Overweight kitten?

How can you tell if a kitten is overweight and what can you do?
My foster kittens are about 15-16 weeks old and they are all big kittens, but one of them weighs 6.7 pounds! I can feel his ribs so I don't know if he is overweight or just big? The next smallest is a female and she is 6.4 pounds but the rest are about 5 1/2 pounds or less. They run and play all night so I know they get a lot of exercise... They all share a food dish, I feed them Orijen dry food.

I've heard that kittens really don't get overweight- they only eat as much as they need.

Maybe you should introduce wet food. Wet usually has less calories. I would just free feed wet and dry.

They just sound like big kittens to me...even my monster didn't weigh that much at that age

Do you have access to the purina or science diet wt charts ???

being a kitten I would imagine it may just be nearing a growth spurt but the VET is the best one to judge the wt of animal

Usually kittens are approximately a pound per month of age, maybe a bit more. If your kittens are 6 lbs + and only 4 months old, they are at risk for being overweight later. Are they spayed/neutered yet? If not, then they could even out. If they are, then you need to adjust their food and probably start giving less and spacing out their food intake - not free feeding them.

http://www.placervillevet.com/feline...0condition.htm

try looking at this

The kittens have slight "tummies" from above but I can feel their ribs without a thick fat covering so I am not sure? I guess I will ask my vet. They shouldn't have worms or anything, I'd been worming them with drontal every 2 weeks.
Oh, they are all neutered except the two smallest, I wasn't sure they were big enough when I made the appointment and the s/n clinic would only let me bring in 5 at once (usually they only allow 4 but they made an exception) so the two smallest are still waiting to be s/n.

My 1-year-old Church was 5.65 pounds at 4 months old and I thought that was big! He is probably a half-brother to these kittens because I think they had the same (feral) mother as him but 6.7 just seems too big!

Hey just wanted to update, I took him in to the vet because I was worried it could be fluid or something (or worms) because his stomach was rather round... She said he's just chubby. Oh, he also got x-rays because the x-ray machine needed to be tested so we figured we might as well use him. They were all clear although she said his liver seemed a little bit 'rounded' which is a bit odd but nothing to be overly worried about and she said we can check it again later to make sure.
I don't know why he's so big because they all share food and get the same amount of exercise, but he is just a big and chubby kitten... I just weighed him and he is 7.65 pounds now so he gained a pound in two weeks, which is twice the norm of 1 pound per month. Of course, my other cat Church (who may be related to these kittens) also gained 2 pounds a month for his first 7-9 months but he was never overweight and he's now about 10.7 pounds at 13 months.

There's another female kitten in the litter who was just a few ounces less than the big male when I weighed them 2 weeks ago (haven't weighed her since), I brought her in as well to have the vet take a look and she also checked out fine...just big! My vet said it could be because they were spayed/neutered early that they are overweight, but they are also large for their age.

The smallest kitten in the litter who was a runt is a little over 5 pounds now, which seems fairly normal for a female that age.