I've always fed cats on demand. With Polly and Samantha, this has usually amounted to just over a can per day for the pair. Since having Fred and Vic (part of a feral colony trapped last year) they want food ALL THE TIME!! Everytime I go into the kitchen, all four hover round my feet, brush my legs and meow for food. Fred and Vic get particularly affectionate at these times, which is great. However F and V are becoming HUGE. I don't mean fat, they seem to be growing into a pantha (Fred) and a Lynx (Vic)!! Sam and Polly, being old ladies, just pick at what they want, then walk off.
Between them, they're polishing off between three and four cans per day. Max, a huge maine coon type moggie I used to have, only ate one can per day. He was the size of a small dog - a Yorkie, maybe.
Samantha and Polly were originally a stray and a feral, respectively. Sam turned all my bins over for months before realising that food came out of cans, not bins.
Am I having the same where-will-next-meal-come-from problem with the recent settlers? Or are they just pigs? Any ideas about training? Unfortunately, I've been trained by all the cats I've had to feed when meowed at.
Ratbags!!!
Anyone interested in the progress of F and V: since learning to use the cat flap in my bedroom, they are settling down amazingly into happy domestics. It's taken nearly a year (much less if you count from when I decided to keep them) but they're gorgeous, especially Fred, who's madly in love with Polly. She's pleased to have a toyboy at her age.
