What to feed and how often
From Felipedia
When it comes to feline nutrition, there is no quick and easy answer to the frequency with which a given cat or kitten should be fed, as your own home environment will play a large part in how you handle feeding, as well as the type of food a cat eats. For example, a stay-at-home caregiver will be able to feed canned food to kittens or geriatric cats several times a day. On the other hand, a single, working owner or a two-income family will rely more on dry cat food, with early-morning and late-night supplements of canned food.
Contents |
Frequency to Feed Kittens
Kittens need roughly twice the nutrients of adult cats, for both growth and energy. Obviously, their tummies cannot handle large quantities of food, so much like human babies they need frequent feedings at first, tapering off as they grow. It is important during this time to weigh the kittens regularly, to ensure they are gaining regularly, but not becoming overly fat. Their hunger will usually be a pretty good guideline for determining if they are getting enough nutrition. Note: These guidelines refer to feedings of canned food; dry food will be addressed later.
- At 6 Weeks: Four or more small feedings, spaced regularly throughout the day.
- 12 Weeks: Increase the amount of each meal, and gradually space them out to three meals a day.
- Around 6 Months: You may gradually space out the meals to twice daily.
Adult Cats
Unless a kitten is showing excessive weight gain, he is considered an "adult" at the age of one year, and for the next nine years or so, may be fed adult "maintenance" food twice daily, with supplements of dry food when needed, as listed below.
Dry Food
Dry food is more for the convenience of the caregiver than for the nutritional needs of the cat. This subject is discussed more fully in the article on Canned Cat Food. However, in the past, cats have lived long and happy lives on an exclusive diet of dry foods, and for working caregivers, adult cats may be fed a meal of canned food morning and night, with dry food left out for "grazing."
Tinned food
Although many people rely on dry cat food as a staple for their cats' diets, canned cat food is a must for developing strong bones and muscles, while mitigating many potential conditions caused or contributed to by an all-dry cat food diet. It's true that dry cat food is convenient; it doesn't spoil rapidly, and most cats like the "crunch" of eating dry kibbles. However, dry cat food has its definite "downside." Cats who eat a diet of only dry food are losing out on the extra nutrition they can get with canned cat food. Many commercial dry foods are packed with carbohydrate fillers, usually corn, listed as "corn meal," "ground whole corn," "corn gluten," or even more thinly disguised as "maize," "ground yellow maize" or other misleading names. The ingredients listings are often split, which gives the consumer a false impression of the true proportion of carbohydrate to protein, e.g., "Poultry by-product meal, ground yellow corn, wheat flour, corn gluten meal, soybean meal, brewers rice..." Of the first six listed ingredients of this popular "grocery store premium" brand, four are carbohydrates, with the combined corn ingredients leading the list. I'd pass this food by, simply because of the first listed ingredient, poultry by-product meal, but that's another article.
In the wild, a cat will eat only a very small quantity of any grain, namely the stomach contents of mice, rabbits, or birds he catches. Why then, should a pampered household cat eat a diet that is loaded with the one food nutrient he really doesn't need? Although french fries and Twinkies might be tasty treats on occasion, what human would consider living on them day in and day out, much less feed them to their children as a regular diet? Why then, would we do less for our cats?
Dry cat food can also contribute or be directly related to certain health conditions:
Elizabeth Hodgkins, DVM, does not mince words about the connection between dry cat food and feline diabetes. On her web site at www.yourdiabeticcat.com, she states, "Without the constant feeding of highly processed, high carbohydrate dry foods, better suited to cattle than cats, adult-onset feline diabetes would be a rare disease, if it occurred at all."
Dr. Lisa Pierson, DVM, states, "Too often these cats are treated with a high level of steroids and a so-called 'prescription' DRY diet. I feel very strongly that this common therapeutic regimen needs to be re-evaluated. There are an impressive number of anecdotal reports of cats that were terribly ill with IBD exhibiting dramatic improvement when ALL dry food was removed from their diet."
Dr. Lisa Pierson, DVM, states, "It is troubling to think about the role that chronic dehydration plays in feline kidney failure. And remember, cats are chronically dehydrated when they are on a diet of predominantly dry food."
The chances of bladder crystals or bladder inflammation are greatly reduced with a canned or raw food diet, which both give the essential hydration needed for a healthy urinary tract.
Diarrhea and other allergy-related conditions are often caused by corn or wheat fillers in dry cat food. After eliminating other potential medical causes, switching to canned or raw food can make the diarrhea go away almost overnight.
Cats on canned food diets or raw food get sufficient water in their food. Cats on dry food alone must be given plenty of water, especially during hot summer months.
Geriatric and Special Needs Cats
Older cats and cats with conditions requiring specific dietary needs may need to be fed more often. It is best with these cats to follow your veterinarian's directions for feeding, both to schedule and type of food.
