I’ve seen places where cats get food all day long and places where cats get food at restricted timeframes. Advices on the matter also differ, so how often should I feed my cat, you might wonder. Here’s our take on how often you should do so.
Introduction
Cats love food, especially food that moves and needs to be caught. When they finally got it, they want to eat it all at once. Or share it with their family. Domestic cats also still love to eat when they get it and they have gotten the hang of it how to ask for more. Will you give in to their ‘needs’ or will you keep to a strict diet? How often do you feed your cat? Here’s our take on it.
Eating Habit Of Cats In The Wild
Cats are creatures that originally did hunt for their food.
When cats didn’t catch a prey, it meant no food for that day. So cats in nature eat only when it is available – at the moment they caught it. This is also because they are meat eaters. Meat will go off if it is left alone for too long, so it needs to be eaten when it is still fresh.
Eating Habits Of Domestic Cats
Domestic cats are more used to getting food served on a platter. Some do still get the chance to hunt for prey, either through being outside or through an occasional mouse in your house.
Most indoor cats however, do not get any outside life and do not have any mice inside the house to hunt upon. They will just eat their plate empty when it is served. If that plate gets filled again when it is emptied, chances are high that also that newly filled plate will be emptied.
There is a problem with this, especially when the food is very nutricious, because it can make a cat obese in a very short timeframe.
How Often Should You Feed Your Cat?
It depends entirely on your cat. If your cat is an all day long eater or wants to eat the plate empty every time it is filled, then you might want to consider reducing the amount of times that you feed your cat. Alternatively you could give your cat a lighter version of cat food. The type that you need to eat a lot of to still get the same amount of energy.
I prefer however to use the method of one meal in the morning and one in the evening. That way you got more control over who has had what and how much.
Limiting your all-day-eating-cats can also have a negative impact. They might get cranky and build up food aggression. Worse even, they might become aggressive against you or your visitors, because they didn’t get what they wanted (food). So feeding a light-food type, can be a great solution to providing your cat a well-balanced diet.
Multiple Cats
If you got just one cat it is all quite easy to control and keep track of. When you got multiple cats, things get more complicated, unless you sit next to them and their food bowls while they are eating. We got seven cats running around and about. Some of them go outside and come in at different times.
So keeping control over who eats what and how much is much harder for us. We also have to keep track of different types of food, since there are different ages of cats in our house. On top of that we also got RSPCA cats that get food that is provided by the RSPCA.
Conclusion
Cats that eat all day, because of their instinctive behaviour of eating as soon as you catch something, might become obese. It is therefore important to either keep to strict feeding times or to provide a lighter type of cat food for the all-day-eaters.
With that said, it is absolutely a good idea to have strict feeding times such as in the morning and the evening.
When do you feed your cat(s)? All day? Or just morning and evenings? Please share in the comments below!