How To Feed All Canned When Kitten Is Hungry Over Night?

[Neo_23]

Hi all,

I'm trying to transition my 4 month old kitten to all canned food, but he has a BIG appetite. He is about 6 pounds (big for his age!) and wants to eat all the time.

Right now he eats about 8 ounces of canned food during the day and I leave him just a little bit of dry (about 1/8th a cup) overnight for nibbling. But, he still manages to wake me up in the middle of the night asking for food.

On top of this, his poop is very stinky and a bit too soft, so I'm worried that maybe I've overfeeding him!? Any advice would be helpful.

By the way.. he's eating Wellness Kitten Core for the canned and Acana Prairie (Canadian version) for the dry ... I'm trying to get him off the Acana cause I think it's what's causing the stinky loose stools.

 

[missmimz]

Feed him as much as he wants as often as he wants. You can't over-feed a kitten of that age, they're growing rapidly. Just leave wet food out overnight. I do it no problem.

 

[WhiteWolf]

I also leave wet food out for the cats overnight. I put a meal out right before I go to bed. It's all gone in the morning and no one has ever gotten sick from me doing this.

 

[lisahe]

I agree about feeding wet food just before bed: it's good to feed something especially caloric for that last meal of the day.

I think it's good that you're taking your kitten off the dry food. Maybe there's another kind of high-calorie kitten food that you could add to your cat's menu for variety. I'm not sure if you're in the US or Canada but Nutro Natural Choice has a very decent kitten food that our (now adult!) cats love.

 

[Cinnabun]

I also leave wet food out for the cats overnight. I put a meal out right before I go to bed. It's all gone in the morning and no one has ever gotten sick from me doing this.

Hmm, I'll have to try this. I agree with you guys that you have to feed your cats when they're hungry, not force them to wait on your time. I have teenage cats that are very active but can't eat very large meals. So I end up doing multiple small feeds a day. But it's a little hard to pull off when you're sleeping.

 

[Neo_23]

Thanks all. I will try leaving the food out at night. I really like the ingredients in Nutro for kittens and I bought a few cans but it sucks that they don't make the large size cans. They are quite expensive.

 

[ailish]

I had this problem, but ended up getting an automatic feeder to feed her an 1/8 cup of dry in the wee hours. She gets three wet feedings and then the one dry. She maintains weight, 10lbs, and doesn't wake me up at night. She was throwing up bile in the very early morning before I could feed her at 6:00a and this put a stop to that problem.