Yet ANOTHER Cat Thread

In My Humble Opinion
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Okay folks, I’m sorry, but I can’t get enough right now. It’s been so long since I’ve had fun with a cat. My cat that recently passed had been low-energy for a very long time.

Poppy plays wonderfully, is warming up very well and starts purring the moment I sit on the can (she’s in the bathroom right now, to adapt) regardless if I’m even paying attention to her. I try to ignore her for the most part, until she comes up to me. Don’t want to “crowd” her, being feral she’s still skittish.

I’m wasting money at PetCo and PetSmart buying cute things and I’m loving it. It’s like having a baby all over again, without the bad stuff. I’m soooo happy with my choice of Poppy that yesterday at a Baby Shower all I could do was think about playing her at home, even though there was the absolute most adorable baby boy I’ve ever seen in attendance. Still, I felt I had the right baby and could look at the new mom and say [Nelson]Haw-haw[/Nelson].

Anyhoo, enough of my gushing. I’m wondering what to do next.

(1) Should I free-feed or feed on a schedule? I always just dumped food in the bowl for Chloe and she ate whenever she wanted. Perhaps that contributed to her diabetes? Which leads me to…

(2) What is a normal excretory amount for a 7 month old kitten? I shamefully hadn’t cleaned her box since Thursday when she got here (thought maybe keeping it a few days might reinforce[?]) and this is Sunday @ 6 ayem. All of her stuff is well-formed and small, but I think I picked up 20+ deposits. Is that a normal amount? Say it was 6-8 times a day. Is that right? I haven’t any idea what is normal 'cuz Chloe peed like a horse.

(3) What about catnip? Liquids (I saw bubbles!) or seeds/leaves or live plant? I also saw something on the shelf along the lines of “happy kitty” that is supposed to be added to drinking water which is an essence of herbs and flowers. What’s up with that? Kitty valium in a bottle?

As always, your experiences de-ignorant me! TIA!

ps…thanks to all in the previous thread “Which Kitty Should I Get”; she is indeed a Poppy…she told me so herself!

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  1. It depends on the cat. Most of them seem to do fine free-feeding, and it’s certainly easier on their owners. I find, however, that spayed calicos in particular will eat to excess if allowed. I dunno, it just seems to be that my fatties are always spayed calicos…

  2. I dunno.

  3. Hee hee…catnip fun! (About 30% of cats lack the gene that gets them high on catnip, so if she doesn’t think it’s fun right away, stop wasting your money.) The catnip bubbles are more fun for you than the cat, I think. But if she likes to chase bubbles, they can be a good time. I just buy catnip leaf or dry the catnip that I grow (they love it fresh, too, but dried stores longer.)

In fact, I use catnip medicinally (good for the onset of colds and flus, and it’s also a good bug repellant) and I once had a bottle of catnip tincture (alcohol extract) sealed on the counter. Cat No. 2 jumped onto the counter (fat ol’ thing that she is) and nudged the bottle to the edge and sent it crashing to the floor. I came home to find a drunk and high cat lolling about in a puddle, surrounded by shards of glass. I now store all catnip in a locked cabinet, which she paces underneath, yowling like an addict at the methadone clinic before opening hours.

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Any cat thread is worthless without pictures!

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I free-feed - which means with 8 cats I have a couple who are plumptious and the rest are a good weight. What are you feeding her? A high-quality food (better than Purina, which is the only grocery-store brand worth buying) will result in less stool, as well as less smell. Mine get dry food only, with the water drained off tuna or salmon as a treat. Very occasionally a can of wet food. I have read some dopers here mention that dry food only can lead to health trouble (can’t remember what, offhand) but that wasn’t confirmed by my vet.

Catnip - as mentioned above, not all cats will respond to it. Mine prefer fresh, which I grow, but will play with dry catnip-dusted toys if no fresh is offered. They only get it once a week or so.

Congratulations! A new kitten is a thing of joy, and you have picked up Karma points for rescuing a feral.

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Huh? Why?

My guys love the liquid we drain off. Anything wrong with that?

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If you free-feed, make sure to give her some wet food on occasion, just to vary the diet. She may be a little young to react to catnip. Our girls ignored it until they were almost a year old. Now they go nuts when they find a catnip toy.

We scoop the litter box every other day for two cats. As long as the smell is low and the scat is tight, you are alright. She will let you know if you fall behind schedule. Ours will meow and give me dirty looks if I haven’t scooped the box in a couple of days. Little neat freaks, they are.

Nothing wrong with tuna water at all. Ours love it, too.

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I question the normal amount of pee because I can’t remember back to when my previous cat was well and peed normally. I’m skeered of diabetes now, so I guess I’ll call my absolutely wonderful vet and ask. Poppy’ll need to get to the vet anyway, introduce and checkup you know.

Again, I’m just afraid of another diabetic cat.

Here’s another pic to whet your appetite! I just now added three! :smiley:

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Oh, no! Nothing wrong with it at all! I just don’t eat tuna or salmon that often, so it’s a treat to them!

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Cats generally don’t respond to catnip until they are sexually mature. And even then, something like a third of cats still don’t pay attention to it.

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Diabetes tends to be a disease of older cats. If you’re looking to worry that she may get a disease, there are plenty of young cat diseases that she’d be more likely to have.

However, if she’s happy, eating well, and growing you’re probabably best to assume sheis just fine.

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Yes. That’s how cats eat. Some at a time, at their own time. I believe you can read this in any decent book about cat behaviour.

Also, buy Royal Canin, Iams, or any of those brands. It’s cheaper in the long run (it won’t eat so much), and your cat will stay healthier. You can safely keep the cat on dry food, there’re absolutely no problem with that as long as you see that the dry food is fresh, and most importantly, that it always has access to fresh water.

Then you can throw in some chicken or tuna or salmon or whatever now and then, but from a diet perspective, the high quality dry food (and water) is all the cat need.

You don’t have to, as an above poster said, give the cat wet food. Most wet food is junk anyways.

You should make a habit of doing it every day. In that way it will never be gruesome for you, and remember that cats are like you: They don’t like bad odour, not even their own.

Also, you might get used to the slightly bad odour, but your guests aren’t. They smell it right away. If the litter box i smelly, many cats to their thing outside of it.

I’ve had seven cats in my life, and still can’t see the point of using that or any other “happy cat” shi+t.

The important thing is to keep the cat happy, comfortable, and curious. And you seem to be such a dedicated cat owner, that you don’t need any kind of pseudo drug to keep your little friend happy.

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Uh…do we see a disconnect here? Yes, there are many ways to keep a cat happy. Catnip, in moderation, is a fun one with no side effects.

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It’s very good if you want to attract your cats to a particular place. I got them to start using their very nice fleecy cat bed by sprinkling a bit of catnip on it, and still put a little catnip on their scratching posts every now and then to keep them thinking “this is a good place to be!”.

Also, they love catnip-stuffed toys – they will attack them for 5 minutes, then curl up around the toy and lick it to death. We humans have our chemically-induced pleasures; why shouldn’t cats?