Here’s the situation. My kitties are fat. They have been on a strict diet of a little less than one third of a cup of dry weight-control food twice a day but they aren’t losing weight. The vet says to just keep cutting back a little. I’d like to occasinally give them wet food instead of dry as I’ve heard that it helps with weight loss. I’ve read the labels on the cans of food and they seem to recommend a lot. The standard recommendation seems to be 3 ounces of wet food per 5 pounds of cat twice a day. For my 10-15 pound cats that’s at minimum two large or 4 small cans each daily. That seems a lot as they often split just a 3 ounce can for a meal.
So, what seems a reasonable amount to cat people. I was thinking about 3 ounces each twice a day (one small can or pouch each or splitting a large can) would seem right, but I don’t want to starve them. Do they really need 3 ounces for each 5 pounds twice a day?
Our girls get one pouch of wet food between the two of them each evening, and free-feed on weight-control dry mixed with multiple-cat blend. Keeps them nice and trim.
Talk to your vet (or it might be time to get a second opinion – just cutting back more will eventually result in starving them!) and see if they will tell you how many kcal/day your cats should get. My cats are chubby, too, and they are on a combo wet/dry food. Our vet told us how many kcal they should be getting, and most of the foods will tell you how many kcal are in a serving, either on the package or on the website. This worked for us, because it let us do the math and decide how much of each we gave them, within reason, so we didn’t break the bank on the wet food.
They’re both 14-15 pounds, and they each get 1/2 cup Royal Canin Light 37 and 1/2 can Purina OM (Overweight Management) wet food, which I believe is only available from vets and/or with a “prescription.” It’s working; they are losing weight. Of course, we don’t know how much each cat is actually eating; we just know that that’s what we’re serving.
Our cat gets 1/4 of a can of wet stuff every evening, and kibble available all day. We don’t get any complaints unless I’m not feeding her promptly at 5PM - then she yells.
Our cats get no wet at all (just the occasional mouthful of tuna). They get 1/4 cup each twice a day of the highest quality dry food we can buy, and they are both fit and thriving (12 pounds each - they’re big girls, but not fat). When they get older, we might need to go to more wet, but for now, it’s working fine this way.
I think my vet has said that it was 3 ounces per five pounds of recommended weight. So if your fat 10-pound cat ought to weigh in at about 5 pounds, calculate his feed based on that. And that calculation will to be maintain proper weight – if you want them to lose weight, you will probably have to feed them a bit less.
Also, my vet said that these “recommendations” on the cans lean toward what he would consider the maximum, for a well-exercised cat. He’d go with less for most pampered house cats. As he said, this is the recommendation from the people selling the product–of course they want you to buy more!
He said he sees way more overweight cats than ones that are starving! (Except for the rescue ones.)
My cat, who has maintained pretty much the same weight for all of her adult life, gets one can of Fancy Feast in the morning and one in the evening. She probably gets fifteen or so minutes exercise playing fetch (yes fetch!) with me on a daily basis. And tho I’m no expert, I’d say she is an “average” size cat. If that helps.
mine get whatever wet food the can catch [it also tends to go squeek-crunch when they eat it.]
Mine free-range on dry kibble from a 3 pound bin of food and whatever rodents foolishly think that they can come in out of the cold/rain into the house [mrAru and I live on a small almost farm, and there will always be rodents around even if we do keep the chicken feed in a sealed bin.]
We have five cats and all are 100% dry food cats. We have one fatty, but he came to us that way and has since lost some poundage (but he’s still very much a fat guy). Our cats live to their late teens or early 20s. I see no reason to ever give them wet food.
My vets say canned food makes fat cats, period. Even a dry food that is too yummy will tempt your little buddy into overeating.
A couple of pounds too heavy may not seem like much, but when you look at it as a percentage of the ideal weight, it’s a big strain on the kitty. Imagine if you put weights equal to 15% of your own body weight into a backpack, and carry that everywhere you go. You’d be tired, and your feet would hurt.
I would recommend skipping the wet food entirely. Besides causing weight gain, it’s really bad for cats’ (and dogs’) teeth, which can cause big problems as they age. It’s really quite simple to get your animals to their appropriate weights. Switch to dry food and weigh them every other week or so. If they aren’t loosing weight, reduce the amount you’re giving them (by, say, 10% or so). Once they start loosing weight, keep the food intake steady or reduce as needed until the goal weight is reached. It’s much easier than loosing weight yourself.
Yeah, then again you have the wet food crusaders who consider even mediocre wet food better for pet cats than the very best ultra-premium dry food. So for example, here:
To quote from that last link - The only benefit of feeding dry food is the marginal dental benefit. However, as is typical of carnivores, the teeth of the cat are appropriately modified for grasping, puncturing, and tearing (cutting), rather than for true mastication. With the exception of “crunching” dry food, cats do little, if any, actual chewing. The hinging of the lower jaw can only be moved up and down and possesses no ability for a lateral chewing motion.
Personally I feed both, so I don’t fall into the extremes of either camp. Some folks are real zealots on the issue though.
Our two cats get as much dry food as they like, and one can (the short kind) of wet food each every second evening (alternating between beef and non-beef, if you’re curious). They are twelve (or so) and six, both fixed, and indoor cats, and neither of them run to fat although they both have the “cobby” body type. I guess we would change the diet if they started to get overweight, but that hasn’t come up yet.
Wet food is so gross and smelly. There is no way I could start my day off dealing with that crap! Plus I think it makes their poops smell bad.
Our cat gets 1/4 cup dry food in the morning and 1/4 cup dry food in the evening. He is strictly an indoor cat, and a little overweight as a result. Like every other cat I’ve ever known, he is neurotic about his food, and very piggish with it. We give him a good quality Weight Control food and he loves it.
I used to think so, until I realized: 1) I deal with their shit on a daily basis, and this is certainly no worse; 2) all it is is meat, which I also deal with on a daily basis; and 3) I can just use a spoon, then wash the spoon. I’m still not a big fan, but I can certainly get through the evening.
My SIL attributes cat farts to the canned food. And I must say, I’ve never detected a single cat fart amongst all our kitties. I think she may be onto something.
I don’t have cats but I was a vet tech for a while. The dogs and cats with the most god-awful breath and rotten teeth were invariably small breeds and cats who had been fed wet food all their lives. That’s just my anecdotal evidence, though I have seen cats eat, and there is some crunching involved there, whether their jaws were designed for it or not. Anyway, I’m not an extremist either (and cat-less, anyway) but I would rather feed my hypothetical cat a bit of fresh fish or canned tuna or something if I wanted to add variety to his diet.