# How often do cats really need to eat?



## furryfriends251 (Jan 1, 2009)

My barn cats have switched to almost all raw and some wet food. However i can only go there to feed them once a day, so i do leave out some dry food. I always make sure they eat most of the raw before ever putting out dry because the all go after the dry instead. I am starting to wonder how much they really need dry food - they barely get any, just enough for a snack sometime before i get there again. Each cat only gets 1/2 ounce of dry (if they actually share evenly :lol: ). 

I am wanting to maybe skip out on dry completly, they eat it so fast that i doubt that any is left within an hour of me giving them it. If i were to instead increase the amount of raw and wet they get would they be okay on just one large meal a day? Everyone is eating raw really well now (except for two newbies who are still in their own very large dog kennels), so would that be okay? 

So basically: can cats stay healthy only eating one large meal a day? And not get unhappy?

thanx,

ff251


----------



## laurief (Jun 22, 2008)

It's not a matter of being unhappy. It's a matter of how the feline body is designed to intake and absorb nutrients. Small cats are designed to eat numerous small meals throughout the day. They aren't like large cats and dogs who are designed to gorge on a single large meal.

Healthy cats can probably do OK on a single large meal daily if they have to, but they'd do better on at least two meals a day, spaced 12 hrs apart. Cats who are ailing in any way or who have compromised kidney function, as well as geriatrics and growing youngsters, require much more frequent, smaller meals. 

Since you're feeding barn cats, there's the likelihood that at least some of them are hunting and feeding themselves between the meals you provide, but I'd keep providing dry food, as well, to make sure everybody's being adequately fed between raw meals.

Laurie


----------

