Is it wrong to keep food available for the cat all the time?

Question

from previous answers, I have read that I have to feed the cat like twice a day, but what i'm doing now is keeping the food in the cat's plate 24/7, so he can eat whenever he wants, so is that wrong?

Answer 1

I keep dry food in my cat's dish 24/7. I go to school from 8 to 4 and nobody's home. My cats like to have little meals throughout the day, they never eat it all in one sitting. So far no bugs or anything comes.

Answer 2

Thats really bad for an indoor cat.  A cat that is fixed, declawed, and never is let outside should be fed a couple of times of day or they get enormous. Thats ok for an indoor/outdoor cat or and total outdoor cat.   Trust me and my friends two severely over weight cats.

Answer 3

I personally think it's ok for cats but not for dogs since cats have an indoor litterbox to use and most dogs don't. If your cat has a weight problem or need to feed multiple cats separately, then free feeding may not be the way to go.

Answer 4

It depends the cat is a guts or it has restraint. If it has restraint i don't see anything wrong with it, but watch out for ants and other animals :)

Answer 5

It is ok to leave food out all day as cats like to eat a lot of small meals. But not what you are feeding. Please learn about nutrition and stop feeding kitty crack

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health

Contrary to what you may have heard; dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.

Please read the label on what you are feeding? What are the ingredients? Do you know what they mean? Is the first ingredient a muscle meat like chicken or is it meal or other things? Learn what meal and other things mean here.

http://www.catinfo.org/#Learn_How_To_Rea...

Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods. Rashes, scabs behind the tail and on the chin are all symptoms of food allergies probably from the grains. Constipation? Dry food, not enough moisture. Blockages? Again not enough moisture in the food and you are risking something serious. People on this board say feed fiber but this is a cat not a dog and cats are obligate carnivores unlike dogs an they don't eat cereal and don't need fiber.

The problems associated with Dry food is that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Also, Most of the moisture a cat needs is suppose to be in the food (Cats are not naturally big drinkers) but in

Dry, 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Another thing, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.

You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at all or grains  at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food as it uses a muscle meat as the first ingrediant. 9lives, friskies whiskas are lower grade canned but still better then dry and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.

Many foods are not mentioned here but if you read the labels you wiull know if it is qualaty. The price offers no guideline.

The optimum food to feed cats has no grains whatsoever, cats have no use for them and many have trouble processing them as well as the carbs. IBD is another disease that is rapidly becoming common amoung cats because of the inappropriate diets being fed.

Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Does a hard pretzel clean your teeth or do pieces of it get stuck? Why do people constantly repeat this old wives tale and put teeth over the organs like the kidneys?? (I have no clue)   http://www.felinefuture.com/nutrition/bp...

Please read about cat nutrition.

http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics...

http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.ht...

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.ht...

Answer 6

We keep food out for Noel 24/7 because we never know at what point during the day she will come home for food. We only have to fill her dish every few days as she eats what she kills and the neighbours feed her too.

Lately we've had to move her dish upstairs. She was attacked by some of the wildlife around here and she's not doing stairs very well right now. We now have her dish beside her bed.  

Answer 7

No i think it is a good thing because i leave food available to my cats and they do not get fat except for one but he is old

Answer 8

I keep food out for my cat all the time-- I have classes and work, so if I only fed him when I had a chance he'd eat once a day. ):

I think it's fine! Just make sure your cat as water, too.

Answer 9

I have always kept dry food available for my cats. Cats don't have the same eating patterns that dogs have. They like to eat several small meals a day. I don't think it is wrong at all.

I also feed my cat food from a can, I just don't keep the dish filled with it 24/7.