I just weighed our orange tabby for the first time in awhile and discovered that he tips the scales at 23.5 pounds. And I’m thinking, “Damn, that is one heavy cat!”
Now, in fairness, I should point out that he is an extremely long cat (although he has been developing a bit of a pot belly in the last year or so). Here is a picture of him from a couple of years ago to show you what I mean by “long.”
So anyway, I’m just wondering how other people’s cats stack up. I’m sure that 23.5 pounds is by no means a record, but it’s got to be unusual, right?
I have five. The biggest, who is somewhat chubby, weighs about 13 pounds; then we’ve got a couple at about 12 pounds (one is chubby and one is just all muscle) and one at about 10 pounds (not chubby at all). The last is a petite miss who tips the scales at 7 pounds. She’s quite thin - not bony gross but she’s got no extra meat on her. She just doesn’t like to eat - gets spooked easily. I have to put her up on a shelf so that the others don’t bother her. Plus I have to stay in the room with her while she eats or she runs away.
Tobermory just got weighed at the vet, and that porker comes in at 17 pounds(7.71 kilograms). In all fairness he is big boned, but the vet said he could stand to lose about a pound and a half. I feed both my cats Science Diet light, but the problem about putting Toby on a diet would be seperating his food from that of my other cat, the Road Warrior. Roadie doesn’t have the weight problem that Tobermory has.
I had Cookie on “Prescription Diet” weightloss formula for a year. 50g a day is all she got, and no snacks.
It totally changed her personality - she became a squalling, horrible, food-obsessed addict. She was constantly looking for food, and she played less, and even when she did, her play and sleep were continually interrupted by her food obsession. For example if she was messing around in the living room and I took a single step towards the kitchen, she’d immediately run in and start crying.
She never lost more than about half a pound. The vet said to reduce the daily food amount yet again, but in the past month we’ve given up and are giving her a bit more, and she’s turned back into the cute cat we used to know.
Eponine was right around 9 pounds the last time I weighed her. Poor sick little MaggieMoo is down 6.7 pounds, as of last Monday night.
Twenty-two pounds is certainly an unusually large cat, but not nearly as unusual as it ought to be. The heaviest cat I’ve ever personally hauled around was the one who used to live at the grooming shop behind my old clinic; Stymie weighed in at 28 pounds, give or take a few ounces depending on various factors. He was a long, tall cat, but he was also a very, very fat cat.
Tasha, my grey tabby, weighs 10.5 pounds, but she’s the opposite of your tabby, godzillatemple - she’s short and roundy, and when she lays on her back, she looks like a meatloaf with feet. Tee is white with tabby spots and weighs about 12 pounds, but he’s also a long, tall kitty. Cara is a longhaired “ragdoll” or tortoiseshell, and weighs about 9 pounds, and at least six of that is hair.
I used to be owned by a cat that weighed 23 pounds, though. I didn’t think he was a particularly big cat, but other people seemed to think he was enormous.
The 22 pounder needs to lost some weight. We had gotten her down to 16 but that was with locking her in a room alone at feeding time. With the birth of our son we lost our quarantine the kitties room so she’s mainstreamed and back to her food stealing ways.
I think it really depends on the cat as to how overweight 23 pounds is. If my 7 pounder ballooned to that I’d be terrified but a larger built kitty and some of the bigger breeds like a maine coon… they could be 23 and healthy.
Our biggest cat, Orson, weighs 82 pounds! Well, not really. I kept trying to get him to stand on the scale and he finally did for an instant. I hit the button, but he jumped of the scale just then, up to the toilet seat. The scale claims a jumping Orson weighs 82 pounds.
Well, our only full-grown cat, Ace, weighs about 13 pounds according to our digital scale. (Me holding him minus me not holding him.) I don’t know if that’s right, though, because he looks pretty circular when he lays on his back, and most people who see him think he’s a pretty big cat. It could be right, though, because he’s not very tall, just … thick.
We’ve tried to put him on diets before (Iams diet kitty food), but his fur lost its luster and he stopped being so active, plus I don’t think he even lost any weight, so we went back to the regular stuff. Even though I think he’s too fat, he looks and acts a lot healthier when he’s eating regular food.
When she was a kitten the 9 pounder went from 4.5 to 9 pounds in 6 months, but hasn’t gained since then. Weird. She has that “empty paunch” thing going on. It is also weird. It’s like she was morbidly obese and lost a ton of weight but the skin never receeded. But that never happened! I think she was waiting for babies to come and they never did (I had her de-sexed before that could happen.)
I think Cobalt is around 12-13 pounds, and Rhodium is 8-9. He’s a little longer, but not much. He’s got a pretty stocky build, although I don’t think he’s fat (looks a lot like yours, actually, Barry), but Rhodium is extremely slender. She gets plenty to eat - she’s just one of those naturally thin types.
They eat Natural Balance, about 1 cup per day between the two of them.
When we got Miss Kitty (and it is always Miss), she weighed 6 pounds and was 1-2 years old. We thought–okay, just a small cat, all done with her growing. We had a big boned cat before and we had just resigned ourselves that we were going to have a mini-kitty.
Well, she grew. And grew. She got longer/taller and now weighs 10-12 pounds. And she isn’t fat (well, maybe a little hippy, but so am I :)). She’s just bigger. Strange. She is the only cat that I have known that grew after maturity.
Here are some pictures of Sputnik who weighs in at 17.1 lbs.
He’s not really fat. He’s just big. The first thing people say is “Sputnik is huge!”. He’s almost knee-high to me. When he lays on me…well it’s like having a 17lb bowling ball on my lap. And he’s a very strong cat. We gave him some shots and it took three adult humans to hold him down. And they were working hard at at.
Awwww…I love my cat! Here are some baby pictures if you want to see how little he was just a year and a half ago.
