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How many times a day do you feed your cat (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 months ago by penquin@lemm.ee to c/cat@lemmy.world

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Hi all, I'm kind of confused on this. My cat eats very slowly all day long. She'd go to her food bowl constantly throughout the day for a couple of bites and then back to whatever she does. I think we spoil her by making her food available at all times, my wife doesn't think so. She throws up here and there and I'm thinking because she eats too much. So, my question to you all is, how often do you feed your cat? Do you fill its bowl all day like me? Do you have specific times of the day where you give them a certain amount each time and nothing in between? I'm leaning towards doing the latter. Give her, let's say, half a cup in the morning and let her munch on it as much as she wants and the other half in the evening and nothing in between. She freaks out when her bowl is empty and starts crying and acting like she's about to die of starvation. Give her food, then she takes one bite and leaves. Bro, wtf. Lol. So any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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[–] ADKSilence@piefed.social 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I've always had cats in the house, even as a kid. Our family has pretty much always followed the "They get breakfast when we get breakfast, and dinner at dinner time" so that's when they get a portion of "wet" food, with dry/crunchy available to "free feed" on throughout the day if they get snackish as well as a few different sources of water.

While that can lead to cats being overweight, we generally let the cats outdoors or now more recently, give them free reign of the house and attached garage. The garage is basically just a building shell, so critters like rodents and birds can still come in which in turn gives the cats something to do and keeps them active which is the key. As long as they're burning off the extra calories and maintaining a healthy weight, the "how" becomes somewhat irrelevant.

The general advice that seems to be prevalent though is to intentionally restrict their diets a bit to keep them at a healthy weight. So the "free feed" idea may not be the best advice.