How To Bulk Up A Cat?

I've always had the opposite problem with my cats, but Leiki is getting too thin.

We feed her quite a bit, IMO, the recommended feeding thing on the bag says 3/4 c/day and we feed her almost a cup plus a small tin of wet food per day. 1 handful in the morning (~1/4 c.), one around lunch, another handful around dinner time and then the wet can around 9-10pm before we go to bed. The wet and the dinner meal sometimes switch. Anyways, since she's been wormed we've noticed just how thin she actually was. She's not sickly by any means, just extra lean I guess. She has a predominant waist when viewed from above, you can feel her ribs easily and feel her spine less easily, but neither are visible.

Do we just feed her more? Should we switch her food to something higher in calories? Right now she's eating Royal Canin Siamese dry with either Royal Canin Kitten (left over from when we got her), Royal Canin Beauty or Indoor as her wet. Sometimes we pick up different kinds of wet, just depends if something else is on sale or not.

She is pretty active, we play with her for about 1/2 hour during the day with the laser pointer/wand toy in the morning, then again at night. We basically play with her with her until she starts to get tired and breathe heavier. She doesn't play with toys on her own, but she will do laps around our apartment going full tilt until she tires herself out and falls asleep. Her last play session is just before we go to bed so that she doesn't keep us up.

We just had her at the vet the other week for the tapeworms and she was happy and healthy, everything was normal.

She's pretty picky, which is why we went with the RC Siamese, it was one of the only ones she'd eat.. she seems to enjoy the kibble shape, lol. We'd feed her more wet, but she doesn't get too enthusiastic about it (no matter the variety) and Mike is starting work soon so unless our schedules work out, we dont' want to leave wet food sitting out all day.

It sounds to me like she's at a perfect weight, she should have a waist and easily felt but not seen ribs. As long as she isn't dropping more weight I would leave her as is, just get a scale and weigh her weekly or whatever. My whole family keeps their cats morbidly obese and thinks mine is starving since I keep her lean.

Thanks, maybe I'm just thinking that she's too thin because my other cats have been on the pudgy side and where only really thin when they were sick (Frisco before we knew she had diabetes and Stan near the end with FIP).

Here are a few pictures so you can get an idea of her weight... I didn't realize how hard it was to get a picture from above of a cat, lol. Excuse the mess, we're in the process of taking everything out, sorting through it and donating/throwing out some stuff for spring cleaning.





Sitting:



And a cute one, lol

She looks good and healthy to me, I love her facial markings.

My Tortie, Kaymen is built just like that and she's going on 9. She eats normally but she's always stayed very slim, I call her my dainty girl, even her face seems dainty.

BTW, I'll take that donation box as long as Leiki comes with it

Thanks! I've always had a problem with knowing if a cat was underweight.

People really seem to love her, until they see her evil side, lol.

I think she looks fine weight-wise. She sure is a cutie

Perhaps I'm just used to fat cats, but I wouldn't feel bad about adding a bit of meat there. Active kitties need extra nomnoms.

A small layer of fat is not harmful and can help the kitty in times of illness from what I've read.

Heck, perhaps just throw in some treats now and then to the diet. Some greenies might be OK, are delicious according to my cats, and could be used for clicker training while you're at it.

Oooh I didn't even think of clicker training her, this could be fun.

We're so used to our dogs that even though we have a ton of treats for her, she hardly ever gets any. It's the same with the dogs, they only get treats very rarely.

I'll make sure to give her treats more often and keep her food where it is. She's the most active cat I've ever been around. I played with her for an hour last night with the pointer and with a wand toy and she still wanted to go.

Personally, Greenies are one thing that I would never use for treats. http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites...u-do-this.aspx lists some concerns about them. Are they really worth the risk when they have horrible ingrediants besides? When they have no dental benefit either?

Then what do I think are good treats? Freeze dried meat. http://www.petfooddirect.com/category/Cat/freeze-dried has a lot of the brands/flavors of these listed.

Originally Posted by furryfriends50

Personally, Greenies are one thing that I would never use for treats. http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites...u-do-this.aspx lists some concerns about them.

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That's a totally different product.

Those are the dental bone treats, and dogs were allegedly choking on the pieces. Not related to the greenies kibble pieces, and they should have some dental benefit as several studies have shown.

I would also be weary of any site that is just trying to sell you another product in its place.

Wow, she is really pretty! I agree with some of the other posts, she looks healthy...and her fur looks incredibly sheen and soft.

Thanks! She is super soft and shiny, she also doesn't seem to have an undercoat at all so she doesn't really shed. We just love her, she's so funny (albeit a PITA at times, lol).

My mom's friend just adopted a cat that looks a lot like Leiki, except for the facial markings.

Originally Posted by Ducman69

That's a totally different product.

Those are the dental bone treats, and dogs were allegedly choking on the pieces. Not related to the greenies kibble pieces, and they should have some dental benefit as several studies have shown.

I would also be weary of any site that is just trying to sell you another product in its place.

Click to expand...

Yet Mikey used to throw up these whole and VERY expanded...at least 4x the size and a few hours after eating them(before I knew about feline nutrition)? Or the cat that I know that did choke on them...was that just fake? Dog ones are differant in size, that's all. And would you really want to feed your cat these treats with gross ingrediants? Not me but go ahead if you think they are safe. It is something that I would not feed any of my cats if I was PAID too...

http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/alert-20060112.html:

Veterinarian Brendan McKiernan of Wheat Ridge, Colo., a board-certified internist, disagrees. "They don't dissolve in the stomach," he says. "When we take them out, they're not digested. And they are causing both esophageal and intestinal problems in dogs to an extent that is concerning."

Click to expand...

Originally Posted by furryfriends50

Yet Mikey used to throw up these whole and VERY expanded...at least 4x the size and a few hours after eating them(before I knew about feline nutrition)? Or the cat that I know that did choke on them...was that just fake? Dog ones are differant in size, that's all.

Click to expand...

I think there is a miscommunication here.

You linked to an article about the greenies dog bones. These are not the same as the greenies kibble treats. Its a completely unrelated product. They also have greenies pill pockets, this is all different stuff.

What you're thinking of: http://www.petsupplies4less.com/imag...s/Greenies.jpg
What we're talking about: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51b7dSFcMWL.jpg

We give the greenies dog bones to my sister's dogs. They are big toothbrush shaped very heavy solid pieces, and you are not supposed to give rawhide or ANY bone treat to a dog to nomnom on unsupervised, because they are all potential choking hazards if you have an extremely aggressive dog that bites big pieces instead of getting it all gooey from normal mastication first. They are also all unhealthy if given too much, greenies are no exception. Look on the back of the packaging they all have the same warning labels.

What was being mentioned here are the greenies kibble treats. These are 1/2" little poofy kibbles, not the big hard toothbrush things.

Originally Posted by Ducman69

I think there is a miscommunication here.

You linked to an article about the greenies dog bones. These are not the same as the greenies kibble treats. Its a completely unrelated product. They also have greenies pill pockets, this is all different stuff.

What you're thinking of: http://www.petsupplies4less.com/imag...s/Greenies.jpg
What we're talking about: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51b7dSFcMWL.jpg

We give the greenies dog bones to my sister's dogs. They are big toothbrush shaped very heavy solid pieces, and you are not supposed to give rawhide or ANY bone treat to a dog to nomnom on unsupervised, because they are all potential choking hazards if you have an extremely aggressive dog that bites big pieces instead of getting it all gooey from normal mastication first. They are also all unhealthy if given too much, greenies are no exception. Look on the back of the packaging they all have the same warning labels.

What was being mentioned here are the greenies kibble treats. These are 1/2" little poofy kibbles, not the big hard toothbrush things.

Click to expand...

The ones I used *before I knew about nutrition* where the greenies cat treats.

Now days I use PureBites freeze dried treats. I get the 6.2 ounce bag from the pet store for $16. Ingrediants: 100% Pure USDA Inspected Chicken Breast. The bag lasts a very long time! At least 1.5 months with it being split between 5 cats.

Compared to the ingrediants of Greenies:

Chicken meal, ground brewers rice, ground wheat, corn gluten meal, poultry fat (preserved with mixed topherols), sprayed dried hydrolyzed chicken protein concentrate, oat fiber, natural chicken flavor, vegetable oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), natural poultry and fish flavor, sodium gluconate, natural tuna flavor, brewer's dried yeast, calcium carbonate, potassium chloride, glucono-delta-lactone, citric acid, choline chloride, taurine Vitamins: [Vitamin A supplement, d-activated animal sterol (source of Vitamin D3 supplement), dl-alpha tocopherol acetate (source of Vitamin E), niacin supplement, d-calcium pantothenate, thiamine mononitrate (Vitamin B1), pyridoxine hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), riboflavin supplement, menadione sodium bisulfite complex (source of Vitamin K activity), folic acid, biotin, Vitamin B12 supplement], minerals: [zinc proteinate; copper proteinate, manganese proteinate, iron sulfate, sodium selenite, cobalt carbonate, ethylenediamine dihydriodide], mixed tocopherols, rosemary extract, dl methionine, chlorophyll.

Err...yum????