How much should i feed my cat (siamese, throwing up, food)
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3 ounces of canned and handful of kibble doesn't sound like enough for a growing kitten, but I don't know how much a 'handful of kibble' is. I would eliminate the kibble and feed her at least another 2 cans of fancy feast, for a total of 9 ounces of canned all together. Minimum.
It's a giant handful. It fills the bowl with a big mountain. I'm can't eliminate the dry. She needs food overnight. She gets diarrhea if wet food is left to spoil. I haven't had a problem with her preferring dry like others warned.
We settled at this because she only eats a 1/2 can at a time. There always seems to be leftovers. There's dry in her bowl right now. Half the time when we feed her the canned, she doesn't eat it right away---she's not starving and running for the dish. She likes watching the process of being fed but then runs off to do other things before she gets around to actually eating it. This seems to be the amount she will eat, but I do worry. I'll add a midday feeding and see if she eats it.
I'm glad to hear 10 pounds is the normal weight for a cat. That means she's right on schedule with her weight gain, maybe even ahead since she gains a pound a month.
i am also searching for a guideline for my 14lb 12-year-old cat.
why is it so hard to get an answer??
Wanted to touch on this specifically. It's hard partly because the requirements for any given cat can be so different from another. But it's also partly because labeling of pet food is not strict with some of the info. For example, some cans I've bought recently list the calories, but many still don't. Feeding guidelines based on number of cans or even volume of dry go all over the place in calorie content. There is no standardization of that so for best info you need to get a rough idea of your own cat's calorie needs (there are some charts online although even then the info is not necessarily consistent) and then dig for the calorie info of the food.
In the end it does all come down to calories. But what that number is depends upon cat age, size, activity level, etc. My departed cat probably weighed around 14lbs at age 12. That was too heavy for her so I was having her eat less. Then she got hyperthyroid and lost a couple pounds before we caught and stabilized that. Not the ideal weight loss plan ;-) but the vet said her weight was good at 12 or 11. Later she lost some more and with the last few months we had trouble getting her to eat.
Basically, senior cat is usually not too active. Doesn't need too much but needs a minimum to avoid losing weight too quickly (or avoid losing at all if 14 is good weight for large framed cat). Be guided by your vet in terms of if weight is at right level. And senior cat you might want 6 month check ups with some blood panels given the conditions that may arise. Watch carefully for change in weight or eating habits. These are often the first signs we can see of something wrong.
what ever he does not eat how many hours should i keep it out.
I know that when I was little we always had cats and let them out when they wanted to go out and back in at their choice. Today, however, many cats later ( I now have 2 boys that we got from the local shelter) I would recommend keeping him as an inside cat. We now know about people experiencing high vet bills from illness or injury. The other reason is that even though I'm on the paranoid side, I hear too many stories about animals being taken or abused for fun. As to feeding,I don't know what is so hard for others to tell you what they do. My cats are 4 yrs. each about 10-11 lbs (average), we feed them blue buffalo dry food, 2/3 cup in the am, same in the pm (breakfast and dinner), always fresh water. If you can't or don't want to spend that much, ask your vet to recommend something. We went to the cheap for a while and my one cat's chin broke out in sores, so eventually we find out he's allergic to something in the food and had to go to a food with only a few ingredients. Seems to work. We also sometimes get the little cans as a meal and do 1 wet and one dry meal. The little cans for most cats are one serving. It does depend on each cat's appetite. As long as you go for regular exams to a vet, and don't give your cat people food, you can't get too far off track. I am hoping he's already neutered. Also I hope you always have a collar on him with your phone# and address.
Have fun and good luck!
I know that when I was little we always had cats and let them out when they wanted to go out and back in at their choice. Today, however, many cats later ( I now have 2 boys that we got from the local shelter) I would recommend keeping him as an inside cat. We now know about people experiencing high vet bills from illness or injury. The other reason is that even though I'm on the paranoid side, I hear too many stories about animals being taken or abused for fun. As to feeding,I don't know what is so hard for others to tell you what they do. My cats are 4 yrs. each about 10-11 lbs (average), we feed them blue buffalo dry food, 2/3 cup in the am, same in the pm (breakfast and dinner), always fresh water. If you can't or don't want to spend that much, ask your vet to recommend something. We went to the cheap for a while and my one cat's chin broke out in sores, so eventually we find out he's allergic to something in the food and had to go to a food with only a few ingredients. Seems to work. We also sometimes get the little cans as a meal and do 1 wet and one dry meal. The little cans for most cats are one serving. It does depend on each cat's appetite. As long as you go for regular exams to a vet, and don't give your cat people food, you can't get too far off track. I am hoping he's already neutered. Also I hope you always have a collar on him with your phone# and address.
Have fun and good luck!
1 1/3 cups a day? Is that between the cats or each cat?
I strongly urge you to get your two male cats off the dry, any dry, but Blue dry specifically, and get them onto a canned or mostly canned diet.
This will save you much in vet bills and heartache in the coming years.
Here's a good site to tell you why, written by a vet who specializes in feline nutrition
Here we go again with the "Dry food kills cats" same old song. For 40 years or more I have raised various cats on mostly dry food and they lead long, healthy lives right to the end, which is usually around the 16-17 year mark. Every checkup is perfect and the vet comments about how well cared for they are.
Anyway, here is another thing that will have some peoples dentures falling out............I put out a big dish of Iams every day and our 3 eat whenever they want. None of them are overweight and they only eat what they want and then walk away. They aren't like hogs that will keep eating until every bite is gone.
Believe me, money is NO object when it would come to feeding my cats the very best food I think they should have. The times when I have tried to give them moist food Daisy will eat some, Lucky just picks at it, and Chewy sniffs it and walks away. So if you feel better feeding YOUR cats moist food, have at it, but don't try to make converts out of the rest of us who are smart enough to make our own decisions !
I will never stop trying to educate people about the dangers of dry feeding, and the benefits of a wet diet. If you would actually make the effort to transition your cats from eating such a crummy diet, you'd be amazed at how much better than "fine" your cats can actually be. It's not just about quantity of life, it's about quality. And your cats may seem fine, but if you would make that commitment to improving their diet, you'd see what we are always on about, and why.
Since you've never fed your cats a wet diet, you have no basis for comparison.
Not knowing there is a better way is one thing. But to be educated, to know and understand that a cat is an obligate carnivore and what that cat should eat, and be in a position to make the changes, and still not bother ....one comes to certain..conclusions and opinions.
They seem fine and live to be 16. Who cares if their stomachs hurt or they live in a state of mild dehydration, or their pee stings as it comes out, all of those 16 years. It's not bothering you any, right? They don't show any symptoms of it, after all. So much easier to dump a load of cereal in a bowl each day and forget about it.
Just keep in mind that cats hide any mild, or even major, discomfort. They will always seem "fine". You won't know the difference, until you improve the diet. Then, you will begin to understand what the rest of us are talking about.
It can take work. Just because a cat rejects a food when you put it down, doesn't mean it isn't worth working toward. One of my cats wouldn't go near her dish when I first started feeding raw, if I even so much as put a tiny bit of raw in the dish, even if it wasn't touching the canned food. It took months, but now she eats raw with great enthusiasm. It took months. Effort. Work. The difference in her is worth every bit of it.
The same can be said and done for dry to wet.
Last edited by catsmom21; 03-01-2014 at 09:22 PM..
No offense, but who appointed you to head up the education program in the first place ? What personal research have you done on this subject that qualifies you to be stating these "facts" as you see them ? You remind me of those religious fanatics who show up at my door occasionally, trying to force their views on me.
You take care of your cats the way you want and please allow me the right to do the same without this endless preaching.
I've done years of "personal research". Starting in 2007. Before that I just fed a canned diet, because in 1986 I had a male cat block and the vet I was using then told me I should feed my male cat, and any other cat I ever had, a canned diet, avoiding fish. That they needed the moisture that came in canned food to be healthy. He was right and I saw the differences in my cats, though didn't think about the quality of the canned food or the ingredients added, then. That came later.
You don't have to read the "preaching" Don. I'm not standing on your door step, I'm posting in a public forum. Some people want to be educated about what their cats should eat. Some people do care, do make the changes, do see the differences, and then they start "preaching" too. Because we care about cats. All cats. So I, and others, will carry on, in spite of the ones who prefer to remain blind and ignorant about how bad dry food is for cats.
Marketing is a powerful thing. You aren't the only one who falls for it.
Briefly, since PETCO and local shelters are now advocating wet food, there must be something to it. I can see where PETCO would feel they could benefit financially from advocating wet food, but the shelters ... not so much.
It's Truly wonderful that individual's companion animals, HAVE lived into their middle teens, Saber [my first cat] was 13 when I became his friend and caretaker in 2008, but I was told he had been "unwell" for years and he could barely walk anymore. I changed his diet from dry, color, corn, and additive laden food to a premium canned food. For a year and a half his health improved dramatically, before he developed worsening stomach issues leading to pancreatitis, and cancer. //www.city-data.com/forum/cats/...l#post19405677
However it was also the new food that killed him, lack of thiamine. I was clueless about pet food then. The only reason I thought to change him from the food he had been being fed, was because I grew up watching tv shows like Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, so I knew cats (period) are obligate carnivores, and the food in that bag was not what cats ate. But, I was clueless/never questioned, marketing ploys such as grain-free //www.city-data.com/forum/cats/...-pet-food.html
Also, I doubt the ingredients in pet foods 20 or more years ago was as degraded and contaminated as they are now.
Food, and pet food INDUSTRY sites are a wealth of information about how the products we consume and those we feed our pets are manufactured. Also, the NEWEST buzz-word/marketing term BIOLOGICALLY-APPROPRIATE is coming to a bag/can near you.(as per industry sites, see if you can find the info yourself)
If you will watch while your cats use the litter box, you can discern a lot about how their diet is affecting them. Example: Straining to poop seems natural (on an all/mostly dry diet) until you see them them eliminately easily on an all/mostly canned diet.
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keeping him "out"
For 40 years or more I have raised various cats on mostly dry food and they lead long, healthy lives right to the end, which is usually around the 16-17 year mark. Every checkup is perfect and the vet comments about how well cared for they are.
