed to lose the weight he needed to, but we definitely have to keep an eye on him and keep him out of his brother's food .. All that being said, every kitten is different, activity levels differ, bone structures differ, etc. So you really need to judge for yourself. Certainly don't underfeed, but as I said, if you start seeing a large fatpad on him, then it's time to cut back on the food.

 

[maggiedemi]

Hi. You don't have to buy the most expensive canned foods. I don't because my cats won't eat them and I can't afford it. Canned food is very important because of the moisture.

 

[lisahe]

If your kitten is only about 5 months old, I would say he should still be eating as much as he wants, unless you can see that he's actually getting fat!

I agree with mresgreenjeens: if the kitten's only five months old, he needs to keep eating pretty much as much as he wants. Cats' appetites and metabolisms seem to taper off at varying ages: our cats kept eating and eating well after they turned two or three and even now, at five-plus, I suspect they still eat more than many cats their size. (They're fairly small indoor cats so I can say that indoor doesn't always guarantee smaller appetites! They really know how to eat and burn off the calories!)

The part about "unless you can see that he's actually getting fat" can be tricky with a cat that was undernourished, though. Some cats retain their insecurity about food for years. One of our two (they're littermates) has a tendency to overeat if given the chance, to the point where she'll vomit; she also has a tendency to gain weight. to overeat and vomit, and to gain weight. Food insecurity seems to be fairly common in rescue cats who didn't get enough food so definitely watch for that. You've started well by feeding meals! (I wish I'd known that earlier!)

M maggiedemi 's post popped up just as I was about to post. I agree with what she says, too: there's nothing wrong with feeding lower-cost wet food! The moisture's important, as is the meat protein. Foods that are high-protein and low-carb are particularly good for growth/development and weight maintenance because protein seems to satiate cats better than carbs, which are almost always higher in dry food than wet. Fancy Feast Classic pates are an easy place to start and there are lots of other similar types of foods, some of which are store brands like the Tractor Supply's Kitchen Selects (pate) line, which is similar to Fancy Feast but with slightly better ingredients, IMHO. (I wish our cats preferred it to Fancy Feast!) There's also nothing wrong with feeding various wet foods, like, say, feeding Wellness Kitten food (our cats still love their Core kitten food) one day and a Tractor Supply pate the next. We feed foods from all over the price spectrum -- it's good for the budget and good for giving the cats variety.

Enjoy your kitten!

 

[duckpond]

I agree its almost impossible to feed a kitten too much. Especially one that was starving. I would give him as much wet, and some dry, now as he wants. Hopefully he will get over any food insecurities now while his metabolism is so high. After he is grown, around the year and a half mark, then you may need to watch portion control. I have two that never over eat, two that would if they had high carb foods left out all the time. I have found with the higher protein, moderate fat to lower fat, and low carbs they dont eat as much, they self regulate better.

 

[sdkfjlasdf]

Hi sorry for injecting myself but for a ~6 month old spayed kitten, is 170 calories and a bit more enough? She's kind of skinny but doesn't eat more than 1.5 cans of fancy feast and a mouthful of dry food (which is about 20-50kcal)... :/

 

[maggiedemi]

My cats have never eaten less than 6oz of food per day, and they've never eaten more than 9oz.

 

[lisahe]

Hi sorry for injecting myself but for a ~6 month old spayed kitten, is 170 calories and a bit more enough? She's kind of skinny but doesn't eat more than 1.5 cans of fancy feast and a mouthful of dry food (which is about 20-50kcal)... :/

I'm not much of a calorie counter but that might seem a bit low compared to what our cats ate as kittens, though they're the ones who were undernourished and very hungry when we adopted them so of course my impressions are skewed. In any case, all cats differ based on activity, weight, and metabolism. Based on our experience, if the vet's happy with her condition, your cat's not just skin and bones (meaning you can feel a padding of fat along her spine and rib cage rather than getting the impression of sharp bones), and she doesn't want to eat more, things are probably fine.

I say "based on our experience" because our cat who doesn't overeat is like that: she's never been obsessed with food like her sister, and she's always been a little skinny and nervous (I think that's a key component for her!), but the vet's very happy with how she looks.

 

[RajaNMizu]

Hi sorry for injecting myself but for a ~6 month old spayed kitten, is 170 calories and a bit more enough? She's kind of skinny but doesn't eat more than 1.5 cans of fancy feast and a mouthful of dry food (which is about 20-50kcal)... :/

That's been my experience with both my girls. Mizu would eat kibble all day and ignore her wet food if left to her own devices so I started to limit her dry to create an appetite for wet food. It worked. We eat around 200 calories a day now. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. If they inhale their wet food at a mealtime, I offer them more wet, I never change the amount of dry that they eat.

 

[sdkfjlasdf]

Thanks guys, a few weeks back I think she lost weight the but vet told me she gained some so maybe I'm freaking out too much. She isn't really food motivated and never finishes her dry food either so... Might have to monitor in a couple more months.