How Many Times a Day Do You Feed Your Cat and What Brand?

Every morning I would give one scoop full of dry cat food for the entire day. Only periodically would I have to shake the bowl to show my cat that it's not empty and that the food is located at the sides. When it comes to wet food, my cat only drinks the liquid and doesn't eat the food in it, so that's out of the question. So typically, I feed him once per day with the occasional treats that he often begs for. The brand of food that I feed my cat is IAMS -- so far it's been his favorite!

How many times a day do you feed your cat and what brand do you hold close for your pet?

I have two cats who are twenty-five now, and one that is a year and a few months old. I free-feed them kibble, and they don't abuse that. Particularly for the sake of my older cats, I split a 3-ounce can of wet food between the three of them three or four times a day; regularly three, but if they've eaten everything and are hungry again before I go to bed, I'll open a fourth can. It's important for older cats to have wet food, in order to be sure they're getting the water they need. Mostly, my two older ones eat the wet food, because the younger one will ignore the wet food more often than not, or only take a few bites of it. She mostly eats kibble.

I feed them Blue Buffalo kibble, mostly the kibble made for indoor cats, but I rotate between a few of the other Blue Buffalo kibble types, except for their Basic, Grain-Free and Wilderness brands, the former because my cats don't like either the Basic or the Grain-Free kibble, and the Wilderness is too high in protein for the older cats.

While my cats are fine with the same kibble every day, they are very picky when it comes to canned food. Well, not so much picky as that they demand variety in wet food. They don't want the same canned food too often. So I rotate between as many brands of premium foods as I can, my requirements being that meat, fish or poultry by the primary ingredient, and that there be no corn, soy or gluten. I also reject meat byproducts and gluten. They like the Blue Buffalo canned food well enough, but only so long as they aren't expected to eat any one thing too often.

My cats are so weird! If their bowl of Friskies dry food is a little bit low, they'll yowl until I top it off for them. I generally just keep a big bowl of food out for them every day, and let them eat whenever they want to. They don't seem to be overweight at all, so I don't worry about the amount they are eating. I give them treats of chopped turkey or roast beef, or the occasional can of tuna, split between the three of them, about every day. They don't seem to have any problem running off the calories.

My cat is very much a "grazer" when he eats, he likes to nibble at his food at random intervals during the day rather than having any specific set meal times. Also, oddly enough, he only likes dry cat food -- he just won't go near wet food! It was the complete opposite with my previous pet cat...he hated dry food but would meow non-stop for his wet cat food. I guess that's why pets are so much fun as they all truly have their own distinct personalities, and likes and dislikes.

As for brands, the brand we have right now that our cat likes is called "Max Cat" for indoor adult cats. Once the store was out of that particular brand so we got Science Diet and he wouldn't go near it. He seems very particular about his eating choices, I have no idea why he's that way! I guess he's gotten himself into a routine and has stayed there.

(05-20-2015 01:17 PM)thegrey Wrote:  My cats are so weird! If their bowl of Friskies dry food is a little bit low, they'll yowl until I top it off for them.

Until a year and a half ago, I had a cat whom I had taken in as a feral cat. Her name was Bird. The kibble bowl that I have for them will hold enough kibble to last them a month, but it's clear. For quite a while, she would start alerting me when it was still more than half full. She had more than two weeks worth of kibble, yet she was worried that she was running out.

I feed my cat twice a day.. And any cat food from Wysong is happily accepted for me. And in fact I also get latest online coupons for Wysong from CouponerStore. It really helps.

I feed my mama cat once in the morning a cup of dry food- usually just a generic or store brand although I always check the back to see the first couple of ingredients. Then at night she gets a small can or half of a regular can of wet food- the brand I use for that is usually 9 lives and I often get the chunks versus the pate.
Her kittens are just over 5 weeks old (was 5 weeks on Thursday) and they are as of today having Mama at night (three of the four are still nursing on her briefly) and then in the morning I give them a touch of Purina Kitten Chow moistened with milk and in the afternoon a bit of pate kitten wet food.
Both Mama and her babies are perfectly happy and healthy with this routine.

My cats get fed a half a catn of Friskys cat food in the morning. I divide half the cat between the two of them. They get the other half of the can when I get home from work. There is always dry food in a bowl for them so they can help themselves whenever they are hungry.

I have to watch my older, bigger cat though because he will eat all the wet food if he could. He is constantly trying to eat the other cat's food. He can be so greedy sometimes.

I still am not sure what I'm doing. So at first I was just making sure my kitty's bowl constantly had food. I then spoke to someone who said I was overfeeding him and that it wasn't good, so I started minimizing his food to a cup in the morning and a cup at night, and he became ornery as all get out. (Teaching me that putting him on a diet was not necessary I guess.) I have went back to keeping food in his bowl and he is as content and happy as he was before. I occasionally give him wet food as a treat, and the occasionally kitty treat and he seems good.

I'll let him be a grazer if that's what he wants to be. As long as he's happy, I'm happy.

When feeding my cats in the past, I used to leave food in their bowl that they generally didn't finish. In my experience, cats do not over eat and they tend to recognize when they're full. When I didn't offer an unlimited supply of food to them, I would out a small scoop of food in their bowl about twice a day. When they were eating canned food, I made sure to split the can in half twice a day, so that they were not overeating. I wouldn't suggest leaving out canned food because they will give into that more than dry food and possibly eat it all in one sitting.