Answer: The conventional recommendation has been to feed two meals a day, a small one in the morning and a larger in the evening at about six o’clock. Surveys reveal that roughly 50% of owners indeed feed their pet cat two meal a day. About 20% of owners give only one meal, anther 20% owners give three meals, and reaming 10% either feed four or more meal daily or else they very the number of meals from day to day.
Cats allow free access to canned, dry or semi=moist foods in feeding trials all took frequent, small meal of relatively constant size at roughly two hour intervals throughout both and night. And careful observation of pet cats shows that the males served by the owners in fact often not consumed all at once but are eaten over a period of time, i.e. as a larger number of smaller meals. In addition, these meals may be supplemented by hunting and/or food begged or otherwise obtained from neighbors and other source. So, summary, it has become clear that cats are essentially ‘neighbor’.
These finding suggest that there is no need for hard and fast rules about feeding to be adopted; rather that is the preferable for owner and pet to develop their own mutually satisfactory feeding programmed, provide that the minimum ration to satisfy nutrition requirements is supplied each day. It might be suitable for the cat to be fed at the same time, or possible just before, the rest of the household; even to be fed ad libidum, i.e. to have food down all the time so that it can eat whenever it chooses. The latter regimen is ideal of someone cannot be present to feed the cat at regular times, but under normal domestic conditions only dry or semi-moist food can be fed this way. ‘Water’ types of food quickly deteriorate if left down,; they become stale, however, some reservations about serving dry products exclusively, particularly to male cats.
If dry or semi-moist food is feed ad lib the feeding bowl should be replenished as necessary by placing the uneaten food on stop of the new food in bowl so that is eaten in rotation. A special hopper feeder, which refills the dish automatically, can be bought the pet shop. Fortunately, only very few cats fed this way will overeat and therefore will subsequently need to have their intake rationed to combat obesity. In connection with ad lib feeding, some owners may prefer to feed one meal a day of some quite different food to provide verity; in such cases, the cat will naturally eat correspondingly less of the diet which is always available. This feeding of one varied meal a day is good idea because cats appreciate changes in their diets, and feeding different foods minimizes the possibility that a diet may be different in some essential nutrient.
Female cats that are feeding kittens and kittens that are jus weaned both require about three times as much food as normal adult cats on a body weight basis. This increased quantity simply could not be consumed at one time and therefore it must be divided into a number of meals per day, usually a minimum of three unless ad lib feeding is to be adopted, the number of meals for a growing kittens gradually be reduced to minimum of two a day at three to four months of age, and possibly one a day at about six months.
