Wet food amounts

My cats have always been free fed dry and after 14 years Smokie is up to almost 19 pounds. My vet has always said he's very big boned with a huge head and paws. Anyway I know he needs to lose at least 4 pounds but my boyfriend has always been a baby and never wanted to take his dry food away. (Oh and we also fed a 1/4 can of Natures Variety wet twice a day)
Enter kitten who eats dry so fast she throws up. This got my bf realizing her food can't stay on the floor. I've also been pushing an all wet diet to him with maybe one snack a day of dry.

Question is: how much wet should the 19 pounder get in a day. NV can says 3 cans per 7 pounds but that seems like way too much. Since I've been putting their dry food up he's getting 4 wet food feedings a day with kitten then dry food when he sits in "his spot" where his dry used to be. I would say he and the 5 mo old kitten each get a can a day (small can) and 1/4 of dry. He isn't begging but does look for more when he's done eating.

So basically how many little cans a day do you all go through?

How little are the little cans? 3oz or 5.5oz? I thought Nature's Variety only came in large cans and 5.5oz cans, but I may be mistaken.

xcourtney3 said:

How little are the little cans? 3oz or 5.5oz? I thought Nature's Variety only came in large cans and 5.5oz cans, but I may be mistaken.

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They're 3 oz.

Molly22 said:

My cats have always been free fed dry and after 14 years Smokie is up to almost 19 pounds. My vet has always said he's very big boned with a huge head and paws. Anyway I know he needs to lose at least 4 pounds but my boyfriend has always been a baby and never wanted to take his dry food away. (Oh and we also fed a 1/4 can of Natures Variety wet twice a day)
Enter kitten who eats dry so fast she throws up. This got my bf realizing her food can't stay on the floor. I've also been pushing an all wet diet to him with maybe one snack a day of dry.

Question is: how much wet should the 19 pounder get in a day. NV can says 3 cans per 7 pounds but that seems like way too much. Since I've been putting their dry food up he's getting 4 wet food feedings a day with kitten then dry food when he sits in "his spot" where his dry used to be. I would say he and the 5 mo old kitten each get a can a day (small can) and 1/4 of dry. He isn't begging but does look for more when he's done eating.

So basically how many little cans a day do you all go through?

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The average indoor cat should have 20 calories  per pound to maintain weight.  .

If your cat is overweight, you will want to feed for 2 pounds less, or 40 fewer calories a day, and readjust every time your cat loses a pound, until you hit a healthy weight, and then maintain

.. You need to know how many calories are in each can then you will know how many cans per day to give him .

2Cats4Me said:

 
The average indoor cat should have 20 calories  per pound to maintain weight.  .

If your cat is overweight, you will want to feed for 2 pounds less, or 40 fewer calories a day, and readjust every time your cat loses a pound, until you hit a healthy weight, and then maintain

.. You need to know how many calories are in each can then you will know how many cans per day to give him .

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I agree with your idea of how to help a cat lose weight, but regarding 20 cals per lb, oh my gosh my chubby cat would be huge if she was allowed that much.

Krissy eats less than 200 cals a day, closer to 180, and weighs 15 1/2 lbs. She is def. overweight too.

However she is not active as maybe the op's cat is either, but you have to be careful for what average might be, and adjust according to your cat's individual needs and weight/activity.

20 Calories per pound is what I tend to go by to maintain my cat's weight. She's roughly 8-9 pounds, and at 20 calories, she gets 160-180 per day. It also depends on the food as some canned food is very low (Weruva is low calories), where as some is high in calories.

She gets 1, 5.5 oz can per day (split into 2 meals). If it's a low calorie can, I give a very small "pinch" of kibble to make up for the calorie loss.

Nora1 said:

20 Calories per pound is what I tend to go by to maintain my cat's weight. She's roughly 8-9 pounds, and at 20 calories, she gets 160-180 per day. It also depends on the food as some canned food is very low (Weruva is low calories), where as some is high in calories.

She gets 1, 5.5 oz can per day (split into 2 meals). If it's a low calorie can, I give a very small "pinch" of kibble to make up for the calorie loss.

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That sounds good actually.

Just not too sure about when they are overweight. Maybe based on ideal cat's weight would work better, 20 cals per lb of ideal body weight.

Thanks everyone. I will research the calorie content in their wet and go off his poundage. He's eating a 3 oz can a day with some kibble for a snack and not begging so maybe I'll get this portly fellow down to a health-ish weight!

20 calories per pound of ideal weight seems about right to me.  I tried to gauge this by a number of charts many of which have different recs.  But this is at least more precise than the manufacturer recommendations.  Never go by the manufacturer rec alone, particularly if you'd like a cat to lose some weight.

There is a lower limit to this, as someone suggested above.  In other words, if you cat needs to lose 5 pounds, you do not necessarily want him eating only the 5 pound lower ideal weight calorie amount.  That is probably too low.  Start with a smaller goal, that 2 pounds at a time suggested above seems good for a calorie measure.

Just have to watch carefully if you have multiple cats.  I have two, and I've been feeding by calorie amounts for a year (they came to our house just a little over a year ago), but I ended up with one cat who's at least half a pound overweight, maybe a pound.  This is because I fed them the same amount and the little one it seems is never going to eat those entire meals (equal to about 150 cal per day) and the larger one was scarfing her leftovers to the tune of way too much.  I am now picking up the food after half an hour or so trying to get them used to timed meals.  They're both grazers to some degree but of course it's the heavy cat who's getting the timed message better than the little one.  They also always switched off bowls and such so I've taken to sitting with them at meal time trying to guard against that or otherwise keep an eye on the amounts they're eating.

PS to get most precise with calories, WEIGH the food.  This is how I always portioned out the freeze dried food, but cans I always got cans around 150 calories and just eyeballed a 50/50 split.  Now that I really only want to have about 120-130 calories on the floor at a given time, in two bowls of different amounts, I weigh the canned food too.  Only takes a little extra time and a sub-$20 scale.  Tare the bowl on the scale, spoon the food into it.