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Moving to a wet food diet

post #1 of 6
3/24/11 at 5:52pm
Thread Starter 
I have 3 girls 2 of which are normal weight between 10 and 11lbs) and 1 that is about 3 pounds overweight, weighing in at a whopping 15.5lbs. Currently I am feeding 1 5.5 oz can of Wellness split between the 3 of them and 1/2 to 3/4 cups of the Purina DM twice daily. My oldest who is at an ideal weight is also diabetic and is a grazer. She refuses to eat a large meal in one sitting. My goal is to get each cat to eat 1/2 5.5oz can in the morning and evening and then I will also feed 1/2 cup of dry at night between the 3 of them. Is this enough food for each cat and is there a way to break an almost 15 yr old cat from grazing? Any feedback would be appreciated!
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post #2 of 6
3/24/11 at 6:24pm
If I needed to break one of my cats from the habit of grazing over the day I would:

1) take away the bowl of dry food
2) try avoid looking at the cats eyes as they are going to give you the most pathetic and sad looks
3) try to have set meal times that are 3 hours apart to begin with. Give the wet food, allow her to eat as much as she wants, and then put it away
4) over the next few days switch to feeding 4 times a day...then gradually decrease to however many times you want to feed each day.

For I diabetic cat I would personally take away all dry food. They do not need to graze, and kibble is just to high in carbs for them, prescription or not. I would suggest reading "Your Cat: Simple Secrets to a Longer, Stronger Life" written by Elizabeth Hodgekins, DVM. http://books.google.com/books?id=aCU...page&q&f=false is a link to the book on google.

http://yourdiabeticcat.com/diet.html has information regarding feeding a diabetic cat.
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post #3 of 6
3/24/11 at 7:25pm
yourdiabeticcat.com

No dry and you will see the numbers change(and keep in mind you HAVE to test or you may shoot a to low number and end up hypoing her.

My diabetic food controlled cat Benji does great on grazing. Hes normally in the 60s on his own now.
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post #4 of 6
3/24/11 at 7:45pm
Welcome to TCS, Gibsgirl94!

I second FurryFriends' recommendations, with the addition that your kitties will probably be happier and more comfortable being fed no less than three times a day.

And I second and third the recommendation to ditch the dry kibble completely.

Best regards!

AC

P.S. My Allen and your Jasmine are darn near identical!! I orange kitties!!

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post #5 of 6
3/27/11 at 6:38am
Thread Starter 
I appreciate all the suggestions. I will definitely check out the links provided. With Mitsy our diabetic kitty she has never been much for eating wet food, she is a dry food addict. So getting her to eat the wet food and actually liking it has been a milestone! When she was diagnosed we were lucky she was under control within 2 weeks on 2 units of U100 PZI twice daily. Over the last 2 years we have been able to get her down to 1 unit twice daily. I have never done any home testing and have been reading that you can use a glucometer to do this. With this change in diet I definitely think this is going to be necessary. Can anyone recommend a tester that I could do for home testing?

AC - Your Allen does look a lot like our Jazzy. He is beautiful. I love orange kitties too!
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post #6 of 6
3/27/11 at 8:55am
http://www.ibdkitties.net/felinediabetes.html may be helpful. It talks about many aspects of feline diabetes including hometesting.
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