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Is it okay to have food available all day for the cat? I feed my three cats Iams and have it available to them all day so they can eat when hungry.
Wendy
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Last Login: 10/28/2009 12:04:42 PM
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We've always had the "automatic feeder" that hold a full bag of food and lets gravity do the work. Our cats have not gotten fat because of it. They don't seem to over eat. As you said, they eat when they're hungry. It's especially useful when we're out of town. We just fill it before we leave and don't have to worry.
If you switch to that after having scheduled feedings I would watch to see how the cats adjust to it, since it is a change in their schedule. We had one cat who had been raised on a schedule, so she would eat any time we went to the kitchen, thinking we had refilled it for her.
Edit: Didn't read thoroughly enough. You said you already have it all day. XP I'll just keep that there in case anyone else wants to know.
"To err is human. To purr is feline."
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loveshercats (10/28/2009)
Is it okay to have food available all day for the cat? I feed my three cats Iams and have it available to them all day so they can eat when hungry.
Hi Wendy, it is okay to have food available to your cats all day as long as they regulate themselves and don't overeat. If you find that they are starting to put weight on I would switch to scheduled feedings. That's what I had to do with my three, whenever there was food available they would eat it until it was gone. The result was chubby kitties! They now get fed a small amount of canned food twice a day. They're not happy about it, but I'd rather have that than obese sickly cats.
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I would not recommend free feeding for anyone who has a cat with weight problems, or for people with more than one cat or a kitten. It's typically best two feed the cats two small meals a day; each cat getting their own bowl w/ the appropriate portion for their needs.
Live, and let live. "true profit is measured by quality of life." "We have cats to enhance our lives, we owe it to them to allow them to enjoy theirs."
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Supreme Being
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All the cats my family and I had were self-regulators. My Tripod has some dry food available to her all day, but she eats mainly canned food. Recently she turned up her nose at her canned food and demanded, as well as ate, her dry food. That was for a couple of days, now she's back to canned food, nibbling a bit of dry from time to time. I wish she would put a bit of weight on; she's always been a skinny cat, but last April I had her to the vet and she weighed 6 pounds; had her at the vet again a couple of weeks ago, and she was down to 5.7 pounds. She weighed I think 5 pounds when she had that pancreatitis, and she was a furry skeleton. With her hyperthyroidism and advanced age, she will lose weight, but I don't ever want to see her that thin again! The most she's ever weighed was 8 pounds, but she was much younger then and healthy. Hard to believe how she can not do alot all day, yet still eat like a horse and not gain. The vet said her T-4 values were a bit high, but he didn't want to mess around with them with a dosage change, so I'm still giving her 1 1/2 pills a day.
Some cats are more special than others.Read my monthly blog: http://www.myspace.com/cataholic1
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Hello!ffice ffice" /> For my situation free feeding works. I have 5 cats and live on a farm so they have a cat door that they can come and go as they want. The only time they are all together is in the evening when they get their canned food (that is when I do a 'head count' so to speak). However- I do only put out about 4 cups of food, and rarely do all five of them go thru that much in a day. I have one cat, Double Stuft Oreo, who is rather fond of his food....however this seems to work out well for us. However, Dubs may not agree ;-) The dry food won't go stale- however I know some cats will only eat if there is new food straight from the bag put in their bowls! Good luck!
Jenifer, RVTTwitter- @Jenlovespetswww.myspace.com/jenlovespets 
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We free-fed but were forced to put the cats on a schedule, due to Cubby being a total pig. She gained something like 2.5 lbs in a month in a half with us, and that is with us putting down about 1 to 1.5 cups of food for all 4 cats. The other cats are grazers and after about 3 weeks are adjusting to the 2 times/day schedule. Evening they get a smidge of canned. If you do the scheduled feedings, isolate the piggy cat and make sure the cats have access to food for 30 min. The grazers will eat and then step away and then eat again. You may even do a small feeding of the grazers somewhere in between (midnite snack) if piggy cat is not in the same room.
Caution with very fat cats, talk to your vet about putting them on scheduled regimen. Fat cats if their food intake is restricted, can get hepatic lipidosis, which is fast onset liver failure and it can literally develop within weeks of restricted feeding. So proceed cautiously.
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Freia born 2001, gray and white
Buddy, born 2004, orange tabby
Cubby, born 2008, brown tabby/tortie
Vinny, born 2008, buff tabby Oskar, brown tabby, 1995-2008, Pumpkin, calico, 1987-2009, Oddleif, gray and white, 1994-2002, Twix, solid gray longhair, 1992-2003
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Einstein has his dry food available all day, Vet says he is fine and sees no problem.
Dogs think their human, Cats know they are .
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Supreme Being
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My four house cats are good with free feeding, even my feral cats outside are good at self regulating their food for free feeding.
My cats own my house they just permit me to live there. Only cat lovers know the luxury of fur-coated, musical hot water bottles that never go cold."
- Susanne Millen 
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