Meal-feeding Better Than Free-feeding?

[MonaLyssa33]

My last cat was a grazer but I fed her dry food and she was my only cat. I thought scheduled feedings would be difficult with two cats, but my cats now were being fostered at a pet food deli so they came to me eating raw. I was going to switch them to dry, but I found the scheduled feedings weren't as hard as I thought they'd be so I've kept them in the raw diet. It helps too that the pet food deli is just down the street from me and all I have to do is scoop and serve, so there's really no prep on my part.

 

[BonitaBaby]

Hi. For my cat who is definitely a grazer, I need to free feed her. I've cut down on the dry kibble I leave out so that I have to refill it with a small amount multiple times a day. Sometimes my cat wakes me up. Sometimes it's because there's no more kibble in the bowl and other times my cat seems to have that cat blindness thing where the bowl is supposedly empty when it's not really. I empty it and then refill it with a little bit of kibble so she can graze on fresher kibble. She's currently eating Blue Buffalo, but later I'll have to switch her back to Petcurean to finish a small bag. Then, I'll put her back on Blue Buffalo.

When she grazes on kibble, she's usually just eating a couple pieces, then leaving. Once or twice a day, she eats more and occasionally throws up after. I think it's because she either ate too much kibble (really a small amount) or ate too fast or I switched her food.

As for wet food, it's mostly been a huge struggle feeding her. The only time she ever ate almost all a small can was when I adopted her and fed her the Iams wet kitten food can I accidentally bought her after I came home from work. She ate it all in one sitting. After that, she tapered off it until she barely ate any.

I tried all sorts of different wet foods and different toppers like Fortiflora, but she always only ate a tiny bit of wet food after sometimes being initially interested. She always seems like it's strenuous for her to eat it, licking away and licking away, but not making a big dent.

She also has that cat problem where as soon as I stock up on wet food she was partially eating in order to take advantage of discounts, she'd immediately stop eating that wet food.

So I stopped trying with the wet food for about a year and started again a couple months ago. The last wet food she was eating was Nutro Perfect Portions pate -- turkey only. I figured out to heat half of the perfect portion pate for 4 sec on high and she'll lick it. 9 sec if it was refrigerated.

In the past, I use to try to throw away the wet food after 30 mins out of fear over bacteria, but now that my cat lives in just my bedroom, I realize that if I leave it out for a few hours, she'll return to it most of the time like the dry kibble and graze at it. That's new behavior that I attribute to not having wet food for a year. When I accidentally left it out for hours years ago, that didn't work. She seems to be fine health-wise so far with the food left out for so long. *knock on wood*

I tried the Nutro Perfect Portions in Turkey cuts in gravy last night and she really liked it this time versus years ago when she would just lick all the gravy off and then ignore it. She finished about 3/4ths or a little more of a perfect portion sizing.

Then again, after I buy some more of it, she might no longer want it. She seems to just like turkey and gravy, but is extremely picky about both. Hopefully, she keeps eating the Nutro.

By the way, my cat is about 8 lbs so small. She gained about 1/2 lb or so that the vet wanted her to lose when I was just feeding her kibble. She's lost the extra 1/2 lb now that I'm feeding her some wet again, or rather, now that she's eating some wet again.

I think you just have to go with what your cat wants and how s/he eats. When I worked, I was gone all day and, when it comes to wet food, she wouldn't eat it really. Even when I took the dry kibble bowl away after I put down the wet food. She was hungry, but would just keep coming back to her feeding station looking for kibble, ignoring the rest of the wet, and then leaving.I had tried heating some wet food before but she didn't seem to like it that way.

I wish I hadn't gone a whole year without her wet food, but the break seems to have made her interested in wet food again. A month probably would have sufficed. Sometimes I pick her up and put her nose into her bowl so she can smell her leftover wet food and she starts licking it again. I'm going to try feeding her one of the Perfect Portions wet food pate trays instead of just half and hope she'll eat it all.

Oh, I only feed her the wet food at night because I realized it makes it more enticing to her versus trying to feed it to her in the morning and at night. That contributed to her previous lack of interest. And I'm topping her wet food with Cosequin every other night for her early arthritis.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I realized sometimes you have to retry things that didn't work before and sometimes a break from wet food might be good for a VERY picky cat.

 

[1 bruce 1]

Hi. For my cat who is definitely a grazer, I need to free feed her. I've cut down on the dry kibble I leave out so that I have to refill it with a small amount multiple times a day. Sometimes my cat wakes me up. Sometimes it's because there's no more kibble in the bowl and other times my cat seems to have that cat blindness thing where the bowl is supposedly empty when it's not really. I empty it and then refill it with a little bit of kibble so she can graze on fresher kibble. She's currently eating Blue Buffalo, but later I'll have to switch her back to Petcurean to finish a small bag. Then, I'll put her back on Blue Buffalo.

When she grazes on kibble, she's usually just eating a couple pieces, then leaving. Once or twice a day, she eats more and occasionally throws up after. I think it's because she either ate too much kibble (really a small amount) or ate too fast or I switched her food.

As for wet food, it's mostly been a huge struggle feeding her. The only time she ever ate almost all a small can was when I adopted her and fed her the Iams wet kitten food can I accidentally bought her after I came home from work. She ate it all in one sitting. After that, she tapered off it until she barely ate any.

I tried all sorts of different wet foods and different toppers like Fortiflora, but she always only ate a tiny bit of wet food after sometimes being initially interested. She always seems like it's strenuous for her to eat it, licking away and licking away, but not making a big dent.

She also has that cat problem where as soon as I stock up on wet food she was partially eating in order to take advantage of discounts, she'd immediately stop eating that wet food.

So I stopped trying with the wet food for about a year and started again a couple months ago. The last wet food she was eating was Nutro Perfect Portions pate -- turkey only. I figured out to heat half of the perfect portion pate for 4 sec on high and she'll lick it. 9 sec if it was refrigerated.

In the past, I use to try to throw away the wet food after 30 mins out of fear over bacteria, but now that my cat lives in just my bedroom, I realize that if I leave it out for a few hours, she'll return to it most of the time like the dry kibble and graze at it. That's new behavior that I attribute to not having wet food for a year. When I accidentally left it out for hours years ago, that didn't work. She seems to be fine health-wise so far with the food left out for so long. *knock on wood*

I tried the Nutro Perfect Portions in Turkey cuts in gravy last night and she really liked it this time versus years ago when she would just lick all the gravy off and then ignore it. She finished about 3/4ths or a little more of a perfect portion sizing.

Then again, after I buy some more of it, she might no longer want it. She seems to just like turkey and gravy, but is extremely picky about both. Hopefully, she keeps eating the Nutro.

By the way, my cat is about 8 lbs so small. She gained about 1/2 lb or so that the vet wanted her to lose when I was just feeding her kibble. She's lost the extra 1/2 lb now that I'm feeding her some wet again, or rather, now that she's eating some wet again.

I think you just have to go with what your cat wants and how s/he eats. When I worked, I was gone all day and, when it comes to wet food, she wouldn't eat it really. Even when I took the dry kibble bowl away after I put down the wet food. She was hungry, but would just keep coming back to her feeding station looking for kibble, ignoring the rest of the wet, and then leaving.I had tried heating some wet food before but she didn't seem to like it that way.

I wish I hadn't gone a whole year without her wet food, but the break seems to have made her interested in wet food again. A month probably would have sufficed. Sometimes I pick her up and put her nose into her bowl so she can smell her leftover wet food and she starts licking it again. I'm going to try feeding her one of the Perfect Portions wet food pate trays instead of just half and hope she'll eat it all.

Oh, I only feed her the wet food at night because I realized it makes it more enticing to her versus trying to feed it to her in the morning and at night. That contributed to her previous lack of interest. And I'm topping her wet food with Cosequin every other night for her early arthritis.

Sorry for the lengthy post, but I realized sometimes you have to retry things that didn't work before and sometimes a break from wet food might be good for a VERY picky cat.

The forbidden fruit thing works for cats too. "Don't LOVE wet food? Well...you can't have any right now" and immediately they're begging!
When we switched our cats from dry to wet, they went crazy anytime they thought dry food was coming out. I used them as treats, and the dry food they used to sniff and ignore became a crack thing. They'd dive in a pile and try to snatch up as much as they could.
When wet food became raw food, now wet food is the crack thing and the sound of a tin opening creates a stampede that rattles the windowpanes.
I think if I switched from raw to kibble, raw would become this super amazing gem and a single bite would be worth dying for, and eventually the cycle would repeat.

 

[Kal_shadowsmom]

I feed shadow twice a day. I've in the morning before work at roughly 5:30am and after work around 6:00 pm.

She's picky about food, and refuses to eat wet food. Prior to a vet visit a few months ago I had not realized how fat she was getting. She weighed in at 10 lbs 4 ounces.
After the visit, we went through some food changes to eliminate a potential food allergy, and she was put on scheduled feeding instead of free feeding.
She's due for another weigh in and check up next month, so hopefully we will see some improvement in her weight. I know it takes a long time for cats to lose weight, but I'd be happy if she lost an ounce.
She may not sound fat at 10 pounds, but she has a belly on her and I want her to be healthy.

 

[1 bruce 1]

I feed shadow twice a day. I've in the morning before work at roughly 5:30am and after work around 6:00 pm.

She's picky about food, and refuses to eat wet food. Prior to a vet visit a few months ago I had not realized how fat she was getting. She weighed in at 10 lbs 4 ounces.
After the visit, we went through some food changes to eliminate a potential food allergy, and she was put on scheduled feeding instead of free feeding.
She's due for another weigh in and check up next month, so hopefully we will see some improvement in her weight. I know it takes a long time for cats to lose weight, but I'd be happy if she lost an ounce.
She may not sound fat at 10 pounds, but she has a belly on her and I want her to be healthy.

How does she look from above? Some of our girls have a svelt waist but a paunchy thing that isn't really fat, just the way they're built!
One of our girls DID get too fat, and was put on a diet, and fed from the rest to prevent possible theft and she'd scarf her food then moan and complain that the first 3 letters of "diet" spell "die", as if we would rush to her rescue =)

 

[Kal_shadowsmom]

How does she look from above? Some of our girls have a svelt waist but a paunchy thing that isn't really fat, just the way they're built!
One of our girls DID get too fat, and was put on a diet, and fed from the rest to prevent possible theft and she'd scarf her food then moan and complain that the first 3 letters of "diet" spell "die", as if we would rush to her rescue =)

She's a bit pudgy when viewed from above, my dad keeps calling her a furry bowling pin. Haha

 

[maggiedemi]

bonitababy-- OMG, I thought I was reading about my cats, your story sounds exactly like mine. I laughed at "4 sec on high, 9 sec if it was refrigerated." My cats are so picky, I'm always experimenting too. Good job for never giving up and finding a wet food that she likes!

 

[sweetblackpaws]

This is a complicated issue. Some people are home all day, some people work up to 12 hours a day, some live alone, some have people at the house, etc.

Free feeding definitely contributes to pet obesity. But not getting enough can lead to hepatic lipodosis which happened to my girl recently. It was very scary.

I now free feed them but give them wet food whenever I can. I refrigerate what they don't eat because I don't like to leave wet food sitting out.

 

[BonitaBaby]

bonitababy-- OMG, I thought I was reading about my cats, your story sounds exactly like mine. I laughed at "4 sec on high, 9 sec if it was refrigerated." My cats are so picky, I'm always experimenting too. Good job for never giving up and finding a wet food that she likes!

I was away from the cat site for a long time and had forgotten how crazy this site makes me when it comes to feeding my cat the best I can with grain-free, high protein, low carb, no gums, no carageenan, no menadione complex, etc. Nutro Perfect Portions has the last three and I was panicking again and wanted to run out and buy different cans of turkey pate again to see if she'll eat them now, but I realized to calm down and try to relax and wait until she's sick of Nutro to try different wet foods again and Fortiflora again.

 

[KarenKat]

Olive is a piggy cat and tries to eat all her food at once. If she doesn’t, she fills the bowl with various toys / carpet fibers to “bury it” and has no issues eating her newly topped food later. So free-feeding would be hard for us. Also, after an hour or so the food I’ve been using goes all crusty and hard and Olive ignores it. And finally, one of our other cats is allergic to chicken and we need him to keep out of her food. So we feed 3 meals a day, once in the morning, once when I get off work and one right before bed.

I was away from the cat site for a long time and had forgotten how crazy this site makes me when it comes to feeding my cat the best I can with grain-free, high protein, low carb, no gums, no carageenan, no menadione complex, etc. Nutro Perfect Portions has the last three and I was panicking again and wanted to run out and buy different cans of turkey pate again to see if she'll eat them now, but I realized to calm down and try to relax and wait until she's sick of Nutro to try different wet foods again and Fortiflora again.

Oh yeah, I just joined and I drank the Kool-aide all the way down that rabbit hole.