What is your feeding schedule?

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Daphne

Daphne

Member Since 2015
We're finally getting our cats on a feeding schedule because they're eating different diets now. They're being champs about the whole thing, and both cats are obviously doing better eating meals rather than grazing. They've been grazers their whole lives until now. We're currently 3 weeks into feeding on a schedule.

The problem is neither cat seems like they'll eat more than 2oz at a time. We're currently feeding them about 2oz every 6 hours. This has been difficult for us to manage, and eventually it will become impossible when our schedules change.

I wanted to see what works for other people. I am hoping our cats will be able to eat more in one sitting and we can reduce the number of daily feedings.

What's your feeding schedule? What do the cats eat, how much, what times, do you warm the food first, how long before you pick up the food, etc.?

My schedule:
Peanut gets ~2oz of Purina NF and Fancy Feast chicken blend at 6pm, 12pm, 6pm, and 12am.
Link gets ~2oz of Fancy Feast chicken at 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. At 12am he gets ~2oz Fancy Feast turkey.

We warm their food in a hot water bath prior to all feedings. Link is locked in a crate with his food to prevent sharing. After 10 minutes, all leftovers are picked up and packed away for future feeding. Link is released from the crate after the food is picked up.
 
My nine cats get fed twice daily.
The majority eat only canned but a few also eat some dry since frequently they will not eat enough canned.
Each cat gets fed separately so I can monitor how much they eat.
 
Hi,
All my cats eat low carb wet food, the same as my diabetic.
They like to graze, and can pretty much eat whenever they want. If I go out I leave food down for them. I also leave a little food down at night.

The only challenging time is when the weather is hot. On hot days I only offer a little food at a time, may do slightly fewer meals, and will throw the food away if not eaten fairly soon after serving it.

Eliz
 
I usually feed 3 times a day, sometimes 4.

2 get raw and my diabetic gets canned (hopefully raw soon) so I usually feed them in the morning, 7am, noon (not always, if I'm out etc) around 5pm, and then before bed, around 10pm. They eat their whole portion 95% of the time and I can't leave raw food out anyways.
 
Thank you all for sharing! It does help to see how other people do their feedings. I'd love to hear from more people.

@Erica & Carter Are your cats eating about the same quantity each time you feed? On days where you feed at 7am, noon, and then 5pm do they eat less eagerly than if you only fed at 7am and 5pm?
 
Daphne said:
Thank you all for sharing! It does help to see how other people do their feedings. I'd love to hear from more people.

@Erica & Carter Are your cats eating about the same quantity each time you feed? On days where you feed at 7am, noon, and then 5pm do they eat less eagerly than if you only fed at 7am and 5pm?
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My diabetic gets about 7-8oz a day because he gets the canned, while my other two only get about 5.5oz of raw because with raw they eat less.

They have pre portions with the raw so I just take some here and there from the portion at each meal time, so not exact amounts, but at the end of the day they haven't exceeded their limit because once the container is empty, they got their full amount. With the canned for my diabetic I know not to exceed one and a half cans (the 5.5oz ones).

I'm trying to move away from the 4x a day feeding because with raw they will be getting less and I want them to get used to the smaller portions, so at first they were kind of whiney for the "noon" meal but the past few days they haven't minded at all. They will eat eagerly regardless though.
 
My sugar kitty Shaak eats eight times a day, I use an electronic feeder I purchased from Amazon. It has been a lifesaver, I fill it twice a day and there is room for five meals in the feeder, but we only use four of the compartments.When I began to feed her eight times a day it did not take long until she went into remission. She has been in remission since March. She is my little miracle. Of course please don't expect to get the same result, every sugar kitty is different. I have heard of many cats going into remission due to changing diet though.
 
I give my ex diabetic kitty Baco 4 meals a day, (2 in a electronic feeder) 2 I give myself when I'm home. The other kitty gets 3 meals a day but only when I'm home as otherwise Baco will steal it from him and she is not allowed to eat his food, not because it's not low carb but this young lady needs to lose the weight! hihi
 
I am just starting this journey and my biggest problem is that my cats have always been fed twice a day at 6am and 6pm, but they graze all the time. I have gotten them off dry food but am worried the grazing might not be good for the diabetic cat. I can give his insulin to him after he eats at meal times but will his grazing cause a problem? They eat most of the food at meal time and just come in for a bite or two the rest of the time.
 
When mush was on prozinc, I would feed them at 6am, when they finish eating pull up food for 15 minutes then give shot. I would then put food back down. I would them give them lunch
at 12 o'clock. then @ 6 pm I would feed again, let them eat then pull food up, wait 15 minutes & give the other shot. I would then put the food back down. I give the last feeding @ 10pm & then
pull up for the night. Start all over again the next day. You will be fine, it just takes a little time to get used to the schedule!
 
It's ok to leave food out,be sure you pick up all food two hours before testing. You don't want the numbers going high because of food. Some people use an automatic timed feeder to make sure kitties get their snacks on time.
 
Whiskey has been waking me up lately at 6:30a to eat..since I test him and give him insulin around 8:30-9a, I only feed him a little at that time..maybe a scoopful from a big can of Natural Balance..or a little bit of cheese or meat.

At 9a he gets breakfast, which is a can of Fancy Feast Classic, and his shot.

Noon he gets lunch, which might be a little baked chicken, or scrambled eggs. Or part of the big can of food-Purina DM or Natural Balance.

At 5, he gets dinner..usually the rest of the big can of wet food.

Around 9p he gets another shot and half a can of Fancy Feast.

I honestly don't keep such good track of how much I feed him, I just go by how hungry he is LOL I really should keep better track but..he lost a lot of weight with the diabetes and I'm just happy he's getting closer to his normal weight (he's part Maine coon).
 
Whoa, I was so excited to see more replies to this thread!

Kadie said:
I am just starting this journey and my biggest problem is that my cats have always been fed twice a day at 6am and 6pm, but they graze all the time. I have gotten them off dry food but am worried the grazing might not be good for the diabetic cat. I can give his insulin to him after he eats at meal times but will his grazing cause a problem? They eat most of the food at meal time and just come in for a bite or two the rest of the time.
Click to expand...

My diabetic cat gets hungry when his blood sugar is in the 60-80 range. When I was free-feeding wet food, he grazed in such a way that his numbers stayed remarkably even. He regulated himself very well in that way! I was afraid to go to schedule mealtimes for this reason--he was so incredibly good about eating when he felt his blood sugar dip, going to scheduled mealtimes means I'd lose that extra layer of protection against potential hypoglycemia.

When I free-fed, I just left the food out. No chilling or anything. Yes, I'm talking about wet food. Washed the dish once a day. It's not the recommended way but we never had problems here.

I say he is doing better on scheduled mealtimes because I ended up reducing his insulin from 2.5 units down to 1 unit (yes, the same type of food, roughly the same amount of food, just scheduled feeding) and he becomes noticeably more alert and active about 1-2 hours before mealtimes so we're having higher quality scheduled playtime too.

Grazing was very convenient. It's not a terrible option. My diabetic cat and I managed his glucose just fine when he was grazing.
 
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