How do you feed your cat?

Hutchch0920

There's an ongoing debate in our household as to how we should feed OH's cat. We live with OH's parents and siblings and part of making him more responsible for himself we have taken over feeding his cat. As part of this we also end up feeding his little sister's cat too. Both are male and healthy weights. I guess OH's cat to be about 4-4.5kg and the other one at 3.5-4kg....the smaller one actually has the bigger appetite though! Anyway it's been all out cat biscuit wars this week.

My family have had cats since before I was born (3 decades!) and have always fed them mostly wet food with a little bit of biscuit here and there.

OH's middle sister (who doesn't actually 'owns' the cats but looked after them until recently when she decided to spend the majority of her time at her boyfriend's) is insistent that the cats need around 100g a biscuits a day each and that "wet food is bad for them". I am in the camp of "you don't find cat biscuits in the wild" and would prefer to give them a mix...I'd give them more wet but it's expensive.

At the moment I've got them on a pouch each a day (half morn/eve) and around 40g biscuits each (day snacks). Whiskas recommends either 25g + 2 pouches for a 5kg cat, or 60g if just biscuits. So I don't see how I could be underfeeding them but middle sibling will regularly go behind my back to give them more food when I have asked her not to.

I am interested to know how much other people feed/would feed their cat? Am I underfeeding them?

missbiggles1

I have to confess to demand feeding my four, sometimes with dry food and sometimes wet. Only one of them's overweight but I'm pretty sure he's got another mum down the road because he doesn't seem to eat a great deal when he's here.

borkid

missbiggles1 wrote: »

I have to confess to demand feeding my four, sometimes with dry food and sometimes wet. Only one of them's overweight but I'm pretty sure he's got another mum down the road because he doesn't seem to eat a great deal when he's here.

Pretty much the same here with 4 cats. We've had cats for over 40 years and they live well past mid teens with hardly any visits to the vet apart from when they get into fights and need antibiotics.

xbrenx

Hutchch0920 wrote: »

I am in the camp of "you don't find cat biscuits in the wild" and would prefer to give them a mix...I'd give them more wet but it's expensive.

You don't find Whiskas in the wild either

I feed mine a pouch of wet food (sadly it's whiskas but they like it) in the morning. Then early evening they get dry food (Taste of the Wild - Hoorrayy) which they help themselves to and it gets left for overnight too. We don't weigh it anymore but there's always a bit left so they're not going hungry.

Tiddlywinks

Hutchch0920 wrote: »

There's an ongoing debate in our household as to how we should feed OH's cat. We live with OH's parents and siblings and part of making him more responsible for himself we have taken over feeding his cat. As part of this we also end up feeding his little sister's cat too. Both are male and healthy weights. I guess OH's cat to be about 4-4.5kg and the other one at 3.5-4kg....the smaller one actually has the bigger appetite though! Anyway it's been all out cat biscuit wars this week.

My family have had cats since before I was born (3 decades!) and have always fed them mostly wet food with a little bit of biscuit here and there.

OH's middle sister (who doesn't actually 'owns' the cats but looked after them until recently when she decided to spend the majority of her time at her boyfriend's) is insistent that the cats need around 100g a biscuits a day each and that "wet food is bad for them". I am in the camp of "you don't find cat biscuits in the wild" and would prefer to give them a mix...I'd give them more wet but it's expensive.

At the moment I've got them on a pouch each a day (half morn/eve) and around 40g biscuits each (day snacks). Whiskas recommends either 25g + 2 pouches for a 5kg cat, or 60g if just biscuits. So I don't see how I could be underfeeding them but middle sibling will regularly go behind my back to give them more food when I have asked her not to.

I am interested to know how much other people feed/would feed their cat? Am I underfeeding them?

I can't quite believe that bit I've highlighted in bold - are you really talking about an adult?

As to the cats, I think that for a healthy male, one pouch plus nibbles seems too low.

It's also about the quality of the food being given - some will be more filling than others.

I feel sorry for the cats - they seem to be in the middle of a family social experiment... it's not just your OH that needs to show some more responsibility.

Your cats are living, breathing animals that need routine... how would you like to go hungry or have to live with the worry of whether you would be fed or not?

WeAreGhosts

Mine gets 55g of decent dry each day, split into four meals. Apparently dry is more calorific than wet ...

As a treat she gets one sachet of wet a week, split over two days.

On this diet she's about 4.5kg.

I find that if she's fed more, then she always wants more. On a strict, measured-out diet she begs for food far less.

Mrs_Optimist

I'm interested in replies to this as our Tom cat would easily 4 sachets in one go if we would let him! At present he has 1 sachet in the morning, one around 4pm and then biscuits in the evening. He is constantly pestering for food and doesnt ever seem satisfied with what he is fed.

It seems we aren't underfeeding him which is a relief.

We have tried limiting his food intake but he gets very cranky if he isn't fed at least the above.

missbiggles1

Tiddlywinks wrote: »

I can't quite believe that bit I've highlighted in bold - are you really talking about an adult?

As to the cats, I think that for a healthy male, one pouch plus nibbles seems too low.

It's also about the quality of the food being given - some will be more filling than others.

I feel sorry for the cats - they seem to be in the middle of a family social experiment... it's not just your OH that needs to show some more responsibility.

Your cats are living, breathing animals that need routine... how would you like to go hungry or have to live with the worry of whether you would be fed or not?

I don't really think that cats need routine - if they're that hungry that just go and hunt something.

kazwookie

Mine gets 65g per day, plus 2 treat stick which are ment to last 3 to 5 mins, but are gone in about 30 seconds flat.

Cat is 5.1kgs a rescue cat of 6 weeks.

missbiggles1

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

On demand but a usual day for my two indoor cats averages approx 450g of tinned food a day.

One of them also has free access to kibble (the other is on a wet-food only diet.)

The wet-food only cat is 23lbs and the wet/dry cat is about 9lbs. Neither is overweight.

Each?:eek:

mildredalien

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

The wet-food only cat is 23lbs and the wet/dry cat is about 9lbs. Neither is overweight.

That must be one big boned cat :eek:

We feed our two dry food in the morning and a pouch of wet in the evening, with usually a bit of extra dry as a snack in the afternoon. We have one very small cat, less than 3kg, and one large cat, about 5.5kg - our bigger cat is pretty greedy and would eat everything in sight if he was free fed! So they get fed set food at set times. They don't get a huge amount of dry food, a large handful each. They aren't losing or gaining any weight though so we assume it's about right!