How to tell if your cat is underweight?

Since smokie was throwing up I had noticed that I could feel his back bones more. I could feel his hip bones more. He's always been a active thin cat and thin. He gets active and races around the house in the morning and late evening. He doesn't over eat, and he drinks ample water. The last time he was weighed I think was 2006 or so and he was at 11.5 lbs. I was weighing him when he was throwing up and he was at 10lbs. I've since put the cats on light formula food and I take up at night. Since doing that he's at 9 to 9.5 lbs. I can't leave the bowl out all night or the two heavier cats will eat more than they need. I've got faith down to 17lbs now. I don't want to undo the good so far. I've tried putting him in a room with the bowl but he won't eat then either because he's away from everyone else. And we get to hear him yowling and crying all night. I've tried putting the two cats that need to loose weight in a room by themselves with water and litter box but they seem to just hide when they are in the room. They don't like being away from the others either. They seem to stress out. I'm not sure what I should do.

When smokie was into the vet the last time, he wasn't concerned about his weight. He said that as cats age they tend to get more boney and can go down in weight a little. He is around 9 1/2 years old. But I have Sassy who is probably around 13 years old or so and I can't feel her back bones and she feels like she is more solid than he is. And she's 7lbs. So that's what makes me think that he may be underweight. But I'm not entirely sure though. His skin and fur are nice and shiny. I look at older photos of him from several years ago and I can see the difference. He does look more thin.

However I have a friend who has a ragdoll cat who is probably as old as sassy and when I pick her up or pet her you can feel her back bones a whole lot more. I even asked my friend if her vet was concerned with how bony she seemed to be. She told me that she had a clean bill of health from the vet and that because of her age she can feel more bony. I'm not sure if all cats are different or what. Maybe I'm being overly paranoid. But I never used to feel his backbones at all. I've never had an elderly cat before. I've had two other cats who passed away before they got to that age.

I do have pictures of him. Maybe give an opinion of what you think.







When I had him on 2 cans of cat food and also dry a day he did start gaining, but can't afford to give him more than at least 1 can a day plus dry. I will be going to regular cat food instead of light.

If you can give me any ideas on inexpensive ways to help him gain weight that would be great

Originally Posted by mizmelzy

If you can give me any ideas on inexpensive ways to help him gain weight that would be great

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The only solution is more calories. Talk to your vet, ask what they think would be his ideal weight and find out exactly where he is now. You either have to add that can back in or replace it with more dry.

Pictures alone are hard to tell from, but if you strongly feel that he's too thin you're probably right.
I could tell when Blann lost .4th of a pound and know he's lost more since, while he's not thin yet I know he should really be at 10.5lbs as he's a good sized stockier young cat. (at the beginning of all this he was 10.7lbs - a tad bit over)

As always, and since there's vomiting involved, have the vet make sure nothing serious is going on. You may need to have full blood work done since he's a senior cat.

I do keep the dry out all day long so he can eat when he's hungry. A friend of mine who runs a rescue said that with one of the cats she mixes some kitten food into regular food. Kittens need more calories and said that mixing it with regular would help. He still gets the nutrients he needs with the added calories from the kitten food. But I do have a call into my vet. He's supposed to be calling me back sometime today.

He did stop vomiting a while ago. I did get a second opinion when he was throwing up and both vets said it was from irritation in his stomach. The vet isn't sure why but thinks it has to do with an intolerance to dry food. I added 1/2 a can of wet to his diet and he stopped throwing up. The best the vet could tell is that he has some kind of tolerance level to ingredients in the dry and by adding 1/2 can of wet it helps balance it out. The vet did blood work and all came out within normal range.

So it was regurgitation? What dry was it?

And yes, dry sits on the belly a bit longer so some cats can have more problems with it than wet. In terms of cost, more wet would be cheaper to feed him. You don't save money on food if he can't keep it down - it becomes a wasted meal.

Did the vet check liver, kidneys, and thyroid? This isn't in normal blood work.

Yes he did check for all of those. Everything came back normal. Right now he's doing good on the dry. They were switched from eukanuba, to Chicken Soup which they love. I think that he's intolerant to the beet ingredient that was in the eunakuba. Because even with the 1/2 can he started to throw up again so I changed him and within a day or so he stopped. And that's been several months now.

He was throwing up sometimes 2 or three times a day. It would be every time he ate within like 1/2 an hour to an hour he'd throw it up right away. At first it was mostly solid undigested dry coming up. After while then it would sit longer in his system but would eventually come up as mush with a little blood from throwing up so much. Both vets said it was some kind of irritation in his stomach. We tried prebiotics which didn't help any. And several other medications to help settle his stomach. Nothing helped until I put him on all wet at first. Once he had stopped throwing up for a while I gradually got him down to 1/2 a can a day. He has to at least have 1/2 a can a day or he starts throwing up again. I have not tried him on the new food straight yet. I'm waiting a while giving his system time to adjust. He started with the throwing up at the end of may beginning of June. And I switched in July his food. So I'm waiting a couple of months and then will try him on the new stuff. Right now he's on friskies which fits into my budget. I have 6 cats so dry is cheapest for me. I can't afford to put him on all wet. I looked into it and even with putting him on just friskies wet...is too much. So I have him at a balance now that works. He won't touch the generic store brand. Tried him on it because it was a little cheaper and he would not eat it. So I put him on friskies because he likes it so much.