26 lb cat with Gastrointestinal Issues- what to feed him?

I have two male cats, one Scottish fold who is 10 and a very large boy(26 lbs)....he is obsessed with food. One smaller tuxedo cat who is 8 and only 13 lbs. They have both always been on blue buffalo dry food and always have had food left out 24/7 for them. Recently the Scottish fold had major constipation issues and I ended up taking him to our vet where he was given enemas and stool softener. The vet advised to switch them to wet food as I guess larger and older felines can have issues digesting certain foods. So I did just that and have been feeding them wet food...BUT I am about to lose my mind over it. My Scottish fold is SOOOO loud and only associates me with food. He is quiet and calm all day until he hears me walk through the door. Then he begans howling as loud as he possibly can and will follow me through the house until I feed him.

I feed them twice a day, morning and right when I get home from work. Well he's also decided that his feeding time is at 4:30 AM every morning. Now as much as I love being awake at 4:30 AM, this is driving me insane. We used to allow them in our bedroom and have tried locking them out at night in order to prevent him from waking us up....BUT he literally sticks his mouth under the door and screams thus usually waking up our not so pleasant when woken two year old. Not to mention running down two flights of stairs to get to the kitchen and feed him at 4:30 in the morning. He wants absolutely nothing to do with me other wise. Which I get it, not all cats are affectionate that's fine, my tuxedo cat is quite the lover. Everything I've read says to use an automatic feeder so that he doesn't associate food with me....But I obviously cant set a feeder with wet food it would go bad. I'm hoping for some miracle answer to solve this because I don't know how much more I can take. Is there a certain food that would be better for him?!

How much food are you feeding him? What brand of wet food? At 26lbs he probably needs twice as much food as your other cats. It sounds like he needs to lose some weight so here's a link to some info on how to slowly reduce calories so he can get down to a good weight. In the mean time you need to figure out how many calories he's actually eating. 

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity#Implementing_a_Safe_Weight-Loss_Program

he gets 1 can in the morning and 1 can at night...each can is 155 calories. its science diet food. The smaller cat only gets a half can because he never eats a full can anyways. so the Scottish fold is getting about 300 calories a day...but feeding him more is not going to stop him from running around screaming at 4 am...so im hoping to find a dry food that would work for him so that I can purchase an automatic feeder to eliminate him linking his food to me.

shannonc said:

 
he gets 1 can in the morning and 1 can at night...each can is 155 calories. its science diet food. The smaller cat only gets a half can because he never eats a full can anyways. so the Scottish fold is getting about 300 calories a day...but feeding him more is not going to stop him from running around screaming at 4 am...so im hoping to find a dry food that would work for him so that I can purchase an automatic feeder to eliminate him linking his food to me.

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IMO you should look at feed some higher quality food if you afford it and forgo the kibble. Science diet isn't really good food, all you have to do is look at the ingredients and you can see if has things in it cats don't need. If you buy something that's more meat based with less fillers, it should not only help him lose weight but also stay full longer. With cats that are food motivated, feeding smaller meals multiple times a day helps them stay full longer. Twice a day feedings don't really work for most cats. 

I'd recommend something like Merrick, Nature's Variety, Weruva, Tikicat.

Kibble is only going to make him eat less wet food because he knows the kibble is around. Kibble is also the reason he's probably obese. Even if you're feeding him the minimum (15/cal per pound of weight), 300 calories isn't enough for a cat that's 26lbs. He's starving, so he's howling. I would really encourage you to read about how to get him to lose weight in a healthy way. He's going to have serious medical complications if he doesn't lose some of that weight safely. 

You can use a programmble timed feeder with canned food I like this one. Canned food won't spoil if left out all day. It might get dry but most cats are ok with it. You can freeze canned food into serving size chunks and then put the chunks into the feeder to slowly defrost. A silicone ice cube tray works best. Or just add extra water to the canned food to keep it moist longer.

Instead of one whole can fed twice a day, try spreading each can over the course of a few hours. A feeder would work best for this if you can't be at home all day. Small frequent meals keeps most cat tummies happy.

Science Diet doesn't have the greatest ingredients so I suggest trying something better quality that won't break the bank. Here are suggestions:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/306956/new-affordable-petsmart-brand-d

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/308964/healthy-but-affordable-canned-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/241131/healthy-affordable-wet-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/313700/budget-friendly-can-food

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/272192/affordable-canned-food

shannonc said:

 
he gets 1 can in the morning and 1 can at night...each can is 155 calories. its science diet food. The smaller cat only gets a half can because he never eats a full can anyways. so the Scottish fold is getting about 300 calories a day..

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For a  26 lb cat, 300 calories daily is not enough. That's likely why your cat is always meowing for more food. Catinfo.org suggests 20 to 25 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. Your 26 lb cat needs roughly 650 calories to maintain body weight. 300 is a huge calorie reduction and can result in fatty liver disease. Reducing calories for weight loss needs to be done very slowly over the course of at least a couple of weeks, sometimes a few months or longer.

Can you feed your cat more food for now? Once he's getting enough calories, he should stop mewoing for mroe food. Then you can start him on a weight loss diet.

I seriously feel terrible. I had no idea and am so used to them just being free fed with dry food the past ten years. My mom always fed her cat one can of fancy feast in the morning and one at night and the cat lived 21 years so I always thought I was giving him more than enough. Guess I should have asked the vet better in detail. Going to get one of the feeders tomorrow and different food. Thanks for your help, really appreciate it!

Don't feel bad Many people here were once in your shoes and thought they were feeding the best food or the right amount of food until they found TCS and other web sites that explains proper nutrition in easy to understand words. Sometimes vets don't even know what proper nutrition is.

There are lots of articles here on TCS on what to feed and how much. Get your cat's tummy happy for now and then start on that weight loss.

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/choosing-the-right-food-for-your-cat-part-2

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/how-much-food-should-i-feed-my-cat

Dry foods are really calorie dense per measured cup, as much as 300 or 400 or more calories which is way too much for most cats. Few people actually measure dry food. It's usually just fill the bowl up to the top and add more as needed. That often leads to a cat overeating (dry food is also coated in yummy tasting stuff) and getting fat. Most canned foods are under 200 calories per 5.5 oz can, under 100 for a 3 oz can. So yeah, you can feed several cans of food a day and it looks like a lot but calorie-wise it may not be enough for the cat. If you want to compare calories between dry and canned foods, you can use these charts:

http://www.petobesityprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Cat_Dry_Food.pdf

http://www.petobesityprevention.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Cat_Canned_Pouch_Foods.pdf

http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

Not all pet food brands may be listed on the charts but most of the popular big name ones are there.

shannonc said:

I seriously feel terrible. I had no idea and am so used to them just being free fed with dry food the past ten years. My mom always fed her cat one can of fancy feast in the morning and one at night and the cat lived 21 years so I always thought I was giving him more than enough.

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I agree with LTS3: You shouldn't feel terrible! Though I totally understand: I still feel horribly guilty about not knowing how to feed our previous cat and not realizing early enough that the foods the vets were recommending for her (also dry foods, free-fed) were only making her sick. I learned a lot from that experience, though, and am glad our current cats can benefit from that new knowledge.

Lots of cats do just fine being fed like your mother fed hers... I wish ours could be fed that way but we have to feed them five times a day because of one's annoying grazing habits and the other's annoyingly sensitive stomach. I think one of the largest, most difficult parts of all this is figuring out what works best for an individual cat. And then adapting.

I second the canned food brands that missmimz mentioned. Avoiding carbohydrate calories is important as is planned dieting, as LTS3 outlined.

Good luck!

Don't feel bad! Nowadays, it's hard enough to even find a vet to give good information on nutrition.

The only reason that I've learned what I have, is that I adopted an obese cat last year (he was also suffering from dehydration and constipation and had litterbox aversion). His prior owner had a giant bowl of dry food out for him that was never empty. As soon as I got him, I put him on grain free canned food. One year later, I have a much happier healthy kitty that is at a great weight and isn't dehydrated or constipated. Last I checked at the vet's, his weight was down to 10.4 pounds. 

Before running into this kitty, I free fed my younger cat dry food, because that was what I was familiar with. Now that I've been through this experience with my older cat, my younger kitty is also on canned food, fed in meals.

In my experience, just cutting out all the dry food and feeding low carbohydrate canned food, portioned appropriately, tends to result in weight loss. I remember how pleasantly surprised I was to find that my cat had lost another pound over several months time, without me doing much other than feeding him his canned food. My cat must have been getting way more calories than he needed, when eating dry food free choice at his previous home.

I hope that all goes well with your kitty's weight loss.