How often should I feed my cat?
Adult cats: twice a day as a minimum, and up to 4–5 small meals if that suits your schedule — cats are natural frequent grazers. Kittens under 6 months: 3–4 times a day. Cats over 7 stay on twice daily. Fresh water always available.
Frequency by age
- Under 4 months: 4 meals a day, or free access to food while they are growing fastest
- 4–6 months: 3 meals a day
- 6–12 months: down to 2–3 meals a day as growth slows
- Adult, 1–7 years: 2 meals a day, or the same daily amount split into more, smaller portions
- Senior, 7+: 2 meals a day, with more attention to weight in both directions — unexplained weight loss in an older cat warrants a vet visit rather than more food
How much matters more than how often
The frequency question is mostly about the cat's comfort. The number that determines health is the total daily amount. A rough guide for an average adult cat is somewhere around 200–250 kcal a day, but it varies substantially with weight, age, neutering status and activity — a neutered indoor cat needs meaningfully less than an intact outdoor one.
Start from the feeding guide on the packaging for your cat's target weight, not their current weight if they are overweight, and then adjust based on body condition over the following weeks. Feed to the cat in front of you rather than to a table.
Body condition is easy to assess and more reliable than the scales: you should be able to feel the ribs easily under a thin layer of fat without pressing, see a slight waist behind the ribs when looking down, and see a tuck up toward the hind legs from the side. If the ribs are hard to find, reduce the total by around 10% and check again in a month.
The case against leaving dry food out all day
Free-feeding dry food is convenient and it is the most common route to a fat cat. Cats regulate intake poorly against a permanently full bowl, especially neutered indoor cats, and feline obesity brings diabetes, arthritis, and urinary problems with it.
Wet food helps twice over — it is usually lower in calories per mouthful and it delivers water, which matters because cats evolved to get most of their moisture from prey and have a weak thirst drive. Cats on dry-only diets run persistently more concentrated urine, which is one of the risk factors for urinary tract disease in male cats.
If you want the grazing pattern without the free-feeding, a timed feeder splitting the same daily ration into four portions gets you both. Puzzle feeders and food-dispensing toys do the same job and slow eating down.
Feeding problems worth a vet call, not a schedule change
None of this page is veterinary advice for a specific animal. Prescription diets, kidney disease, diabetes and pancreatitis all change the answer, and your vet has the cat's history.
- A cat that stops eating for more than 24 hours. Cats do not tolerate fasting the way dogs do — hepatic lipidosis can develop within a few days
- Sudden ravenous hunger with weight loss, which points at hyperthyroidism or diabetes rather than an inadequate diet
- Vomiting shortly after every meal, or repeated regurgitation of undigested food
- Drinking noticeably more water than usual
- Multi-cat households where one cat is losing weight — feed separately so you can see who is eating what. In a shared bowl you have no data at all