Senior cat with no teeth

Hi, I'm new to the group.  I have a 14 yr old male who had very bad gum disease.  The vet opted to extract all of his teeth about a year ago.  My question is, figured out finally how to eat and drink ( he's amazing).  A couple of months ago, he decided not to eat anything but Fancy Feast canned food, seafood variety.  The cans are so small, I'm not sure how much to give him.  Before he had his teeth removed, he weighed 14 lbs. He lost weight over the course of the year and now weighs close to 11 lbs.  I don't want my boy to go hungry, but I don't want him to eat too much and vomit.  Other than no teeth, and the weight loss, he's healthy for an old guy.  I would appreciate any feedback and /or suggestions. Thank you!

Canned food is great for cats with few or no teeth Will your cat eat the meat based Fancy Feast? Seafood shouldn't be fed all the t ime because some cats aget addicted to eating it, it's low in protein, some kinds of fish may contain trace amounts of mercoru, it may cause urinary issues in some cats, etc.

It's generally recommended to feed approximately 20 to 25 calories per pound of ideal body weight daily. Some cats may  need a little more or less than that depending on age, gender, health, breed, etc. Is 14 lbs your cat's ideal weight? If so, you need to feed approximately 280 to 350 calories daily. The 3 oz cans of Fancy Feast are under 100 calories so you would need to feed about 6 or 7 Fancy Feast cans daily. You can see the calorie content of the various Fancy Feast varieties here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0tEyoSYQciQUzRscW01NEJXalU

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

Feeding a larger sized 5.5 oz can would mean more calories in the can (typically around 150) and less cans you would have to feed daily. Have you tried brands of canned foods that come in larger sizes?

Has your cat had any blood work done recently? Weight loss in a senior cat can often indicate an underlying medical issue.

He, in the past few weeks, has decided to turn his nose up at meat.  We've tried several different brands and varieties of canned food.  We had no idea that him just eating seafood, may cause him harm.  Thank you so much for that information.  I'm going to have to try to get him back eating some meat.  He will on occasion eat some meat treats though.  

He had blood work done a few months ago, everything was normal.   He's a good sized boy, so his weight between 12 and 14 lbs. was healthy for him.  The only thing the vet said was that he had lost some weight, which we knew.   

In retrospect, at the end of August of this year, we had to have our other kitty euthanized.  They had been together his entire life.  that's when the his eating habits began changing.  (Light bulb) he is/was grieving.   He also, is not as active as he once was, so some of the weight loss, might be muscle as well.  

I just want to do right by him.  All of my animals have been rescues, and he had a particularly rough start in life.  

Thank you for advice.  I will definitely get him off a total seafood diet and mix some meat in with the fishy food, a little at the time.  

Merry Christmas!

i dont have an answer for the food but i sure need help finding out if a cat with no teeth can still pull out thorns from the paws

My boys didn't eat well for a while when cj passed nearly 2 years ago. So I am sure grief plays a huge roll, all 4 of my cats lost about 0.5lb-1lb and they are big boys, so it didn't matter tooo much, although bubbles is still under 7kg mark about 15.5lb and should be 7.5kg or 16.5-17lb but he only eats real meat/fish and dry food.

The way to get cats to eat food, like wet food, meats that they turn their noses up at is to make it smelly, you can do this by heating it up. Not too hot though, we don't want to burn them, just hot enough for the smell.

thanks for the info but do you or anyone know if a cat with no teeth can still pull out thorns fromthe paws

My grandparents had a cat when I was extremely young it had no teeth and bit me as I was too rough. He could get things like thorns out, but struggled until he learnt how. It is possible, I guess it depends on several factors like how his gums were, if they were saw he couldn't I guess... how deep the thorn is to how big it is.

Your cat may never learn how to do it, so I would suggest keeping an eye out on his paws, run your finger in between each pad a couple times per day to be sure.

thank you for your answer we will be going to a place that has goat head stickers and I sure hope he can get them out before when he had teeth it was no problem