Is my cat too fat?

Hi guys, just after a little bit of advice. I have three cats Sammy, Tigger and Felix. Sammy and Felix are my little boys and both have been fixed and I have no real issues with them. Tigger however, my little girl who has also been fixed, has gained so much weight since and I'm concerned it could affect her health.

Starting from the beginning. I took Tigger (she was a very friendly stray) into my home when she was around 1 year old, I'd had her about 9 months when she had kittens. I had her spayed when she went in to have a cesarean section. Since then she has become lazy, she doesn't want to go out much, she's not as playful as she was and shes doubled in size. She's bigger than she was during pregnancy (note that she had only 3 kittens and one of those was very very small, half the size it should have been).

Am I worrying myself too much, she has a rather healthy diet, I don't feed her scraps or too many treats and she has only the recommended daily amount of cat food. The vet doesn't seem too concerned but I've had some issues with him in the past regarding his veterinary knowledge (or lack of). I have attached a photo of her below.

The top photo is her 1 week before she had kittens. The bottom photo is her now.

Can you get a shot of her topline (looking directly down over her) while she's standing? If we don't know anything about the build or the weight of the cat, at the very least, the topline will show us whether or not she still has a waistline. You should be able to feel her ribs under skin and a bit of fat, but if you can't feel the ribs, I would say that's getting chunky. Pictures lying down and even sitting can be quite misleading because cats can have such a large primordial pouch, so all that extra skin under their abdomen droops down, gets squished out, etc. so it can make cats look fatter than they really are.

There are lots of image guidelines like this, so you can use this as an approximation for what to look for:


When in doubt, you can ask about it at her next vet appointment.

I like the name, I have a Tigger who is a brown tabby too    It's hard to tell from the pictures but it does appear she has a bit of a belly on her.  Spaying cats changes their metabolism so you have to adjust their feeding amounts accordingly.  My cat Tigger is the same way she's on a reduced calorie diet, if I fed her what the cans said to she'd be getting 2 of the 5.5oz cans per day which is WAY too much, she is about 9 & 1/2# right now and should probably weigh 7#, she gets maybe 3/4 of a can a day.  My 11# cat gets only 1 can per day and is at a good weight.  You have to adjust accordingly, if they are gaining weight you reduce how much they are fed, if they are too skinny you increase.  The amount to feed on the cans is just a starting guideline.

pinkdagger said:

Can you get a shot of her topline (looking directly down over her) while she's standing? If we don't know anything about the build or the weight of the cat, at the very least, the topline will show us whether or not she still has a waistline. You should be able to feel her ribs under skin and a bit of fat, but if you can't feel the ribs, I would say that's getting chunky. Pictures lying down and even sitting can be quite misleading because cats can have such a large primordial pouch, so all that extra skin under their abdomen droops down, gets squished out, etc. so it can make cats look fatter than they really are.

There are lots of image guidelines like this, so you can use this as an approximation for what to look for:

bcs-cat.jpg

• pinkdagger
• Mar 1, 2015

When in doubt, you can ask about it at her next vet appointment.

Click to expand...

Hi thanks for getting back to me, I can feel her ribs, just. I'd say shes a 7 on that chart. I'll try and get a pic from above, I'm at work at the minute. The other cats are 5 on that chart.

I used to feed her dry complete food. But she decided she didn't want it anymore so tried her on canned food (she has around half a can in a morning and a handful of dried through the the day which she shares with the others. She's not a greedy cat, she's just got lazy.

She does have a tummy on her, and she is young too, so as she ages it can get worse, and taking that weight off is SOOO much harder than preventing the gain.

Trust me on that!  

It helps so much to measure out the dry and feed it at specific times rather than allowing her to graze anytime.

Typical/average cat needs about 1 can (5.5 oz) of food per day, OR 2/3-3/4 cup of dry per day.