Portia weighs too much!

jane_vernon

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I weighed Portia this afternoon and she's 15.5 pounds!!


She doesn't seem to eat that much as Diesel is always the one running to the food bowls


They get fed once a day wet food, and then have dry food all day - Again, Diesel seems to be the one at the food bowls the most.

What can I do?
Diesel weighs 12 pounds, but is definately much leaner than Portia and doesn't feel anywhere near as heavy as she does.
 

spitfireccs

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You're lucky my cat weighs like 20 but I haven't weighed him in a while.
 

persi & alley

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Originally Posted by jane_vernon

I weighed Portia this afternoon and she's 15.5 pounds!!


She doesn't seem to eat that much as Diesel is always the one running to the food bowls


They get fed once a day wet food, and then have dry food all day - Again, Diesel seems to be the one at the food bowls the most.

What can I do?
Diesel weighs 12 pounds, but is definately much leaner than Portia and doesn't feel anywhere near as heavy as she does.
Judging from your siggy, Portia looks good, not overweight. My Persi only weighs 10 pounds but his mother weighs 14. I keep hoping he will gain some more weight, he is only ten months old. Personally, I really like big cats but Portia does not look that big to me.
 

goldenkitty45

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You don't mention the age or the type of bodies of your cats, but I would not free feed the dry all day if you are also giving canned food. Start by giving a set amount of dry - when its gone its gone til the next time. Maybe only put a 1/4 cup of dry in each bowl.

How much of the canned are you feeding each?
 

beandip

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I agree that 15.5 lbs is not necessarily overweight. It all depends on the frame that weight is on. But, if you thought about weighing her maybe it's because she was looking 'chubby' to you?

There's only a 1.5lb difference between my Leopold and Beandip, but Leopold "looks" like he's 5 lbs heavier!! Just because they're body frame shape/size is different.
 

sharky

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I would get the vets opinion on weather or not Portia is proportional... i thought my dog was obese and the vet said nope just a touch overwt keep an eye on her... I too agree less dry out all day and maybe more canned at meal time( better for all kitties
)
 

jaycee

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kya was free fed all day long and she got kinda chunky so i started measuring the food per day and once it was gone that was it. it worked very nicely


now that i have two cats, ive had to switch to scheduled meal times so one doesnt eat all the food so now all the animals get fed once in the morning and once in the evening.
 
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jane_vernon

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Pombina - Thanks!
I know, she was such a teeny little thing and now she's Huge!

I'll get some updated pics cause the ones in my siggy are from a while ago.

The reason I weighed her is because she seems so much heavier than her brother who is about 4 months older than she is.

She seems to have a lot of excess skin haning down around her belly - Which is also weird because that would indicate her not being as fat/big as she could be.

I feed between the two cats a half 400g can of Whiskers - Which most of the time doesn't completely get eaten,,,So maybe I'm just being a paranoid Momma cause she's my little bottle fed bub!

Thanks for the advice guys - I might take a trip to the vets and see what he says about the whole thing - Also might try and reduce the amount of dry stuff, see how much they are actually going through in a day.
 
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jane_vernon

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Ok, here are some updated pic!

You can see her belly hanging down here






And here is Diesel for comparison



Oh! And Portia is about 1 1/2 years and Diesel is nearly 2.
 

goldenkitty45

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The problem with free feeding dry is you really have no way of knowing how much they are eating. Most cats wind up too fat - very few you can really leave "free feed".

I free feed kittens up till they are about 3 months old - then start limiting the food so they don't wind up overweight. Works out good.

Charlie's 6 months old now - 2 meals a day and he's a solid 7 lbs
 

katachtig

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Her belly just looks like spay sway. Does she feel muscular to you or flabby? Lucy now weighs more than Much and Carly but is very muscular.
 
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jane_vernon

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I thought her belly was spay sway too.

Well, she feels more flabby - The sway is all skin, not really much fat there that I can tell.

Whereas, Diesel definately feels muscular.

Charlie is only 7 pounds! Wow! He must be a small kitty! I thought Diesel was fairly small and he's 12!

Thanks Katachtig for the links - I think she may be a little overweight - Think I'll reduce the free feeding and see how she goes

My problem then is, Diesel loves the biscuits and I definately don't want him getting any smaller!
 

katachtig

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I can sympathize. Carly was underweight when we got her and now she is packing on the pounds. Meanwhile, Much has been losing weight for some unknown reason (the vet hasn't found a cause) so I'm trying to make sure one doesn't get too heavy and the other doesn't lose too much weight.
 

jaycee

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the vet said kya just had spay sway but she looks so much better after i cut back her food and the spay sway started to disappear too.
 

MoochNNoodles

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It's hard to tell even from pictures. Like my girls, Noodles looks fluffy, but she's at least a pound lighter than Mooch, who is sleek but heavy with muscle. Then my Bunny looks like a lil round butterball, but she's lighter than my 2 by far! Olivia is the longest, but probably weighs 6lb soaking wet she's so thin.
 

goldenkitty45

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Ocicat males full grown only weigh between 9-12 lbs - actually Charlie will be on the bigger end - breeder told us when we got him she estimates him to go 12 lbs when grown.

He's on track - he'll be full grown at a year old
 
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