Feeding dilemma

I have a cat that is very fat. I tried to go to schedule feeding for my cats because of her being so fat so I could cut down her portions but when I do that she eats too fast and pukes it back up immediately.

So Sissy(the fat cat) has to have food down all day so she can snack. So far she is my one cat that does not want to eat hardly any canned food.

Cemille is my normal cat, by that she is a small cat around 6-8lbs and will eat 3oz of canned food per day plus snack on the dry.

Manic will eat about 3 oz of canned food per day and snack on dry.

Sparky will eat about 7 or 8 oz of canned food per day and snack on dry.

Cemille is just my small cat, Sparky has to eat a lot to maintain his weight, Manic is at about the right weight maybe a few lbs over, and Sissy is really fat.

Now I was feeding Innova evo dry but now have switched to taste of the wild dry and to my surprise Sissy is eating it without puking it back up.(it has venison in it but its like the 6th ingredient down) Normally Sissy does not do too well on anything with beef, venison, lamb, red meat in it.

My question is would it be alright to switch them all to a dry food that is lower calorie? If it is, can anyone point me to a lower calorie food that would be good for all of them? Sparky is my only male here if that makes a difference.

Do you have a link to the new food???

EVO is HIGH HIGH CAL so easy answer yes a lower would be fine... but kep an eye out for wt loss ... So you use canned at all??

Here is a link to the new food.

http://www.tasteofthewildpetfood.com...eline_formula/

Yes, I feed canned food also and have actually been trying to get to more canned/all canned, less dry since reading on here. Sissy is not cooperating too well with this, she likes her dry food. She will only take a bite or two of canned food. I just went out and got Whiskas tuna and whitefish and this is what Sissy will eat a few bites of. (its in the pouches so not canned) She will eat a few bites of market selects also.

A cup of dry food is what gets put down each day. I bought the sheba premium cuts just to try to get Sissy to eat that but she won't.(its the kind that is not complete)

The other cats eat a variety of wet/canned foods.(whiskas purrrfect fish stuff, merricks all kinds, Innova reglar and evo, cal nat, meow mix market selects, wellness(did not go over too well), solid gold, natures variety, etc.)

My cats get bored real quick.

glad to hear the wet is in the making///

the new dry is decent ... MUCH lower in fatty acids than EVO so youll likely see more sheding .... I am not thrilled with peas and potato protein... Peas are a BIG allergen and potato protein is a lesser quality ingrediant

Is there a dry food that you would recommend? More shedding would be a disaster since none of them are short haired.

Since Sissy is the fatty, and the others will eat canned food, I'd make the dry food much harder to get. They sell scratching posts that release a little kibble http://www.amazon.com/Good-Pet-Stuff.../dp/B000MN7UYE (not tall enough to use as a regular scratching post), and there are several types of toys that release food:
http://www.cattoys.com/treattoys1.html
http://www.sitstay.com/store/toys/toysd.shtml

She'd get more exercise and small portions of food throughout the day, which should keep her from gorging/puking.

My mom has switched her fatties to a low cal food, but she still free-feeds them. They're getting fatter every day. I'm not convinced that switching to a low-cal food is going to be enough for cats who compulsively overeat.

Any reason you want to switch all the cats to a low calorie dry food? You can't just switch Sissy and continue giving everyone else their wet?

No, there is no reason for the others to be on a low calorie food. Whatever food is left out for Sissy they would all eat. That is why I was wondering if a low calorie food would fit with them all.

I don't know how to get Sissy onto a schedule feeding(where I could make sure the other cats did not get into her food) without her puking it back up. You get what I am saying? I am not sure if I am explaining this right.

The toys would be a no go cause I have dogs that would eat the toys, treat, dry food and all. Same with having kids that would eat the treats dropping out the toy.

I could take up the dry food completely and do Sissy on more meals throughout the day but smaller portions but then I will have the other cats looking at me like why is she getting something when we aren't.

I could do more smaller meals throughout the day for all of them it would just be a pain in the butt. I think I will be figuring out how to do this.

I am just trying to find a solution here thats all.

It took a while to switch my dry food addict over to wet. But here's how I did it, and actually, now she's on all raw (which was the next step for me, although, not advocating it to you)... Basically, she'd eat a mouthful or two of wet, but what I'd learned was that they basically don't stay hungry when there's dry down because they'll pick at it all the time. I'd use a combination of what Jen C. wrote, and use the interactive toys that you put the treats in (it's good for their mind as well as getting them some excerise *and* the added benefit that they can't just scarf it down, and they won't eat nearly as much). While using these, this will keep them from getting too hungry, and also cut down on any possibility of fatty liver disease (which is the one you hear about if they don't eat for 12 hours when they're overweight).. but will keep kitty hungry enough that when you present wet food at the "scheduled" times.. they're hungry enough to eat it.

Some of mine eat a lot more than my other ones. I feed them all at the same time, my heavy cat has lost a decent amount of weight since we started this practice, and my slightly heavy Mau lost her tiny pouchy belly. Everyone eats what they need, walks away, and then sometimes comes back a half hour later to nibble again. But they can only eat so much at one time, so it's fairly effective in keeping them in line with what they're supposed to be eating.

Your bigger cat will eat more, since he's got a bigger appetite. You could also feed three times a day, or four.. depending on your schedule. I only feed twice, even though I do have some gulpers. There are also "feeding dishes" that you can time to open at certain times for dinner so they can eat even if you're not home. If you feed more often and use the "snack" toys, it should help to keep her from being so hungry she gulps.

You might also try giving her a small portion of her food, and letting her gulp that, waiting 10 minutes or five minutes, and giving her the rest or a bit more.. once she has a bit in her stomach it should reduce the urge to gulp? Just a thought. But in any case, only giving it to her a bit at a time prevents her from gulping it all down at once. I'd also read that if you put it on a baking sheet (this might only apply to dry), that they have to "chase" the food across the sheet so they can't just bury their noses in it and gulp.

I'd just read something about weight loss and what is a safe rate. I think that they said about a couple of ounces a week, but I'd look it up. You don't want her to lose too quickly, and you might want to grab some NutriCal to be able to boost her calories if she starts loosing too much too fast, or what have you. The site I was reading was a breakdown of how many calories per day per food etc, and it was way too much information for me. I couldn't keep track of the numbers, but I stink at math.

Oh and for Sissy being fat she is active at night. Her and Cemille tear through the house everynight.

Thank you all very much. I believe I have enough suggestions here to form a plan.

I am a stay at home mom and we do not go on vacations because we have a dog that can only be handled by us. So I have all day everyday with me here, I don't have the hassle of what would I do if I have to be gone.

Originally Posted by Luckydog

Is there a dry food that you would recommend? More shedding would be a disaster since none of them are short haired.

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I know you got LOTS to work with ... I would look at Wellness core ... still a no grain but better for coat and other things...

Can you do homemade since your at home??

Hmm...dogs and kids do present additional challenges. If you do specific meals of dry food, you can try to slow her down by putting ping pong balls (or something similar) in the food bowl, so she can't just gulp mouthfuls over and over again until it's gone.

Also, I don't know how feasible this is with the dogs and kids, but I've also divvied up the meal among several bowls around the house, so the cat can only eat a little before having to move on to another bowl somewhere else. This backfired with one cat, though. He'd just race from bowl to bowl, gulp, and puke. He wasn't into strolling around looking for a few more bites. This was a free fed cat, so it's not like he was starving after not eating all day. He had food out all the time, but he'd literally race from bowl to bowl when he decided to eat. He was the one who got us onto ping pong balls.

God, I hate dry food. I can't wait until I convince the Meezer girl that wet (and, ultimately, raw) isn't toxic waste.

I really would not trust myself to get all the supplements right with a raw/homemade diet. The closest I could come to raw would be Natures Variety raw medallions.

Again thanks for all the input.

I am gonna try 4/5 small meals throughout the day and see how they all handle that. If Sissy eats it too fast and yacks it up I am gonna see how a baking sheet would work.

Now I just gotta chart out who gets what amount, which kind, what times and all that. Wish me luck!

for luck

Originally Posted by Luckydog

I really would not trust myself to get all the supplements right with a raw/homemade diet. The closest I could come to raw would be Natures Variety raw medallions.

Again thanks for all the input.

I am gonna try 4/5 small meals throughout the day and see how they all handle that. If Sissy eats it too fast and yacks it up I am gonna see how a baking sheet would work.

Now I just gotta chart out who gets what amount, which kind, what times and all that. Wish me luck!

Click to expand...

I tried measuring out what they were supposed to get.. it didn't work. I just toss it all down on a plate now and they eat till they're full and they all seem to be getting onboard with the proper weight. But.. I'm not particularly conventional that way..

I'd heard about 1/2 to 3/4 an ounce per pound of body weight.

i had my prettyboy on innova low calorie for a long time and did not
see a difference.

then someone told me that they actually don't loose weight on the low
calorie and for the life of me i can't remember the explanation but it
made sense so i switched him back to innova regular and then just
got really strict about measuring what he eats as far as dry food goes.

thats when he started loosing weight.

then i got an autofeeder that dispenses dry food with a timer and i love
that thing !! but now i don't think he loosing any more ?

could be i need to adjust the amount it dispenses ?

anyway... good luck !!!

EASY ANSWER ... CAT are CARNIVORES there NATURAL calories are protein and fat thus there bodies use those efficiantly... the ARE NOT built for carb digestion

Okay here is where I am at. First I went and got Nature's Variety raw medallions and Sparky has been eating that exclusively the last couple days. The other cats won't touch it.

I started feeding Cemille and Manic three wet meals a day morn, noon, night.

Sissy I tried getting on the 4-5 small meals of dry throughout the day the first day, and well I just ended up leaving the bowl out for her.

So, I notice the last two days that Sparky is eating all raw and not going to the dry food bowl at all, Sissy and Manic are eating there wet meals and I have not seen them at the dry food bowl either, I have put down 1/3c of dry and it has lasted Sissy all day.

Felix came back and he ate the raw!

So, Sissy still has her dry left down all day.

Okay, I'd take up the dry. .. well, here's what I did with mine.

I have Noel, the dry kibble queen, and who would only ever "lick" wet food and eat the sauce but not eat the actual food, except for maybe a bite or two.

When I started transitioning them over to the raw... I started it out by transitioning them all over to wet food. So, what I did was take up the dry. Put it away where they can't get it. I'd take it up in the morning before I went to work. When I got home, I'd put out some wet, and let them eat what they wanted. Most of them would eat at least a little. I'd wait until I went to bed, put down a handful or two of dry (I had four cats eating it though), so that they weren't completely starving, and then by morning, I figured they'd finished it off hours ago, and I'd offer them wet. After they ate their wet, and right before I'd go to work, I'd put down a tiny bit of dry (just so they'd have something in their stomach to avoid fatty liver disease). They really weren't getting enough dry to sustain them. Offer wet again at night.

My dry food addict switched to this fairly quickly, and without any real problems. She surprised me in that she didn't give me any issues. Now, she did beg me for dry kibble (she's spent 10 years eating dry food). But I just said, nope, and after a few days she stopped tripping me every three steps and got adjusted to only tripping me at actual feeding time. I continued to leave the dry down overnight, just so they were getting enough food, but I kept making sure that they didn't have enough that there was leftovers in the morning.

The key here is to make sure she's hungry. A cat who grazes all day never gets really hungry. I think I'd make sure she was hungry, and then feed her a spoonful at a time, or so, so that she can't gulp it down all at once. Give her like 2 minutes or something in between spoonfuls?

It's great that the others switched over to raw without too much trouble.