Sudden Overfeeding/ Free Feeding Worries

[Optatus Cleary]

So I went to Petco today (it’s in another town but I was there anyway) and it’s amazing how many more choices they have than the local grocery store and feed store!

All of the Weruva products said they were for adult cats, and I’m not sure Blossom is quite an adult yet. I bought seven types of Tiki Cat food which were for All Life Stages:
Ahi Tuna and Chicken in chicken consommé
Sardine cutlets in lobster consommé
Ahi tuna with crab in tuna consommé
Succulent chicken in chicken consommé
Aloha Friend Tuna with Shrimp and pumpkin
After dark chicken and lamb recipe in broth
After dark chicken and duck recipe in broth

I gave her the ahi tuna and chicken in chicken consommé for her dinner, and she devoured it! My wife said it’s a “five star review from Blossom!”

I think we will identify which Tiki foods she seems to like best and buy those for her to mix in the rotation, and also try to cut back on the Pure Harmony due to carrageenan.

 

[kittenmittens84]

If cats sit further back on their haunches (as in, front paws closer to back paws when they’re sitting up like in your photo), they look chunkier. Some cats just sit funny!

 

[lisahe]

Our Petco also has a pretty decent selection. I'm glad Blossom liked the Tiki. Yes, all life stages is fine to feed to any cat, though since Blossom's likely still growing, you may find she needs a lot of Tiki to get enough calories. They do stuff their cans (at least in the chicken-based foods) pretty well but even so, my recollection is that their foods aren't very calorie-dense. That's really more of a budgetary concern than anything else!

One other thing: I'm not sure if you feed much fish or not but it's generally a good idea not to feed too much of it. Beyond concerns about heavy metals, food sensitivities/allergies, and thyroid disease, some cats get addicted to fish and then are hesitant to eat other types. (Our previous cat was pretty addicted to fish.) We used to feed our current cats an occasional can of a Weruva Cats in the Kitchen food that had both chicken and fish (probably a lot like the tuna/chicken Tiki that Blossom loved so much) but one of our cats was recently diagnosed with asthma so we've (vet's order!) totally cut out the fish because of the histamines. I have to admit that I hated to see it (and the weekly Fancy Feast, too, since it had small amounts of fish!) go because the cats loved it so much. Here's my favorite article about fish and cats.

 

[Optatus Cleary]

Most of the foods she eats have at least some fish. I had no idea whatsoever that fish was considered bad for cats (I guess I just made the assumption that cats like fish, they must be meant to eat it.)

I feel like I’m going insane trying to figure out everything to make her diet right. It sounds like we should probably cut out the fish based foods entirely! At first she seemed to be biased against foods containing fish but then she started really liking it. I actually LOOKED for the Tiki Cat flavors with fish in them because she likes it so much. I guess this is an opportunity to change out some foods...maybe I can find flavors of non-fish stuff she likes.

 

[lisahe]

Most of the foods she eats have at least some fish. I had no idea whatsoever that fish was considered bad for cats (I guess I just made the assumption that cats like fish, they must be meant to eat it.)

I feel like I’m going insane trying to figure out everything to make her diet right. It sounds like we should probably cut out the fish based foods entirely! At first she seemed to be biased against foods containing fish but then she started really liking it. I actually LOOKED for the Tiki Cat flavors with fish in them because she likes it so much. I guess this is an opportunity to change out some foods...maybe I can find flavors of non-fish stuff she likes.

I know, it can be really hard to know what's good and what's bad! And the to figure out what to feed that they'll eat. I didn't know fish was bad for cats, either, until our previous cat, the fish addict, was in her final months. Learning that is why we'd been feeding so little fish to the cats we have now.

It's probably fine to feed an occasional food with fish as a treat, particularly if it's a chicken/fish combo. It's constant fish you most want to avoid.

Finding good foods for a diet/rotation can be really hard, particularly since individual cats will have individual needs. Most of all, don't feel like you have to be a totalmaximalist about what you feed: if you feed an occasional fish/chicken food, that's okay. If there's an occasional carrageenan, that's probably okay, too. If you're on a cat food budget there may be compromise foods, like Sheba pate, a very decent food at reasonable price that helps you afford Tiki, too. That's what I do, both to keep myself moderately sane about what we feed and to keep the cats happy. They like variety anyway, so it's all to the best to feed them lots of different foods. All that said, since it's hard to find enough canned foods that the cats can and will eat, we feed two meals a day of commercial raw food, two meals a day of homemade food, and just one small daily can.

 

[Optatus Cleary]

I’m not really worried about the price of any cat food I’ve encountered so far. I can get her what she needs to make sure she’s healthy.

I’m very upset about this fish thing. Nobody- not the vet, not anyone on this forum, not anything I read about nutrition for kittens, told me this until now. I can’t imagine how much damage I’ve done to her feeding her this mostly fish-based diet. I’m really wracked with guilt over it. I thought of fish as healthy and beneficial. I should have researched it myself, I’m not blaming anyone else for my mistake, but it never even occurred to me. Maybe there should be some kind of sticky post here warning about the dangers of fish-based foods? I think most people make the association between cats and fish and never consider that it could be bad for them.

I’ve purchased so much of her favorite foods, I’m wondering if I could taper off of them...maybe one fish based one per day for a week, then every other day, etc., until she’s having it maybe once a week or preferably not at all. Do you think it would be best to go “cold turkey” (both literally and figuratively) or to taper like this?

 

[IndyJones]

I think really all cats are different. Indy eats food with fish in it all the time and the vet said it was fine. Indy also has some scaring in her tear duct and nasal passages and sometimes can't smell her food unless it is smelly. I do rotate her canned food though between salmon, whitefish, chicken, lamb, turkey and beef.

Just feed what your cat likes.

 

[molly92]

I’m not really worried about the price of any cat food I’ve encountered so far. I can get her what she needs to make sure she’s healthy.

I’m very upset about this fish thing. Nobody- not the vet, not anyone on this forum, not anything I read about nutrition for kittens, told me this until now. I can’t imagine how much damage I’ve done to her feeding her this mostly fish-based diet. I’m really wracked with guilt over it. I thought of fish as healthy and beneficial. I should have researched it myself, I’m not blaming anyone else for my mistake, but it never even occurred to me. Maybe there should be some kind of sticky post here warning about the dangers of fish-based foods? I think most people make the association between cats and fish and never consider that it could be bad for them.

I’ve purchased so much of her favorite foods, I’m wondering if I could taper off of them...maybe one fish based one per day for a week, then every other day, etc., until she’s having it maybe once a week or preferably not at all. Do you think it would be best to go “cold turkey” (both literally and figuratively) or to taper like this?

It's often so difficult to get cats eating a healthy wet food that fish is a lower priority concern. When I worked in a pet store I would be hesitant to mention problems with fish unless the customer seemed eager for information, because so many people would get frustrated and overwhelmed if it became too difficult and give up and go back to dry.

However, I do believe that fish is linked to hyperthyroidism. It's so common in cats, and we know heavy metals affect the thyroid, and with the state of our oceans, these metals accumulate in fish. Cats are descended from desert animals, so fish isn't really a "natural" part of their diet, but it's so smelly that cats really gravitate towards it, and so many cats are picky that a lot of foods rely on fish to make it enticing. That's the frustrating part about Tiki Cat flavors-so much fish! Otherwise it's a pretty good food, even though prices have been going up and portions are getting smaller for that brand. (Pay attention to calorie content on those cans, because it's a lot lower than most brands.)

There are safer ways to incorporate fish. The smaller the fish is, the lower on the food chain it is, and the fewer toxins it's accumulated in the flesh. Shrimp, anchovies, sardines, etc are good seafood options as a treat. Salmon, tuna, and whitefish are large and better to avoid if possible. Fish oils are good supplements if needed when they've been purified by a reputable company.

My current cat doesn't get any fish in her food, but I do give her freeze dried minnows as treats and I found a dog treat that's just freeze dried Baltic Sprat that she loves. But my other cat, who was elderly when I got her, did not eat well so she got whatever she wanted because it was more important for her to eat at all than worry about how it would affect her years later when she might not even be alive. So it's not a hard and fast rule to never feed fish, which is why it's difficult to give good guidelines about it. Some cats are really easy and will eat whatever you give them, but some cats are more difficult and we don't want to make cat owners feel guilty if fish is all they can get their cat to eat, and cats can get fatty liver disease so easily if they fast for too long, so it's really important that cats keep eating, whatever it is!

That said, I do encourage reducing fish consumption if you can, and I think your tapering plan sounds good! If you want to overwhelm yourself with even more information on different topics, I recommend catinfo.org.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi!

She looks perfect in every way and your description of her body condition is right on the mark.

A couple things, that weight gain you mentioned was a growth spurt and although I'm not a vet was in all likelihood normal.

All Life Stages foods are fine, or Adult foods will work for her.

feel like I’m going insane trying to figure out everything to make her diet right. It sounds like we should probably cut out the fish based foods entirely!

When you (and a lot of us) rely on commercial pet food as opposed to feeding raw/home-made, you're right, it's up to us to determine what ingredients we're comfortable with and those we'd prefer to avoid.

As mentioned, you could feed a food with fish in it on a rotational schedule, or taper the quantity down and eliminate it for a while and then reintroduce it on a minimal basis.

The bottom line is that the best method of determining her health status is regular vet checkups

 

[lisahe]

I’m not really worried about the price of any cat food I’ve encountered so far. I can get her what she needs to make sure she’s healthy.

I’m very upset about this fish thing. Nobody- not the vet, not anyone on this forum, not anything I read about nutrition for kittens, told me this until now. I can’t imagine how much damage I’ve done to her feeding her this mostly fish-based diet. I’m really wracked with guilt over it. I thought of fish as healthy and beneficial. I should have researched it myself, I’m not blaming anyone else for my mistake, but it never even occurred to me. Maybe there should be some kind of sticky post here warning about the dangers of fish-based foods? I think most people make the association between cats and fish and never consider that it could be bad for them.

I’ve purchased so much of her favorite foods, I’m wondering if I could taper off of them...maybe one fish based one per day for a week, then every other day, etc., until she’s having it maybe once a week or preferably not at all. Do you think it would be best to go “cold turkey” (both literally and figuratively) or to taper like this?

Don't beat yourself up over the fish! People generally think it's easy to feed cats but there's a lot to keep track of if your cat has any health quirks at all. And if you want to at least try to avoid them... though of course nothing is guaranteed. A lot of things never occurred to me when we got our previous cat and we fed her cheap dry food and lots of wet fish food for years. I still blame myself for that but (long story short!) there's only so much any of us can know.

I don't think you need to totally cut out the foods with fish. If you're feeding the chicken/fish foods, that's already giving a fish-flavor benefit but without as much of the downside. I'm not sure if her thinking has changed or not but even our anti-fish vet had said she didn't think it was bad to feed an occasional fish treat. (I wouldn't do that now, though, for our asthmatic cat...) In any case, as long as you're not feeding regular fish-based food, Blossom should be just fine. What molly92 says about moderation fits my view of it and what they and IndyJones say about cats who won't eat much otherwise is also very true: sometimes you need to have fish to fall back on, particularly for older cats who can't smell well.

Fingers crossed for finding more foods Blossom will like. Our cats have liked a couple flavors of the Tiki After Dark. (And if you get the one with quail, the egg is really cute in the can... )