Feeding Your Cat

Feeding your cat is a simple endeavor. With loving attention and care you will discover which foods your cat likes best. Buying name brand and upmarket cat food will ensure the best nutrition, health and longevity for your furry friend.

Cats can be fed in two ways. You can either leave out a bowl of dry food for your cat to eat at its leisure or feed it wet/canned food once or twice a day and dispose of the uneaten remainder after 30 minutes. Kittens need to eat more than adult cats. When your kitten is 6-12 weeks old, feeding it four times a day is optimal. A kitten that is three to six months old needs to be fed three times per day.

Adult cats need to be fed smaller meals, two or three times each day. Kittens sometimes refuse to eat or don't eat enough. To help them out, you can heat up the cat food or feed your kitten human baby food (turkey and chicken for babies six months and older), eventually phasing out the baby food as you mix with cat food over a short period of time.

Cats need to drink plenty of clean, fresh water. Make sure their water bowls are washed on a daily basis and refilled at all times.

Feeding your cat a saucer of milk is detrimental to them as the digestive system of cats and kittens are not suited for cow's milk, sometimes causing diarrhea.

Most cats love treats and it is acceptable to offer a special snack to them every now and then. Treats can also cause weight gain in cats, which is unhealthy, and should be given to them sparingly. Some cats go crazy for fruits and vegetables such as peas or carrots. You will have to experiment to see which people food treats your cat enjoys.

Some cats will eat like pigs! If this is your case, terminate the "free-feeding" method (when you leave out dry food all day for your cat to eat when it's hungry) and start your cat on a more precise feeding schedule. To avoid an upset and hungry cat, gradually trim down its meals slowly. If your cat eats too fast and vomits after eating, you can put out a few pieces of dry food and monitor the speed of its intake or place a few clean rock mix in with the food. Make sure the rocks are big enough that it won't eat them accidentally but not too big that it will ignore them. The cat will eat slower as it has to figure out which is the actual food in the bowl, making feeding time a slower operation.

If you have more than one cat or have a house full of cats and one of them requires a specific diet (ask your vet), it is a good idea to put them on a morning/night feeding schedule and supervise the eating process. Some cats are more aggressive and hungrier than others and they may finish off their own bowl and move on to another cat's dish. If this happens, organize different feeding rooms for the greedy ones so every cat gets its proper share of food.

Mark Clayson is a professional, home business entrepreneur, mentor and speaker. Visit Start Work at Home for more information on starting or developing a home business or his official site to find out more.