cats

Feed them twice. Once in the morning around 8 then again at 8 when I get home from work.

1 cat is an absolute fiend for food and will eat his sisters (not related)

Have to separate them until she is finished then he gets her leftovers. He'll yell on the other end of the door

If I left food he'd make himself sick, think due to being feral for a while. Other cat could give a fuck lol

No vomiting here with my cats. Will parrot how it seems to be unique to the cat.

My cat is good and eats only what she needs. She always has a bowl full of her regular food. We've been like this for almost 10 years now.

It all kind of depends on the cat and how they handle the buffet always being open.

We have two cats from the same litter. We use an automated cat feeder that pours enough for each of them (same bowl) 4 times a day. They’re pretty good about portioning and making sure they’re able to eat together. They hardly ever throw up (1-2 times a year). They don’t act hungry, but they do rush from anywhere in the house when they hear the food dispensing. Each cat weighs 13 lbs.

Some cats have better control than others. I can't give mine food for the entire day as one will just gobble everything up until she pukes.

So they get fed three times a day. Basically their daily food intake distributed in equal portions throughout the day.

She throws up here and there

How often is here and there? It might be an underlying health issue if this happens a lot.

I've always kept a bowl of watsr and dry food filled and then given them wet food once a day.

Never had any issues with them throwing up. Hopefully, someone else can provide insight into that.

my cat rules so I just have a huge gravity feeder with dry food available to her constantly and I give her one wet food a day. I refill the gravity feeder once every two weeks or so, whenever it’s empty

She’s been 14.7 pounds for 10 years straight.

My sisters cat is greeeeeedy and has to be restricted or she will eat constantly and end up massively overweight. She was like 5-6 lbs overweight when she got her. Not sure of the specific schedule she uses

So I guess it depends?

It might differ depending on the cat’s personality, but I feed my cat a full serving once a day in the morning, and that’s it. He nibbles on it throughout the day whenever he wants, and by the next morning the bowl is empty. No whining or begging, thankfully, since he does a surprisingly good job of pacing himself.

He’s pretty old now, so we’ve got a good routine going, but I know some cats just won’t accept this and need their meals to be separate and eaten in one sitting.

My old cat used to eat only what she needed throughout the day. Only dry food.

My new kitties are trash cans. Everything eatable goes in. I feed them twice a day, dry food, only the recommended amount as stated on the food package and as recommended by the vet.

The vet said it's easier to keep them at a decent weight then to have to put them on a diet.

When your cat eats whenever she wants food, I think you should be fine with feeding her once a day. But make sure you only feed her enough for her weight and age. The website of the food brand should list a recommended amount, otherwise ask your vet.

When she's an adult (1 year and older or 6 months and older when castrated) it's recommended to feed her adult food, only dry food, it's better for their teeth.

Never feed your cat milk, cats are lactose intolerant.

When she throws up on a daily basis, go to a vet. This isn't normal, she might be ill. Make sure you have cat grass for her, they need grass to help throw up, when they have a hairball for instance. Always make sure she has fresh water access.

Make sure your cat won't become obese. Animal obesity is animal abuse. Next to them having a terrible life, they will get sick much faster and their life much shorter, which is not only sad, also expensive.

Twice a day, 12 hours apart. No free feeding (they always end up engorging themselves and throwing up when i make the mistake of leaving it out)

Water is always available and they alert me when it needs to be refilled

I have one cat that hardly eats, I can fill his bowl in the morning and he'll comfortably graze all day. My other cat is an absolute fiend who cannot be trusted to ration himself at all. He needed an auto feeder to dish out six small meals a day, that prevented his "starving" behavior and keeps his weight in check.

We had one cat and she was fine to free feed like that, occasional puke but that was mostly hairballs or if she ate something like plastic (she loves eating tape, you cannot leave tape out or she will eat it)

Then we a kitten and the older one started eating the kittens food. The kitten got bigger and started stealing her food… then they started wolfing down food so quickly they’d puke to try and steal from each other.

So we ended up with 2 machines across the house on the same schedule, and feed them three times a day. They will free feed if separated.

Luckily the 2 cats I live with right now are free feeders. They WILL let you know if they can see any part of the bottom of their food bowl or if their water is empty or has a speck of fluff in it, but other than that they are very chill cats in terms of feeding.

My mom's cats growing up were basically raised as dogs so they would beg and pull human food off the table if you aren't looking. Any open glass of liquid would immediately have a cat paw inside it the microsecond you turned around. They would also eat the dog food and chew on the plants. Real shitheads. But we loved em.

I've always had cats in the house, even as a kid. Our family has pretty much always followed the "They get breakfast when we get breakfast, and dinner at dinner time" so that's when they get a portion of "wet" food, with dry/crunchy available to "free feed" on throughout the day if they get snackish as well as a few different sources of water.

While that can lead to cats being overweight, we generally let the cats outdoors or now more recently, give them free reign of the house and attached garage. The garage is basically just a building shell, so critters like rodents and birds can still come in which in turn gives the cats something to do and keeps them active which is the key. As long as they're burning off the extra calories and maintaining a healthy weight, the "how" becomes somewhat irrelevant.

The general advice that seems to be prevalent though is to intentionally restrict their diets a bit to keep them at a healthy weight. So the "free feed" idea may not be the best advice.

All cats I've had have been lucky enough that free feeding is an option and they don't gorge. So we just fill the bowl up when it's empty, and water is kept fresh everyday. Thinking of getting a running water fountain to encourage more liquids though.

We leave dry food 24/7 and split a can of wet food between the two once a day. The shorthair eats a bit of that and walks away. The Maine-coon, being adapted for colder climates, finishes both plates. She’s slightly overweight, but healthy.

Mine has some food control issues so I feed them 2-3 times a day wet food. Free fed or not she vomits every now and then, pretty sure cats just puke because I’ve never had one that doesn’t a few times a year. She cries if I forget to feed but other than the transition from free feeding she got used to the schedule in a few weeks.

We have two very different cats.

#1 is fed two wet pouches a day and as much dry food as he pleases. Weight is healthy and stable. Though he does beg loudly in-between meals.

#2 exclusively eats dry food and will not touch wet. Probably a good thing, as she is overweight and now on a diet. Doesn't beg so much, but will take any opportunity to eat if given.

Water always available, but #2 prefers moving water.

The people of the house both work full time, so meals tend to be twice a day - morning and evening.

I give my cat (an adult female, about 10yo) two pouches of wet food a day, plus keeping a dry food bowl topped up (i.e. enough that the bottom isn’t visible). She sometimes eats the lot, and sometimes leaves up to a third of a serving, which is then discarded.

I had a cat who would throw up frequently. He would just gorge himself when he was fed, and any "extra" would end up on the floor. He was a BIG BOY.

My current cats don't seem to do that at all. I wonder if it was because he was rescued from a hoarder who had dozens of other cats in the house. Maybe he learned it through trauma. 🤷🏻‍♂️