I have a Chunky Monkey or Chunky Coonie

So I've never personally owned a Maine Coon. My Grandparents did though, but I never saw him as a kitten, I only saw him as a full-grown adult. Anywho, Chewie is about 6 months old now, and he weighs about 8 lbs. We weighed him today.

We give him only a little bit of dry kitten food (Authority from Petsmart) and half a can of Blue Buffalo wet food. Because we have two cats, it's more cost effective for us to buy 14 cans, and divide the can in half. We give him the canned food twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. He devours it. I mean, inhales it. You turn your back for a few minutes and his bowl is empty. I don't really think we're over feeding him though. He is very active, we take him on walks, and we play with him and he runs all over the apartment, but he still has his pooch. When we first adopted him, he did have worms, but they're gone now, is that part of it? Or is it just "baby fat" that'll fall off when he gets older? I don't know Maine Coon growth cycles, unfortunately. :/ The other problem, is that he runs in and tries to eat all of Lilly-Belle's food. We have them in two separate rooms, food wise. It's just all really frustrating. She's very small as well, Lilly-Belle at 1.5 years only weighs about 4 lbs. Which I know is small, but is that the siamese part? 

I think Maine Coons are pretty big if I'm not mistaken. My almost-9 month old is over 10 lbs now! He's a DSH though but seems to have a bigger body frame than his brother, who is 9 lbs. Funny, I call Oliver (my 10+ pounder) a chunky monkey, lol. I figure he's still in a growing phase so won't worry too much about it. And at 6 months, yeah, he's still got time to grow.

4 lbs is very tiny! My smallest cat was 4 lbs 4 oz at her smallest, and that was because of severe hyperthyroidism. She's up a to a fabulous 7 lbs now.

Donutte said:

I think Maine Coons are pretty big if I'm not mistaken. My almost-9 month old is over 10 lbs now! He's a DSH though but seems to have a bigger body frame than his brother, who is 9 lbs. Funny, I call Oliver (my 10+ pounder) a chunky monkey, lol. I figure he's still in a growing phase so won't worry too much about it. And at 6 months, yeah, he's still got time to grow.

4 lbs is very tiny! My smallest cat was 4 lbs 4 oz at her smallest, and that was because of severe hyperthyroidism. She's up a to a fabulous 7 lbs now.

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That's what I thought, in regards to Chewie. I'm a little worried about Lilly-Belle as she is so skinny. When we got her from her previous owners, they weren't feeding her the best food, and they thought that canned food was a treat, and not an everyday thing. It also was an incredibly low grade of food, like low shelf grocery store. We fed her that for a few days, but then started switching her to Blue Buffalo, which she inhales. She loves it! She also makes these cute little nom nom noises when she eats. We also mixed in Purina with her old dry food, but we're probably going to get her on better dry food soon. 

When we first got Chewie, he was tiny. At 5 months, he was only 4 lbs. You could see every rid and his spine. We fixed that as soon as possible, and has steadily been gaining about 2 lbs a month, which I think I read is perfect. 

But Lilly-Belle is just so small, I mean, she is half Siamese, but still. My six month old shouldn't weigh twice her weight. 

Mainecoonmama12 said:

That's what I thought, in regards to Chewie. I'm a little worried about Lilly-Belle as she is so skinny. When we got her from her previous owners, they weren't feeding her the best food, and they thought that canned food was a treat, and not an everyday thing. It also was an incredibly low grade of food, like low shelf grocery store. We fed her that for a few days, but then started switching her to Blue Buffalo, which she inhales. She loves it! She also makes these cute little nom nom noises when she eats. We also mixed in Purina with her old dry food, but we're probably going to get her on better dry food soon. 

When we first got Chewie, he was tiny. At 5 months, he was only 4 lbs. You could see every rid and his spine. We fixed that as soon as possible, and has steadily been gaining about 2 lbs a month, which I think I read is perfect. 

But Lilly-Belle is just so small, I mean, she is half Siamese, but still. My six month old shouldn't weigh twice her weight. 

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I had a full-Siamese and she was not nearly that small! Regarding Lilly-Belle, you might want to get her thyroid checked out if she inhales food like that but isn't gaining (and especially if she's losing). That's how we found out about Sara's very severe hyper-t.

Regarding Chewie though, I think you are fine. I just looked it up and their normal adult weight is 17 lbs - the same size as my big girl Maple! And they typically gain 2 lbs / month as a kitten vs 1 lbs / month for regular domestic cats.

Ahhhh, okay! That makes sense.