How Much Food Should A Kitten Eat? Cat Food Facts You Must Know!

Cats fall under the category of obligate carnivores which comprises animals that depend on animal products for all their nutritional needs.

Whether it is newborn kittens or adult cats, the nutritional requirement of this animal hasn't changed a lot since humankind learned about it but its diet increases and changes as it grows. How much you feed a kitten when it is around three months old is completely different from how much should you feed a kitten when it is six months old.

Choosing what you should feed your kitten and in how much quantity might initially seem like a challenging task but you will reap the benefits in the long run. It is understood that what you feed your kitten plays a pivotal role in determining how it grows and develops, and certain studies have shown it to impact its behavior too. You must keep in mind that what you feed a kitten is very different from what you feed an adult cat as the former requires certain nutrients to grow and develop physically as well as develop a diet-determined behavior. The kind of food to feed and how much to feed also primarily depend upon the age and the body size of the cat. Cats are one of the most common domestic animals alongside dogs, and nurturing a cat is at times pretty similar to taking care of a dog although the former has often required much more attention towards the type of food it should be fed and the number of times it needs to be fed per day. Scroll down to learn more about how often and how much food you should be feeding your kitten.

How frequently should I feed my kitten and how much?

The age and body size of a cat play a crucial role in determining how much to feed a kitten and how often too. Till the time your kitten is around four to six months old, you can leave food for them throughout the day as well as at night as they haven't yet reached the age when you need to worry about unhealthy weight gain. Although if you plan on keeping food out for your kitten throughout the day and include both wet and dry food in its diet, it is better to keep the dry kitten food out round the clock and offer canned food meals around twice a day. Wet cat food, if left out for more than a couple of hours, becomes a breeding ground for bacteria, so it is not advised to leave this out around the clock. Let us now take a look at how much should you feed a kitten.

Till the time a kitten is around four weeks old, it solely depends upon its mother's milk for gaining all the required nutrients. When kittens are up to four weeks old, they nurse almost every two hours but the frequency falls as the kittens grow. The best way to ensure the healthy growth of your kittens is by keeping track of their body weight as ideally, they must gain around 0.5-0.7 oz (15-20 g) per day. Now as a kitten transitions to be of four weeks of age, it begins to shift from depending upon its mother's milk to solid foods. At this point, you can feed your kitten a gruel made of high-quality canned cat food mixed with some warm water. After a couple of weeks, healthy growing kittens develop baby teeth and you can now feed your kitten some more solid food as it now has the ability to chew. By the time your kitten is around six to eight weeks old, it should ideally be consuming around 162-kilo calories a day. Interestingly, once it's eight weeks old, it should also be able to drink water and consume both wet and dry food entirely on its own.

From the age of six weeks or eight weeks to up to 10 months, kittens experience the most rapid growth phase of their bodies as they grow from mere kittens to adult cats. During this period, kittens need to be fed at least twice a day and the number of calories they require is more than how much they need once they are past their 10 months mark. You can also consult a veterinarian or follow a feeding chart that bases the calories required by a kitten on its body weight. For instance, a 1 lb (0.4 kg) cat would ideally require 104 kilocalories a day as compared to a relatively grown cat weighing 10 lb (4.5 kg) which needs 541 kcal a day. You can further use these charts to determine the calorific needs of your kittens; you can do this by dividing the calorific content of a specific kitten food by your kitten's calorific requirement for the day. This would result in determining how much kitten food you should be feeding kittens. You can also calculate the meal serving for your kittens by dividing how much kitten food you should be feeding your kittens by the number of meals you feed your kitten in a day.

How much canned kitten food should a three-month-old kitten eat per day?

By the time kittens are around three months old, the types of food you can feed kittens increases as they can now easily consume both wet and dry food. On average, a three-month-old kitten should have around four to five meals a day which can include dry food as well as wet food but the proportions would differ if you feed your kitten a mixture of both types.

Ideally, you should add one and a half pouches of wet food in their kitten's daily meals with one pouch containing around 3.5 oz (100 g), the same can be seen in cans in the form of canned kitten foods. If you look to include both dry food and wet food in your kitten's diet, it is recommended that you decrease the amount of wet food you previously included and lower it down to around half or one pouch depending on the feeding chart of your kitten. You can substitute the reduced amount of wet cat food with 0.5-0.7 oz (15-20 g) of dry cat food. If you look to feed your cat on the basis of the number of calories it should intake at the age of around 10 weeks, the average weight of a 10-week old cat is around 1.6-2.9 lb (0.7-1.3 kg) and must eat 250-360 calories a day. Some of the best dry cat food products available in the market include the likes of Blue Buffalo Healthy Growth Natural Kitten Food, Crave Grain Free High Protein Dry Kitten Food, and many others.

Do kittens stop eating once they are full?

Whether it is small kittens or an adult cat, there have been instances where these pet animals have overeaten when provided with either wet or dry food. Some kittens know when to stop eating but it comes down to the owner regarding how much to feed a kitten.

It is essential that you build a feeding routine for your kittens regarding how much to feed and what to feed your kittens. The amount of food given to the kitten goes on to determine its growth and at times its eventual behavior too. Striking the balance between maintaining a feeding schedule that provides the kitten with an ample amount of food but not allowing overeating is key. Sometimes kittens know when to stop eating once they are full but at times kittens can continue to feast on food if left unchecked, and they can end up overeating. Additionally, for obvious reasons, the belly size of kittens is significantly smaller than that of adult cats, and thus, the former should eat small portions of food multiple times a day than overeating at once. Although it has been noted that kittens need dry food several times and it is better to keep some in their dish throughout the day so that they can eat them in between the wet food given to them, this helps to keep the kitten's weight in check without compromising on any of the nutrients.

Should I leave dry food out for my kitten overnight?

Whether you should leave dry foods out for your kitten throughout the night or not depends upon your specially formulated kitten feeding regime. If you have managed your kitten's diet by feeding it twice or thrice a day with wet foods, it might not be the best option to leave dry food out overnight.

At the same time, if your kitten's daily feeding habit is to eat whenever it likes to then it might be a wise option to keep some dry food out throughout the night so that the kittens can munch on it if they choose to. Although studies have shown that neither kittens nor adult cats are big fans of eating at night and rather prefer to eat in the morning after eating their meals at night.