From bags to cans after 16 years

Patricia always loved wet food since the first time she ate it - as long as it was not 9Lives. The texture did not matter. But after moving in early December, she did not want wet food anymore. I assumed she had decided not to eat any wet food, period, because it was Blue Buffalo and I feed her BB kibbles. That makes no sense.

During her first appointment in Florida, the vet asked me if she is eating any wet food. I told him she refuses to eat it. He told me to try again. I quickly realized the problem was it smells different, not the texture, and she would rather eat any kind of fish than chicken (even though she is eating chicken every day in her kibbles). The taste test continues.

My biggest challenge will be switching her from 24/7 availability to scheduled meals. She weighs between 9 and 10 pounds, which is good for her size. Except for gingivitis, she is in good health, so I am just doing this because it is the right thing to do.

Gingivitis  IMHO is serious, the pathways to tooth decay & some heart issues clearly get started from bacteria that thrive in infected gums. What does her health care adviser plan to do about the gingivitis?

fair2middling said:

Gingivitis  IMHO is serious, the pathways to tooth decay & some heart issues clearly get started from bacteria that thrive in infected gums. What does her health care adviser plan to do about the gingivitis?

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He will do a full dental cleaning in January. I don't know if teeth will be removed or not.

You're not treating her gingivitis until January? I sure wouldn't want my mouth sore and infected for that long.

That is what the vet said. Not my decision.

I am guessing her mouth will not be as sore when she stops eating kibbles.

Laurie, did it take a long time to switch all eight cats to scheduled meals?

I just picked up the kibble one morning. I put down bowls of wet food. Now - they'd been eating wet food in AM and PM already. Mid-morning, they noticed there was no food down, but didn't freak out. I gave them a meal at lunch-time. By afternoon, my die-hard kibble addicts, Lazlo, Tuxedo and Flowerbelle were pestering me, but I made them wait for dinner (at 5:30). I gave them another meal around 10:30pm - 11:00pm. They woke me up in the middle of the night asking for kibble.

I did continue to give kibble to them as a treat. Due to our living circumstances, I fed it to them in the bathroom. I did this so I could sleep LOL. Flowerbelle would literally rip at my hair.

It wasn't until we made the switch to raw that I actually tossed what was left of the kibble. I probably would have tossed it sooner (I made the switch to canned/timed meals in November 2010), but once Lazlo was diagnosed with lymphoma and undergoing chemo, I continued to give it to just him at night. I figured at that point he could have whatever he wanted. Flowerbelle couldn't rip at my hair if I pulled the sheet up over my head. :lol3: Of course, I had to keep the bedside table clear, or anything on it would be dumped by her onto the floor. (She pushes things off of stuff when she wants something).

It was easy to dump the kibble when we switched to raw. The food satisfies them more, so no one begs for food between meals. I went from four meals a day to three once we were on raw. Again, I didn't do it slowly. I just one day divided their food allotment for the day into three meals and didn't feed that meal at lunch. They didn't seem to notice that one. :dk:

EmilyMayWilcha said:

That is what the vet said. Not my decision.

I am guessing her mouth will not be as sore when she stops eating kibbles.

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I find that really odd. Did they do anything to treat it?

LDG said:

EmilyMayWilcha said:

That is what the vet said. Not my decision.

I am guessing her mouth will not be as sore when she stops eating kibbles.

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I find that really odd. Did they do anything to treat it?

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Gingivitis doesn't have to mean a sore mouth. There are varying levels. Coco was diagnosed with mild [color= rgb(24, 24, 24)]gingivitis when she was 8 mos old. That was over 5 years ago. She has never received any kind of treatment and her gums have actually improved a bit.[/color]

[color= rgb(24, 24, 24)]  [/color]

LDG said:

I find that really odd. Did they do anything to treat it?

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http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245959/patricias-first-appointment#post_3221705

I have a feeling this "in six months" was more like "within 6 months"

l'm glad to hear you're switching Patricia over to wet food, Andrea. l hope it goes well for both of you.

l just had my guy at the vet today and found out he too has gingivitis at only 6 years old. He was already booked for a full clean at the end of this month, but the vet said he can see just by looking (no x-rays yet, he said he'll do x-rays when he's under anaesthetic) that there is at least one tooth that needs to be extracted.

Be glad you don't live up here, l was quoted $1200 for the scaling and one extraction!

Does anyone have suggestions for what times to feed her or the number of meals?

mschauer said:

Gingivitis doesn't have to mean a sore mouth. There are varying levels. Coco was diagnosed with mild 
gingivitis when she was 8 mos old. That was over 5 years ago. She has never received any kind of treatment and her gums have actually improved a bit.

 

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Patricia's gums are bleeding: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245959/patricias-first-appointment#post_3221668

EmilyMayWilcha said:

Does anyone have suggestions for what times to feed her or the number of meals?

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Well, the schedule I used worked pretty well for my kitties. I don't know your schedule, but when we transitioned to timed feedings, I fed them around 8:00am (so it's not right when I wake up, giving me some leeway in the mornings), 12:30pm, 5:30pm, and 10:30 - 11:00pm. The difficult part was between their last meal and their first meal. Other than at night, I did NOT give them any food when the begged between meals, because I wanted them hungry AT meals, and I didn't want them to learn that if they pestered, they got rewarded. At the first few days, they didn't eat much food at the timed meals, but they quickly started eating more.

To figure out how much to feed her, take up the food, and put down the amount you would normally put in her bowl if it were empty - just measure it. The next day at the same time, measure how much is left. Do that for a few days, and it should probably be a fairly consistent amount that's been eaten. Just average it out, and then divide that amount into however many meals you're going to feed. That way you can monitor how much she is eating vs how much she was eating.

Once she's eating timed meals comfortably, it'll be easier to switch to canned. :nod:

LDG said:

mschauer said:

Gingivitis doesn't have to mean a sore mouth. There are varying levels. Coco was diagnosed with mild 
gingivitis when she was 8 mos old. That was over 5 years ago. She has never received any kind of treatment and her gums have actually improved a bit.

 

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Patricia's gums are bleeding: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/245959/patricias-first-appointment#post_3221668

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Oh! Poor kitty!

LDG said:

I just picked up the kibble one morning. I put down bowls of wet food. Now - they'd been eating wet food in AM and PM already. Mid-morning, they noticed there was no food down, but didn't freak out. I gave them a meal at lunch-time. By afternoon, my die-hard kibble addicts, Lazlo, Tuxedo and Flowerbelle were pestering me, but I made them wait for dinner (at 5:30). I gave them another meal around 10:30pm - 11:00pm. They woke me up in the middle of the night asking for kibble.

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exactly.  once there is a terminal illness, i think anything goes, as long as it doesn't make them feel worse.  i get so angry with people who want to discontinue morphine for cancer patients because "it's addictive." jeez. diotima paws at my hair, houdini tries to eat it, baci jumps on top of me (and he's heavy) and all three of them walk on the nightstand and knock everything off if they're hungry.  if i oversleep, it's expected, but they've gotten me up at 5:30 AM for food and guess what didn't happen? LOL  (i also pull up the sheet and put pillows over my head and wail, "noooooooo leave me alone.")

emily, all i know is that cats should ideally be fed at least twice a day but if it doesn't bother you or she can't seem to eat a lot at one time, three times i guess.  for me, four times a day is just too much.  i try to feed the first meal between 8 & 9 but it depends on if you have to go work or not.  sometimes they get a mini-lunch around 2, and the last meal no later than 7 or 8.  later than that and mine will be picky at the first meal.  hunger goes a long way in assisting compliance with the better quality foods because guess what?  they're not so tasty as compared with all that "junk" food that's coated with rendered garbage.  that stuff smells to high heaven, the better food doesn't.  but if they're really hungry, bland wholesome food probably tastes fine to them.

when i was working, they got fed at 5:30-6:00 AM when i was leaving, and didn't get fed again until i got home, which was almost always at least 12 hours later.  they never ate after 8 PM because that's when i went to bed (i got up at 3:30 to get ready).  so once every 12 hours won't starve anyone.

cinderflower said:

emily, all i know is that cats should ideally be fed at least twice a day but if it doesn't bother you or she can't seem to eat a lot at one time, three times i guess.  for me, four times a day is just too much....

when i was working, they got fed at 5:30-6:00 AM when i was leaving, and didn't get fed again until i got home, which was almost always at least 12 hours later.  they never ate after 8 PM because that's when i went to bed (i got up at 3:30 to get ready).  so once every 12 hours won't starve anyone.

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Well, cats are "designed" to have a number of small meals a day (think mice. :lol3: ). Feeding every 12 hours certainly won't starve them, but Emily plans on switching Patricia to raw down the road. When eating raw, their systems adjust and become more acidic. A lot of kitties have problems vomiting bile if they're only being fed twice a day, and adding another meal seems to help resolve that problem. So targeting at least three from the get-go is probably a good idea.

That said, one of the reasons to stop the grazing is that cats need that "hunger pang" to stimulate gastric emptying. Auntie Crazy (http://www.catcentric.org) referenced the Nutrition Research Council's Nutritional Requirements of Dogs and Cats in an article somewhere that I can't find now, but she was kind enough to remind me: insoluble fiber is the last thing to leave the stomach, and the hunger pangs trigger the gastric emptying; this helps pass the hair (and prevent nausea and constipation).

Some kitties probably do just fine on two meals a day. But I feel the more meals you can feed, the better. We wanted them on the 3-a-day schedule because we're not always here in the middle of the day to feed them. And if feeding raw, most kitties seem to need at least 3 a day to prevent the vomiting from acid build-up in an empty stomach.

[quote name="cinderflower" url="/t/246501/from-bags-to-cans-after-16-years#post_3227447] diotima paws at my hair, houdini tries to eat it, baci jumps on top of me (and he's heavy) and all three of them walk on the nightstand and knock everything off if they're hungry.  if i oversleep, it's expected, but they've gotten me up at 5:30 AM for food and guess what didn't happen? LOL  (i also pull up the sheet and put pillows over my head and wail, "noooooooo leave me alone.") [/quote]

That was the "not fun" part of switching to timed meals. :lol3:

I think the key to switching cats to scheduled feedings is going slow. Like put down her kibble and wet food at mealtime, and leave it the kibble down for about 4-5 hours on the first day. Then on the second day, leave it out for 2 hours. And slowly decrease to the point where, she knows when her food is coming and she knows it's not there to graze on anymore. You don't wanna shock her into losing weight at sixteen.

maybe put that logo on hold and take care of the cat who is with you now.  A dental now can prevent it from getting worse/needing more expensive and more stressful treatment.