eating behaviors

dmk129 · Dec 12, 2015

I have 2 4 year old Flame Point Siamese cats that have become fatter and fatter. I feed 2 cans of Fancy Feast on a plate with 2 cans of warm water 2 x a day between the 4 cats. They are very good and quiet all day but as soon as my husband gets home they are begging for food. It has become incessant every evening. Every time he goes in the kitchen they run in there and beg and cry. They wake us up at 4 am over the food. I am considering getting an electronic pet feeder. Does anyone know of one that can feed 4 cats? I am at my wits end. This seems to be over dry food. Does anybody have any suggestions to help? I also have 1 of the cats who chews off his fur in front of his tail like a neurosis sort of thing. This is getting so bad I am thinking of moving out! Any help would be so appreciated.

talkingpeanut · Dec 12, 2015

How large are the cans of food? Why are you adding so much water?

fhicat · Dec 12, 2015

I think the most important thing is for you to sit down with your husband and explain to him how this is negatively affecting you. I'm sure he means well, but cats are terrible with enablers.

Your first step should be to disassociate the kitties with "meow incessantly = food". This is going to be VERY hard. They need to be ignored entirely every time they meow. They need to learn that being noisy no longer gets them food. It's going to be very hard, especially since they'll continue doing it at 4am. Again, you need your husband to be fully on board with this.

When they're quiet (with your husband around) for an extended period of time, reward them with a little treat. This tells them that they get rewarded when they're quiet. You need a lot of patience and support to get through this, but they can be trained to not be noisy. It's just going to take a lot of work.

dmk129 · Dec 12, 2015

I feed them a 3 oz can of Fancy Feast with 2 cans of warm water added at noon and 6 PM=they love the watered down food and the vet said it is one way to make sure they get enough water too. It is the dry food fed at 6am and in evening before bedtime that causes all the begging behaviors it seems. Maybe the answer is to feed them more wet food and less dry food? I am going to buy an automatic feeder on payday. This is getting past ridiculous with them!!

dmk129 · Dec 12, 2015

I am not sure I have that much patience!! I am thinking of getting an automatic kibble feeder to take the humans out of the equation. Maybe that will be best. If it is a conditioned behavior then to get them to come to the feeder instead of begging might be something that will work for them. Only the 2 Siamese boys have the food fixation. The other 2 are OK. The 2 Siamese boys are pound kitties and seem to have been somewhat neurotic from the time we got them. The begging has gotten MUCH worse in the past few months. They are 4 years old now.

dmk129 · Dec 12, 2015

I feed them a 3 oz can of Fancy Feast with 2 cans of warm water added at noon and 6 PM=they love the watered down food and the vet said it is one way to make sure they get enough water too. It is the dry food fed at 6am and in evening before bedtime that causes all the begging behaviors it seems. Maybe the answer is to feed them more wet food and less dry food? I am going to buy an automatic feeder on payday. This is getting past ridiculous with them!!

dmk129 · Dec 12, 2015

sorry for the double posting! I thought replies would attach to the message I was replying to. Just trying to figure out the way the postings work!! Thanks to everyone who replied. :-)

talkingpeanut · Dec 12, 2015

Unfortunately this is going to take patience because you will have to undo a behavior that they have learned.

I would consider removing dry food altogether. An automatic feeder is also an idea.

missmimz · Dec 13, 2015

How much dry are you feeding them? and what kind? Low quality food is typically very high in carbs which means even a small amount on top of other food can easily cause cats to gain weight.

dmk129 · Dec 13, 2015

they get 2 meals of dry food (Iams weight control) Each meal is about 3/4 c food one at 7 am and the next at about 7 PM. By 4 am they are waking us up meowing for food. They also get 1 can of Fancy Feast at noon and another one at 5 PM =all 4 cats eat together. The 2 younger boys just gobble down that dry food and the other 2 dont get as much. The 2 younger ones are waaaaaaaaaay too fat. Do you think I should cut out dry food all together? Or should an autofeeder set maybe on 1/8 cup 4 x a day with a night feeding settle them down? I just dont know what would be best for them. Thanks for responding.

talkingpeanut · Dec 13, 2015

Cut the dry food. It does sound like empty calories that are fattening them. It also sounds like the 12 hour gap in feeding overnight is too much for them. Can you feed them right before you go to bed?

missmimz · Dec 13, 2015

dmk129 said:
they get 2 meals of dry food (Iams weight control) Each meal is about 3/4 c food one at 7 am and the next at about 7 PM. By 4 am they are waking us up meowing for food. They also get 1 can of Fancy Feast at noon and another one at 5 PM =all 4 cats eat together. The 2 younger boys just gobble down that dry food and the other 2 dont get as much. The 2 younger ones are waaaaaaaaaay too fat. Do you think I should cut out dry food all together? Or should an autofeeder set maybe on 1/8 cup 4 x a day with a night feeding settle them down? I just dont know what would be best for them. Thanks for responding.

It sounds like you're overfeeding them based on the weight issue, but since you feed them as a group it's hard to really know how much each cat is eating. Iams is honestly really terrible dry food, it's loaded with carbs. You really can't just cut out the dry food all together or drastically reduce the quantity because you've already got overweight cats that depend on that food. What you really need to do is figure out how many calories each cat should be eating per day and how many calories you're feeding, then start slowly reducing their dry intake to help them lose weight. Look on the bag of food you're feeding to see how many calories are in 1 cup of food. In general cats need about 20/cal per pound of weight, but if you want them to lose weight you have to slowly reduce the calorie amount. If you're going to feed dry I think you need to upgrade the quality, or slowly reduce it and then eliminate it and put them all on a wet diet. FF is fine to feed.

dmk129 · Dec 13, 2015

Thanks your info on 20 calories per pound is needed is very helpful. I will weigh each kitty and get a baseline and plan from there. I think we need to change foods too. I tried them on Beyond grain free food and they got diarrhea and got sore bums. I think whatever I try I am going to have to go slow with it and hopefully they will start to lose weight. I have to be a little careful too because 1 kitty is 10 and the other kitty is 15 so I have to be looking for how they are tolerating it. Any suggestions on what is a good low carb dry food? Next payday I am getting an automatic feeder to give them more small meals frequently and hopefully it might decrease the begging in the early am hours. I think once they get the hang of the feeder they will not be quite so vocal with their humans. Is it best to mix the new dry food with the old dry food and slowly do more and more of the new food until they just get it once a day maybe as a treat instead of a meal? Any thoughts on how best to proceed? I want this to work for them. We do travel at times so they will need some dry food in an autofeeder then maybe and then maybe a pet sitter can give them wet food. Does anybody have a suggestion on an autofeeder? I have heard some of them can be broken into!! I want to get one that will work well and be reliable!! I would like to get them to eat MUCH less dry food eventually.

missmimz · Dec 13, 2015

dmk129 said:
Thanks your info on 20 calories per pound is needed is very helpful. I will weigh each kitty and get a baseline and plan from there. I think we need to change foods too. I tried them on Beyond grain free food and they got diarrhea and got sore bums. I think whatever I try I am going to have to go slow with it and hopefully they will start to lose weight. I have to be a little careful too because 1 kitty is 10 and the other kitty is 15 so I have to be looking for how they are tolerating it. Any suggestions on what is a good low carb dry food? Next payday I am getting an automatic feeder to give them more small meals frequently and hopefully it might decrease the begging in the early am hours. I think once they get the hang of the feeder they will not be quite so vocal with their humans. Is it best to mix the new dry food with the old dry food and slowly do more and more of the new food until they just get it once a day maybe as a treat instead of a meal? Any thoughts on how best to proceed? I want this to work for them. We do travel at times so they will need some dry food in an autofeeder then maybe and then maybe a pet sitter can give them wet food. Does anybody have a suggestion on an autofeeder? I have heard some of them can be broken into!! I want to get one that will work well and be reliable!! I would like to get them to eat MUCH less dry food eventually.

Always transition to new dry food slowly, otherwise you'll cause tummy upset. Just start with a small amount of the new food mixed with the old and they slowly increase it as long as no one is having tummy issues. Especially with older cats make the transition slowly. But i would def encourage you to feed more wet, older cats really need more wet food in their diet to avoid common ailments like kidney disease. I would ignore anything that says "low carb" or "weight control' because it basically means nothing. My suggestions are going to be to feed the highest quality dry you can afford. I feed Orijen, which is pricy, but because its good quality they eat less of it overall. Dry is just a snack for my guys as wet and raw are their primary meals. Here's a good list of good quality dry foods. http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2011/08/best-dry-cat-foods-so-far/

dmk129 · Dec 13, 2015

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I will transition slowly to a better quality dry food and give more wet food. I appreciate the suggestions. I just want these kitties to settle down and not be so noisy begging at night. I also will move the last meal of the day to right before I go to bed for them. I think that may help. Hopefully husband isnt going to sneak them extra food just because they are noisy. Thats what got us into this pickle to begin with.

missmimz · Dec 13, 2015

dmk129 said:
Thanks so much for the suggestions. I will transition slowly to a better quality dry food and give more wet food. I appreciate the suggestions. I just want these kitties to settle down and not be so noisy begging at night. I also will move the last meal of the day to right before I go to bed for them. I think that may help. Hopefully husband isnt going to sneak them extra food just because they are noisy. Thats what got us into this pickle to begin with.

Yes giving a little snack before bed is a great solution. I give all mine a night snack and that keeps everyone happy all night. Good luck!

talkingpeanut · Dec 13, 2015

Right, well if you think about it you're feeling them every four hours or so at most during the day and then they're expected to wait for 12 hours. Makes sense that they're confused!

dmk129 · Dec 13, 2015

missmimz said:
Yes giving a little snack before bed is a great solution. I give all mine a night snack and that keeps everyone happy all night. Good luck!

we will try this tonight and see how it goes! I will keep everyone posted! I gave a 5.5 oz can of wet food for supper. Some begging going on tonight but not as insistent. I hope this will help my kitties be thinner by spring. My 2 tubba-lubbas really need to slim down. I think Fuzzles is about 20 pounds=he is a large cat. Twizzy is maybe 13-14 pounds. They are all getting weighed tomorrow. I will track them weekly I think for a while.

talkingpeanut · Dec 13, 2015

You gave one 5.5 oz can for all four cats? And that's scaling down from how much? That may not be enough, which will certainly not help you sleep.

dmk129 · Dec 13, 2015

I usually give 3/4 c dry food and a 3 oz can of wet food at noon and 5 PM=tonight I increased the wet food to a 5.5 oz can at 6 PM and gave 3/4 cup of dry food at 9 PM. I know I need to go up on the wet food and down on the dry food =but dont want to change anything too drastically until they acclimate to some of the change. Hopefully it will all go in the right direction.

eating behaviors

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