food for cat w/o teeth

my cat got gingivitis a few years ago and had to get all his teeth removed. we have been giving him tuna and dry food soaked in warm water, but this diet does not seem to be working. he has been sleeping a lot and not eating enough, and i think this is due to a poor diet. how much food should i be feeding a 12 pound abyssinian? also, i'd appreciate it if someone could recommend some good brands

Cats without teeth shouldn't have a problem with the majority of food, as they tend to just swallow the food whole anyway!

Which country are you? It would help us to recommend complete cat foods for you!

My Twitch has no teeth, either. I can tell you that she prefers smaller bites. Nutro adult food is too big for her. She likes Innova, Innova EVO, Purina Naturals(not so good), Purina ONE, etc. I aim for small round kibble. She had no problems eating the dry food. I also give her wet & she prefers the Nutro pouches, or anything chunks in gravy. Her favorite canned food is Friskies(also not so good) shredded cans.

If your kitty isn't overweight, I would feed him however much he will eat. You can use the food bags or cans reccomendations as a starting point & increase or decrease the amount fed from there.

Feed wet food (pate style) and small kibble which the cat doesn't have to chew and can swallow whole. If you want you can feed all wet food. But I would avoid tuna for human consumption. It's not nutritionally balanced for the cat.

You have a pretty big aby - most are only about 6-7 lbs at ideal weight.

Anyway, tuna diet is NOT a good diet. Try some other canned foods like beef, chicken, lamb instead of the tuna and dry food.

I know 2 kitties with no teeth and both are mostly on dry with a little wet in the AM & PM without a problem!

Thanks so much for the help guys! His dry food is small enough for him to swallow whole, so i tried giving it to him witout moistening it first and he seemed to like it better. upon hearing what you guys have to say about tuna, i'm ready to switch over to a wet food (in addition to dry). any recommendations?

Yes, I thought 12 pounds was a lot for him to weigh but the vet said about a month ago that he was fine. I don't want to underfeed him just because 12 lbs doesnt sound right, but on the other hand i don't want to overfeed him.

Many cats are in the 12 pound range and perfectly normal... larger breeds are mixed into the general cat population now. Six to seven pounds is actually a pretty small cat, in my opinion.

i have had a couple of cats with no teeth, and they have managed pretty much anything - although Ginger has to have his raw meat cut up small!! He cant eat a lot of dry food in one go though, as he drops a couple of pieces which get wet and then he can't get them up - so i sometimes hand feed him his supper!! I prefer him to have pate style foods, but he likes chunks in jelly/gravy.

My Nugent is nearly toothless and he does fine on dry food which he eats most of the time now because he is pretty much refusing the transiton to quality wet food.

I'm not fussin' too much about him not eating the wet because that's pretty much what he turned into a porker on. I used to feed Friskies and he would go down the line like a vacuum making sure it was all cleaned up.

As far as weight goes: use common sense when a vet says 10 lbs is ok!

Some have in their minds that ALL cats should be at least 10 lbs or more to be healthy.

If you have one of the purebreed smaller breeds - 10 lbs is TOO MUCH no matter what a vet says. Breeds like rexes, abys, singapuras, orientals, siamese (show - not traditional) are small refined cats and only should weigh 5- 7 or 8 lbs max! As long as the slender/refined cats are all muscle, they can go 7-8 lbs without being "fat". 10+ lbs on any of these breeds is fat.

One vet tried to tell me to fatten my rexes up to 10 lbs because they are too skinny - he didn't know that the breed is supposed to be refined! In fact, Spooky looked his best with muscle at 6.5 - 7 lbs - any more over that and he started to get a potbelly and look overweight.

If the poster has a purebred aby - that cat should not weigh more then 7 lbs.

hmm now i'm a little worried. he did come from a line a show cats, but he does not show. do you say that, goldenkitty, for health reasons or for aesthetic reasons?

Health reasons - your cat should be nicely muscled, not fat. And it depends on the boning structure of the cats. Small cats are REFINED - not skinny. Rexes/orientals/abys are slendar built cats - anything over 6-7 lbs is nothing but fat.

I've seen overweight purebreds - not only is it not pleasing to the eye, but the extra weight can cause medical problems up the road.

I'd really consider putting your aby on a diet to get about 4-5 lbs off him. He will be a lot healtheir. In fact, at the cat show today there was a pet rex in the HHP's - and very much overweight too.

ok now i'm really worried. How should I go about helping him lose weight? diet-wise and exercise-wise

Firstly, IMO 10 lbs is not overweight for a cat. Well, it might be for Mika because she was the runt of the litter and looks very healthy yet sleek at 8 lbs. Bijou on the other hand is easily twice her size and also looks healthy and sleek. I do however believe he could lose a couple of pounds but not much more. Since moving from all dry diet to mostly wet, he has lost some weight and looks better.

The most important thing you must NOT do is put your cat on a diet. If a cat loses weight too quickly it can be life-threatening. Dry food has lots of fillers and can cause weight gain. Try to feed more wet food and decrease the dry. But, as I said, I don't think 10 lbs. is too big for a regular cat.