# When to stop free feeding?



## deedub626 (Sep 2, 2009)

How old do you stop free feeding your kitty?


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## Frostpaw (May 30, 2009)

if you mean free feed in the sense that you leave a bowl of food out all day.... then its really up to you. Suki has to free feed because if you take her food away she panics. 

Cats are natural grazers, prefering up to 11 small (mouse sized) meals a day rather than 3 big ones. 

Im personally all for free feeding provided your cat gets plenty of excersise and isnt prone to being fat, or is diabetic.


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## hoofmaiden (Sep 28, 2009)

Frostpaw said:


> Cats are natural grazers, prefering up to 11 small (mouse sized) meals a day rather than 3 big ones.


It would take a VERY big cat to eat 11 mice a day. :yikes My adult cats get 2 mice or the equivalent.

Cats are not "grazers." They are obligate carnivores. In the wild, they may kill 2-3 times a day, but not 11 times a day. Unlike dogs, who do best with 1 large raw meat meal a day, cats do better with 2 or 3.

I have serious issues with "free-feeding." #1 is that it involves dry food. See the sticky at the top of the Health forum for all the reasons why dry food is NOT recommended. #2 is that you have no way of knowing for sure who is eating what. My adult cats get 2 meals a day, which they eat up w/in 15 min. I know that each ate his portion. If ever someone does NOT eat his food, I know instantly that something is wrong. With free-fed cats, it might take days or even weeks to know that something wasn't right, and that delay can be very dangerous.

So basically, I wouldn't free-feed ANY cat. Kittens should, of course, be fed more often than adult cats -- 4-5 times a day up until 10 weeks, then 3-4 times a day through 16 weeks. At 16 weeks most can go to twice a day. Kittens will also need more at each meal (my kitten, at 14 weeks, gets 4 mice + something else (piece of bone-in cornish game hen, or pork, venison, etc), which is 3 times what the adult cats get.


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