When do I start feeding my kittens less?

[lehighluke]

My Male-6 mo, and female-7.5mo are definitely eating less than they did a few months ago...I have them down to about 7oz/day ea. spread over 3 meals.  Sometimes they eat it all, and sometimes they leave some...I'm trying to pay attention to that...but I am wondering if they are still eating too much.

My male has always had a pot belly, like a miniature lion, he is heavily muscled and very dense...but I am not sure if his belly is 'fat' or normal.  My female seems slender, much lighter than my male, but also she might have the start of a belly.

When did you guys transition your kittens to 'adult' portions?  I want to make sure I keep my kittens at healthy weight, but not underfeed them either.

 

[ldg]

I don't know, it's been so long since we had kittens in our home. When we did, we were free-feeding dry. :anon:

They do go through growth spurts, so that pot belly will most likely "lean out" at some point. But basically, at this point I wouldn't worry about them eating less... I suspect that around 9 - 10 months, you can start thinking about feeding them based on what looks like their adult weights are going to be. :dk:

Hopefully someone with a clue will come along. :lol3:

 

[irinasak]

I have read from several different places that you have to (free) feed as much as they want until they are one year old. However, I really do not think that works, especially if you have a multi-cat household, with cats of different ages. I also think that the cats' appetite has much to do with the way they should be fed, meaning that if you have a voracious eater maybe it wouldn't be a great idea to satisfy his appetite.

There are many charts out there with how a cat's body should look like - if lean, too fat or too skinny, and I am trying to use those as guidelines. So basically, if they are too skinny, feed more, if they are too fat, feed less (that's pretty much taken from catinfo.org).

I have a 8.15 lbs 1 year and 4 months female who is a fussy picky eater.

I have a 8.80 lbs 9 months female who would eat anything.

And I have a 10.10 lbs 9 months old male who would eat anything and anyone, I am pretty sure he would devour an elephant if given one.

They are all on 3 meals a day, but I think they would all do better on 4 meals. However, I really can't do that at this time because of my schedule. They eat between 3.5 oz (the skinny one) and 5.5 oz the young ones, but I guess they have days when they eat more because  they have Sophie's leftovers, too. 

I do hope too that someone more experienced in kitten nutrition can provide more detail.

 

[pinkman]

Ugh this is the exact question I've been asking myself. Different sources say different things!

I took my 4 month old kitten to the vet the other day and asked if I should cut back on his food because he's a bit chubby with a pouch dangling. She told me not to worry about it and that he should be having a growth spurt soon. When I got him he was eating 10 ounces of food, now we're working down to 5 or 4 ounces. He gets fed three meals a day, raw only.