How much is too much for a cat gaining weight?

My new cat Marcel is very underweight and needs to be on a weight-gaining diet until he's reached a healthy weight.  If I just constantly fed him wet food, it seems like he would be happy to just constantly eat, but how much is too much?  Is it unsafe for cats to gain weight TOO quickly? 

Yesterday I let him eat four 3.3. oz cans of food and would have let him eat more, but I was paranoid about having him eat TOO much in case it's bad for him??  Thoughts??

Cats can over eat and make themselves sick (and make a mess for you to clean up).

I usually fatten scrawnies up with high quality wet food and a good quality kitten dry.

But continue with measured feeding of the dry.

Your cat won't get sick from gaining weight too fast, the only thing that can happen is if you give him two cans At Once, then he could throw up. Also, he may be upset later when he doesn't get 12oz a day like before. But other than that, feed him as much wet as you like.

Good to know! Thanks!! I guess I'll just keep feeding a lot, just not too much at once! And slowly lessen the amount as he gets to a better weight so he won't get too grouchy when he's all the sudden eating half of what I let him eat before!

Are you able to give a few small meals a day? Say four :dk:... Then I would split the wet cans up evenly for the extra meals. To gain weight your cat should eat about 450 - 500 calories a day, of a good quality wet food. You can also leave a dry down if you only have this one cat.... otherwise the other cats might chow down all day on the dry . To maintain weight it is about 25 - 30 calories/pound (weight of cat). So if your cat weighs 10 pounds, then 250 to 300 calories a day is about right. Each cat is different, though. Some will gain quickly, other's just can't seem to get a good weight on them. But if they stay too thin even after loading them up with quality calories, then a vet check is in order. Good luck and sounds like all is going well with Marcel . :catguy:

Four meals a day is how I've been doing it, so four 3.3 cans/ day. I'll be letting him free-feed dry soon also (my other cat free feeds on dry too, so it will work out fine for the two of them), but he had some dental work and I have to wait.

For now he's eating fancy feast, but soon I'm going to start alternating his meals with some better stuff, but I wanted to keep him on the same diet he was on at the shelter just to make him comfortable and get him eating nicely.

He hasn't gained any noticeable weight yet, but soon he should be filling out i think. He seems happy/healthy otherwise.

 I would also feed him frequent smaller meals. Just to be easier on his stomach I don't know a good kitten food but I hear it's good for fattening rescues up. As for feeding solely wet food I would be concerned he would get used to it and continually gain weight while also begging for wet food. We just got our rescue Ollie, and he is underweight so we were feeding him all wet food which made his world. When we bought the dry food he turned his nose up for a second and wanted more wet food. Already spoiled Good luck!

OllieOxenfree said:

As for feeding solely wet food I would be concerned he would get used to it and continually gain weight while also begging for wet food.

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There's nothing wrong with that. Wet is better for cats anyhow, so if he learns to prefer wet over dry, good on him.

Really? Oh man I have lots to learn!! I thought too much wet food was bad for them (growing up I heard that a lot) and I read wet food was good for them too (recently online) Thanks for clarifying!