Update on Kip + suggestions for encouraging weight gain

I think some folks here might be familiar with my Kippy's story and his fatty liver disease. A small update: he's still kicking. The good news is he is definitely eating better than before, usually a rate of 3-4 cans of Fancy Feast a day...give or take. He generally leaves behind a few bits of food. I also got him off the Gravy Lovers kind he loved and more onto the grilled kind, though after looking at a kitty food nutrition chart, I see that the kitten turkey flavor and the flaked trout adult formula have the most calories per can for Fancy Feast, so I may get him those for a try.

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I also found out that, of all places, Tractor Supply Co. carries brands like Wellness. I would like to give him this since I think it would actually be about the same price per 5/5 oz can as two 3 oz. cans of Fancy Feast. The problem is Kip is still quite finicky and refuses to eat any cat food or tuna that has been refrigerated. He'll eat cold deli meat just fine, but will not touch canned cat food that has been in t he refrigerator, and since he hardly ever eats more than 3 ounces of food at one time, I would likely wind up wasting half these bigger cans...assuming he'd eat them.

He's only been eating this well for maybe a week or so and I think I am starting to see some slight weight gain. Not a lot, but he feels a little heavier and his belly isn't quite so sunken in. The bad part is he has noticeably less energy (though he is very vocal and energetic when it's food time) and he also has become more moody. Don't get me wrong, he's always been a temperamental cat; he'd be all happy one minute, then he'd start growling and hissing and bolt from the room, and then come back in 2 minutes later acting all happy again. Lately, though, he's been having more mood swings than normal and while I can get him to purr, he kind of gives me the cold shoulder and I don't know why.

He's not depressed or anything, he doesn't avoid me, but he's just not quite so snuggly. This might be a better thing to ask in the Behavior section. I thought maybe I'd see an improvement in behavior with improved eating habits. He still acts all lovey dovey when he sees my boyfriend, which he's always done, so that's good. I just wish I knew why he seems to not like me anymore when he used to be such an affectionate kitty.

Anyway, I would like to ask if there is maybe something more I can do to encourage weight gain for Kip. He has not eaten dry food in about 2 or 3 months, so that's out. It's been all canned food with very little human food because when he gets something like turkey or cheese, he goes off his cat food for 2 or 3 days. Could anyone suggest a brand of cat food that comes in a 3 oz can that would have more calories? Perhaps just anything for kittens would be alright? I know Wellness makes 3 oz cans, but I don't think anywhere local carries that size. I have also contemplated making homemade cat food using Catinfo.org's recipe, but since Kip takes such issue with refrigerated/re-heated food, I worry I'm going to spend a fortune on meat and vitamins and he won't eat it. He has turned up his nose at cooked chicken before.

One final question: I have read that a cat should get at least 15 calories per pound of (ideal) body weight every day. Is this true? My short term goal for Kippy's weight is 10 pounds and while I try to feed him as much as possible, I'm wondering if 150 calories a day for him would be an okay minimum number to aim for. I think he gets that much from the food he does eat, even when he leaves a little behind.

Great to hear he's doing so well!!

I'm not familiar with foods and calories, but had a thought on feeding partial cans. You can splop partial cans into a sandwich baggie, smoosh it flat, write on it what it is and the date, and put it in the freezer. Keeps it fresh, and thaws in a bowl of warm water in minutes! Fresh and not cold when fed. :rub:

Thanks very much for the tip, but with Kip, the issue with leftover food is not the temperature. I think it's the moisture or maybe the texture. I have tried making leftover food more palatable for him by adding warm water, microwaving for a few seconds until just lukewarm, placing it in a dish over hot water like a double boiler kind of thing. Nothing works. It's like he knows it's not fresh out of the can and will not touch it.

I think moisture is a big thing for him. A few weeks ago, I gave him some leftover Gravy Lovers Fancy Feast (just the chunks of food) and mixed them into a fresh can of the exact same brand and flavor of food. He would not touch it because there were too many chunks in it and he had a tendency of just eating the gravy. I opened a second can that had nothing added to it (of the same exact flavor) and he ate the whole thing. This is how picky he is. Thankfully he has taken a liking to canned food that is more food than liquid and probably has a little more in terms of calories too, but this is something I am not used to at all. Every other cat I've ever had would eat just about anything. Kip has been doing good lately with food, but there have been days when he would eat nothing. Every single thing I gave him, he refused...or he'd want some bizarre thing like a peanut butter granola bar (he seems to love peanut butter, for some reason). And when he's going on two days not eating anything, I feel like I have to give him whatever he will eat if it won't make him sick.

But he hasn't done that in about a week or so, and I'm hoping he continues to eat his kitty food. I gave him some deli turkey earlier as a treat (which he devoured), and he nibbled at some canned food a few hours later. It's hard to tell sometimes when he's hungry, though. Usually I show him his food dish and if he gets all wide-eyed and starts meowing, I know he's hungry. Sometimes he won't meow at all and it's a 50-50 chance that he's actually hungry.

Well, when food is in the fridge, no matter how well sealed, it (especially to cats) can change in smell, and you do need to do something to it to make it ... not cold.

When you freeze the food, it remains the same smell and texture, and you don't need to do anything to it to warm it up, other than place the baggie (or whatever) in warm water to thaw it and bring it up to room temp. So it avoids all the problems you mention. This is why for many kitties that reject refrigerated leftovers, they don't reject frozen-thawed leftovers, which is why I put it out there.

My fussy eater likes wet/gravy type foods as well.  Have you tried Nutro Natural Choice?  They have 4 different textures - their pate ("soft loaf") is the smoothest, creamiest I have come across to date and really appeals to her.  I have tried many other pates - most are grainer than Nutro.  When my fussy eater has licked most of the moisture out of it, I add some salmon oil.

It only comes in 3 oz cans.  Kind of pricy, but if your cat likes it, some big box pet stores offer the Nutro deal of "buy 16 get 2 free".  The flavors with the highest calorie counts (at least 100 calories per can) are: Duck, Catfish, and Turkey+Cod.

Wellness kitten food is also high calorie per ounce - it is chicken based. 

Sadly, there are no pet stores around here because my town is lame, and if I can help it, I'd definitely prefer going to a store and making a purchase than waiting on a box every week or month in the mail. But I do know one local store carries Wellness (maybe other brands that are decent) and I'll try freezing the food to see if it still appeals to him. 

Also, I recall Catinfo's homemade food recipe calls for fish or salmon oil. Would it be safe for me to squeeze some fish oil from a capsule into his kitty food for moisture and maybe flavor? I mean is just plain old everyday fish oil okay to feed to him?

I would think that is ok...I use salmon oil myself.  I know there are many that use the fish oil capsules.

If you don't have many options for pet food where you live, maybe you should try making your own?  Whether cooked or raw - all you would have to do is order the supplements.  Or not...there are recipes out there for mixing your own, and any health food/vitamin store has most of what you'd need.  If you use a supplement with calcium, you don't have to get into buying a grinder and dealing with bones.  Since he eats lunch meat...wondering if cooked chicken/turkey/beef etc..with a supplement would work? If you have a blender/food processor, you could make it as liquidy as you wish.

I have considered possibly making homemade kitty food using maybe chicken thighs and livers. Kip has turned up his nose at cooked chicken before, so I'm not sure if I could do turkey thighs and chicken livers together instead? The only vitamin I might have trouble finding locally is taurine; there's no GNC or anything around here, so I might need to get that online. That, or there's a hippie earth store somewhere around here that sells vitamins and herbal tea and such, but their stuff is horribly expensive.

Another concern about the vitamins is the possibility of him tasting them. I used to put milk thistle extract in his food - just a couple drops - and I swear he would never eat or fully eat anything I put that into. While I understand that the amount of vitamins in the blender would be small compared to other ingredients, I know they can still be bitter and I worry he won't touch it if he tastes anything icky. But first before I try anything and sink money into DIY cat food, I need to see if he'd be willing to eat something that's been frozen. Knowing my luck, he won't touch it. He has some strange tastes in food; he'll eat around meatballs in order to eat pasta. He'll turn up his nose at tuna, but will go insane over chili, cantaloupe, and peanut butter. Deli turkey is the only thing he hasn't stopped eating, but I know I can't feed him that 24/7.

So glad to hear he is eating better!

To answer your question in regards to his calorie intake, an average 10lb cat needs 20-25 cal/lb/day to maintain weight, so approx 200 cal a day. So, since you want him to get to 10lbs, this would be his caloric need. Seems to me, if he is presently eating 3-4 cans of Fancy Feast a day, which is 9 - 12 oz, he is probably getting enough calories at this time to gain that weight. 3 cans of even the lowest in calories of Fancy Feast I was able to see on the list, still provided 195 calories.  Since it has been only this past week that he has been eating this well, I'd wait to see if you really need to change anything at this time. It certainly doesn't hurt to try new foods to help him to continue to eat well, but the main thing is for him to eat each and every day, and so to give him what you know he likes and does well on.

Sending for his continued recovery!

Well color me shocked - he absolutely loved the Wellness food! I picked up just a couple cans of it, along with Iams and Hill's food (which I thought was by prescription only). He ate an entire 5.5 ounce can in one sitting. I gave him half the can and froze the rest, and just when the leftovers were starting to get cold, he was in the kitchen doing circles around my feet, wanting more. Since he seems to like this so much, I am starting to consider more and more the possibility of homemade food and if it might be more cost effective. With me being unemployed, I don't know if I can afford to buy him food that costs almost $2 per can. I'm thrilled he likes it so much, but considering Wellness is mostly made up of things I can buy at the store, I wonder if it would be just as good to make my own and not have my wallet suffer quite as much. I'm going to look over in the raw food section for hints and tips.

Ahh, should have known it was too good to be true! Kip has decided he's going on another little hunger strike and has gone back off his cat food. Blah, and he was doing so good too! I think the Wellness might either have been a fluke or just that particular flavor because he would't even touch the chicken one. He also wouldn't eat the Hill's ocean whitefish food. Unfortunately, these last few days, he's hardly eaten much of anything - a few nibbles of cat food, but usually leaving almost the whole can. Besides that, he'll pick at cheese and bologna - I know, not the best thing in the whole wide world, but when he's decided that he's not going to eat cat food, I have to just feed him anything he's willing to eat.

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I'm hoping he comes out of his little food funk soon. Usually what happens is he quits his cat food when he gets a taste of human food like deli meat, and he might go a day without his cat food. But then he eventually is meowing for it. A few times since he went off his food, he'd meow at me for something to eat (especially when I open the refrigerator), and then walk away from it if it was cat food. I don't know what I'm going to do with this cat. I gave him the last piece of bologna in the fridge today and he didn't even eat all of it, but I also kind of woke him up to feed him, so that might be part of the reason.

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I have been batting around the idea of trying to make cat food since meat might be more appealing to him taste-wise, but he has proven that he does, indeed, take issue with food that has been frozen and subsequently thawed out. He also still won't eat anything that's just refrigerated. Le sigh. I hope this is just one of his temporary food rage quits and he gets back to eating something. He always knows just how to stress me out with his eating habits.

Another small update. Kip is still good, and he's actually been eating cat food consistently! I tried getting him some Meow Mix just so he'll have something to nibble on if he gets munchy, but he only picked at it a little when I first let him have it. BUT I found that the issue with his cat food before was he couldn't pick up the chunky/grilled/flaked foods, so I switched him to pate. He was also really picky about flavors. After much trial and error, I've found that he will only eat Fancy Feast Classic food, and only the Chicken & Liver and Turkey & Giblets flavors. Won't touch the plain chicken, beef, or any of the seafood ones. I can't make him eat when he's not hungry, but he prefers to eat around noon and then again at midnight with lots of naps in between. I'm just happy he's actually eating, and it's so funny watching him eat too. He'll open his mouth really wide and grab a mouthful of food, and I have to sit with him and rotate his dish for him because otherwise he'll leave behind food he can't reach on the other side of the plate.

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I know, doesn't sound like much, and he is still very skinny, but he seems to be fine. He does sleep a lot, but he's no spring chicken anymore either. My mother's friend was giving me crap earlier about how Kip looks like he's dying because he'll sleep in the same spot all the time. Kip has the occasional bad day, but a cat that still eats, drinks, grooms himself, hops up in his favorite spots, purrs when petted/brushed, plays and is not in pain or having breathing or mobility issues is a cat that still has life left in him, as far as I'm concerned. I just have to make sure this idiot friend knows that Kip is MY cat and I will handle it if he gets to be too sick. This guy doesn't seem to like my cats and has taken their care into his own hands in the past...like when he felt I wasn't brushing the cats enough, he shaved one of them (badly too). Another time I mentioned in passing that Kip had a loose tooth. Next day, the tooth was gone. I'm convinced he pulled it out with a pair of pliers. He has a key to the house and I'm worried one day I'm going to wake up and find out he took Kip out in the backyard and shot him because HE thinks Kip is too ill. I wouldn't put it past him.

That's great that Kip is eating! I wonder if adding fat like unsalted butter would help with his weight?

I'd tell that friend that my claws are much more frightening than Kip's ever were.

I just wish he'd eat more. That's my concern now that I've finally found something he will eat regularly with no coaxing. I'm glad he's eating at all and on sort of a schedule, but I know two little cans of food a day and nothing else isn't much. I mean he's still kicking and certainly not getting any worse, but I wish I could put a couple pounds on him. Maybe I can get him to eat turkey - my family is celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend with the bird and all the fixins, so maybe I can make him fat with the rest of us and give him some dark meat.

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It takes him quite a while to eat one 3 ounce can of Fancy Feast and sometimes he doesn't even finish it all. Almost always, he will clean his dish when it's the Chicken & Liver flavor, but if it's the Turkey & Giblets kind, he tends to leave some behind. He did that today - left about half the can of turkey food, which the dogs proceeded to scarf. But later on he devoured a whole can of the chicken/liver kind. I could try adding some butter to his food - he does like dairy and doesn't seem to get sick from it, but I just don't know if he'd eat it mixed with his food. Part of me is scared that if I put butter in his food and he doesn't like it, he'll stop eating it altogether. He's so picky and I worry I'll have to find a new food for him all over again.

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My mother's friend just favors the dogs over the cats and always has, and it sucks because he'd gladly boot the cat across the room for misbehaving, but not the dog. Over dinner on Thursday, he seemed to be heavily hinting that I should put Kip to sleep, saying things like, "He looks kind of weak. He's lived a good life..." Why yes, he has lived a pretty good life. I'm not a perfect owner, but I think if he's lived this long, he's had at least an okay life as my kitty. BUT he's not done living just yet! I still have the quality of life scale from Pawspice that I have referred to ever since my other kitties were sick, and even with low-ball scores I gave, Kip's quality of life is still pretty good and definitely above their minimum score, all things considered. He's still got some spunk left in him and I trust that, despite his skinny frame and lower energy levels, he will let me know when he's ready to throw in the towel. Just because he's an old man doesn't mean he's ready to die yet. As far as I can tell, he's happy and comfortable, and a cat that is happy and comfortable is not one that has to be put to sleep.

Maybe just set a pat of butter to the side? Maybe now is a good time to offer 2 plates: one with his tried and true food, one for experimenting.

While I understand people's thoughts on a week too early vs a day too late, I don't quite feel that way. Obvious pain/misery, yes. A cat that's thin but eating, I'd like to see what can be done. If he's an indoor/outdoor cat and it's cold outside, don't leave him outside if you're going to do some of the crazy sales shopping going on right now since you don't know when you'll be back home. Common sense stuff. Otherwise, it sounds like things are going OK.

I didn't want to start a whole new topic for this, but just wanted to update again. Kip's still kicking, but now he's on a mostly meat diet with a little kitty food. I'll get him a pack of chicken breasts, boil them and chop them really finely and feed him whenever he meows at me. He eats a lot more often (I'd say, on average, he gets 1/2-3/4 cup of minced chicken 3 times a day). This generally lasts him about a week, but he also occasionally will have some Fancy Feast or Friskies. One big difference since switching him to meat is he doesn't throw up nearly as much. When it was just cat food, he'd vomit about once a day on average, which was sometimes due to hungrily inhaling his kibbles and then tossing them back up 10 minutes later, which I found was remedied by buying dry food in small kibble form. He loves this stuff called Purina Naturals with these itty bitty pieces and he can keep it down despite swallowing it all whole, but I got it out of town and the local stores don't carry it. But now, he might throw up once a week, and it's generally only within 24 hours of eating canned food.

The only thing is he hasn't gained any weight. I thought he'd pack on some weight from eating so much protein, but no such luck and he's still skin and bones. Another charming habit he developed was pooping on the floor despite spotless litter boxes. I tried moving the cat boxes around and whether or not his deposits land in one of the boxes is still hit and miss. I thought it might have been because he couldn't reach the box in time, but the boxes are right beside the basement door and he would sometimes go clear to the other side of the room to poop on the floor, so obviously he could hold it and decided the litter box wasn't good enough for his royal standards. Oh well, at least the floor isn't carpeted.

I also wanted to try FortiFlora since I'd heard it can be good for kitties with possible IBD. I found a place that allowed me to order one packet and he devoured the food I put it in, so I'll likely get him a big box of it. I don't think one packet affected his health at all, but hey, if he likes to eat it, I'll get it for him.

But it seems the best balance I've found for him is cooked chicken, occasional canned food, and small dry kibbles available at all times for grazing. I wish he'd eat kitten food - that put weight on my female kitty like no one's business and she easily gained 3 pounds within a month. His energy levels have not improved, but he's not in any pain or discomfort, so I think this is likely the best he can possibly be. He's very perky and vocal when he wants food, so he's got some spunk in him still.

It sounds like you are doing everything right, bless you for caring for him like you have. Will he eat any of the Gerber baby food meats, I know most cats just love them. He sounds happy, good job! I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers.