The Neptunea cumingi is a carnivorous gastropod mollusk. In practical aquaculture, varying degrees of starvation frequently occur due to untimely feeding. To elucidate the physiological adaptation patterns of whelks to starvation and to provide a theoretical basis for establishing science-based feeding strategies in artificial culture, this study used whelks of the “small-sized” size group with an initial wet weight of (21 ± 4.31 g) as experimental subjects. Five different feeding regimes were implemented: single-phase starvation groups (starvation for 10 days followed by feeding for 30 days, S10F30; starvation for 20 days followed by feeding for 20 days, S20F20; starvation for 30 days followed by feeding for 10 days, S30F10) and cyclic starvation groups (starvation for 3 days followed by feeding for 4 days, S3F4; starvation for 5 days followed by feeding for 7 days, S5F7). A control group (S0) was fed normally and ad libitum throughout the experiment. At the end of the experiment, growth performance, foot muscle glycogen content, and hepatic digestive enzyme and antioxidant indices were measured. The results showed that the cyclic starvation group S5F7 exhibited significantly higher final body weight, weight gain rate, and specific growth rate, along with a significantly lower feed conversion ratio compared to other groups (P < 0.05). The S10F30 group had the highest feeding rate (3.97 ± 0.31 %/d). Regarding digestive enzymes, the S30F10 group showed significantly increased amylase and trypsin activities but significantly decreased lipase activity (P < 0.05). For antioxidant indices, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities in the S10F30 and S30F10 groups were significantly higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05). In terms of glycogen, foot muscle glycogen content was highest in the S10F30 group and significantly greater than in all other groups (P < 0.05). The study indicates that, compared with the control, the cyclic feeding regime S5F7 significantly increased final body weight and specific growth rate in whelks, reflecting an over-compensatory growth response. In contrast, the regimes S3F4, S10F30, S20F20, and S30F10 resulted in final body weight and specific growth rate not significantly different from the control, achieving complete compensatory growth. To minimize feed, labor, and management costs in whelk aquaculture, the cyclic feeding regime of starvation for 5 days followed by feeding for 7 days (S5F7) can be adopted to effectively induce over-compensatory growth. This study provides a theoretical basis for the development of optimal feeding strategies in whelk culture.