Getting a cat as a pet is always exciting but it takes time to learn if you need a feeding schedule.Feed your cat the wrong kind of food and there will be a risk of your cat not being healthy. Feed your cat too much, however, and it won’t take much time for the cat to become overweight.Cat owners need to control the food intake along with the combination of the right pet food available to provide proper nutritional value to the cat. A large part of how your home is, how many cats you actually have, and the type of cat food you give constitutes the overall health of your pet. As owners, you won’t get a quick answer to all these questions but we will help you out here. You don’t want to just let your cat graze the whole day and neither do you want to be feeding the cat canned food (be it kittens or adult cats) many times a day if that is not what is best for them.A working owner might need to feed the cat dry food during the day and canned meals early morning and late at night but bear in mind that kittens need twice the nutritional value of adult cats. It helps for both a combination of growth and energy. Due to smaller stomachs in kittens, they will require several feeding times in a day. Several feedings do not mean that you won’t care about the increasing weight and the kittens should be weighed continuously in this period. Good guidelines as to whether the correct nutrition is being received will be to see if the kittens are getting hungry or not. At the age of one year, a kitten will be considered to be in adulthood and become an adult cat. An adult cat can be given food twice a day until the age of nine.Cats can also be given wet and dry food wherever applicable. Dry meals contain less nutrition than wet food and are only present for the owner’s help. Wet food is the best for cats and should be always added to the feeding schedule along with dry food for grazing sometimes. For older cats, veterinary support and advice should be accepted on the number of meals (sometimes even three times) and the type of foods given. Monitor the health of your older cats while eating and also take notice of the feeding routine for best results and longer life.If you enjoyed this article, why not also read answers to how often do kittens eat and how often should you bathe a cat here on Kidadl?What to feed a cat that won’t eat?There can be many different reasons why you are not able to feed your cat. Free-feeding cats sometimes lose their appetite for their diet, be it wet and dry food. We as owners might get scared, but there are perfectly explained reasons for this behavior from your cat and we will discuss these here in more detail.We as owners might want our cats to find free-feeding acceptable, however, keeping the issue of obesity in mind is necessary. Sometimes health conditions or weight gain can also make a cat’s diet go haywire. It is good to establish the reason for lack of eating and take the advice of a vet if concerned. Keep the palate fresh and the cat’s diet will be fine. You could even find out if the cat or the kitten is a social eater or prefers eating alone the whole day. This will definitely help the cats return to their routine of eating and leading a healthy life. Change the location of the bowl where the cat’s food is usually placed and see if this helps.Change of location can turn the cat off too. Some cats might reject a bowl and could prefer their natural instinct of hunting to take free food. There’s a device invented by veterinarians that looks like a mouse and it lets you place a kibble inside. Hide the device and let your pet hunt it down. Sometimes hand-feeding a kitten can help too. This will help you closely monitor the nutrients and calories going inside your cat. Keep the food fresh and let your cat get a little hungry as a bad feeding schedule could be the reason for your cat not taking in free food too.How often should I feed my cat wet food?Cats free feed like dogs if their feeding schedule is not taken into consideration. Feeding recommendations and a proper feeding schedule will probably help you out what food will be healthy and full of nutrients for your cat.How much food one cat needs depends on the calories present in the said food and the energy needs of the cat themselves. Pregnant and high-activity cats need a much more calorie-filled meal per day than a neutered or sedentary house cat. To maintain an ideal weight considering the meal it receives, you can also check the packaging of the wet food boxes. The wet food to be given can be divided into several small meals. It is recommended to ask your vet about the number of meals required for the cat per day. Adult cats would otherwise eat and treat themselves with more than ten small meals a day if not checked.A growing cat might need three times the calories in a meal than an adult cat. Buy food especially for ‘growth’ or ‘all life stage’ to help get your growing cat the nutrients it needs. Be it wet food or dry food, remember that feeding your cat food filled with balance and nutrients is key. Cats known for feeding on wet (canned) food need less water while with more dry food, the cat would need much more water available to them. Remember to check the freshness of the food once one helping is taken out of the can!Do different cat breeds need different amounts of food?The food you give your cat per day is at the center of how healthy your cat turns out to be. However, in different breeds, the requirements might be different.You will see breed-specific goods in the market and like dogs, cats too have different food with different dietary requirements. Cats are known for free feeding whatever you keep in front of them. You could give them any generic food item, but breed-specific food is there for a reason as some cats need different nutrients going by their physiology. Understanding the taste and nutrient value is important while choosing a cat food from the mart.Should you feed a cat if it asks for food but already ate?This needs consideration as over-eating by free feeding can cause obesity and bring a plethora of other health problems.Continuously keep weighing your pet as if it eats more than it should, it might affect the health of the cat. It can lead to obesity and diabetes. Owners should measure the food and give only the recommended value set by the vet to the cat. Meals per day should be controlled with a combination of dry and wet food for better health care of the cat.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how often should I feed my cat then why not take a look at how often to change cat litter or Chinese Mountain Cat Facts.
Getting a cat as a pet is always exciting but it takes time to learn if you need a feeding schedule.
