I’ve written about various feeding behaviors in cats before including using food puzzles, aggressive behaviors surrounding meals, and feeding your cats separately from each other. Today would have been Zoloft’s, our Chief Purr Officer who left us two years ago, 16th birthday. He loved his snacks so in honor of him, I want to talk about an important part of feeding your cat that many people get wrong: how often to feed your cat.
What Cats’ Behavior In Nature Tells Us
Many people decide how often to feed a cat based on what’s convenient for them or based on what they’ve done with other cats. Unfortunately, that doesn’t lead to getting things correct.
Instead, look at how and what cats eat if there weren’t humans around to take care of them: small prey spread throughout the day. Cats catch and eat multiple mice, birds, or other tiny critters at irregular intervals and not in two large meals morning and night. In fact, if a cat isn’t being fed by humans, they may catch and kill up to 20 prey per day.
How Often To Feed Your Cat
Practically, what does this mean for someone trying to devise a feeding schedule for a cat? Spread out your cat’s meals. Twice a day feeding isn’t normal for cats. Even if they munch on their food during the day, freshness is important as food left out can get stale or grow some nasty things you don’t want your cat eating.
Despite cats in nature eat up to 20 times per day, you don’t need to feed your cats that frequently. 4 to 6 meals per day is a good amount to shoot for. This will keep your cat fuller between meals and keep their food fresh when they do eat.
If you’re curious what I do, I feed my cats 5 meals per day: one early in the morning using automatic feeders (I have two that go off at the same time and I use the camera feature to make sure each of them gets some food) and four wet food meals spread out the rest of the day. If I’m out for a longer period of time, I use a wet food automatic feeder or program an extra dry food feeding or two for them.
How Much To Feed Your Cat
If you’re horrified that I’m promoting feline obesity by feeding your cat up to 6 meals per day, fret not! These aren’t the same size meal you’d feed a cat if you only fed them twice per day; they’re small meals that prevent my cats from turning into chonks. The automatic feeders I use are from PetLibro which allows me to have their dry food feedings in 1/12 cup increments and the rest of their food I measure myself.
If you want to know how much total to feed your cat per day, ask a veterinarian to help you figure out what’s best for your specific cat.
You can convert your cat’s current diet to multiple smaller meals by figuring out how much you’re feeding your cat total per day and then dividing that by the number of meals you want to feed your cat. Make the change gradually or you’ll have a really stressed out cat!
What Happens If You Feed Your Cat Less Frequently?
If you only feed your cat twice daily, they’re going to be hungry by the time you get around to feeding them. This is a cat behavior blog on the website of a cat behaviorist so I hope it’s not too surprising that the consequences of feeding your cat infrequently will be cat behavior problems. You might have a cat that:
- Begs for food
- Is territorial or guards their food bowls, automatic feeders, or even your kitchen
- Breaks into your garbage
- Gets in fights with other cats in your home
- Is aggressive toward humans
- Wakes you up early in the morning
- Vocalizes excessively
In other words, your cat’s behavior will probably cause a lot of stress to you and your cat won’t be particularly happy. Feeding your cat multiple small meals during the day benefits your cat, but it also benefits you.
What If Feeding Your Cat Multiple Times Per Day Is Hard?
If you have a busy schedule or find remembering to feed your cat hard, chances are your cat will remind you to feed them when they’re hungry.
Cheekiness aside, consider using an automatic feeder to help you out. You can use one for some meals or all of them if needed, but they’re a great tool unlike some other kinds of pet tech. You can combine them with manual feeding like I do. If you don’t want to use an automatic feeder, do your best to increase the number of meals your cat gets. Even three meals is better than two!
I hope your cats enjoy being fed more frequently and that you found this blog informative. My blog is one way of still connecting with Zoloft even though he’s not here anymore. If you found it helpful, can you do me a small favor? Give your cat a treat or do something nice for them today in honor of Zoloft (even if you’re reading this later). I miss our birthday celebrations and knowing other cats are going to be happier because of him helps soothe the ache.
