How do i wean my 3 7 year old cat's off 1 small can of food, that i feed them in 3rds, i heard dry is better?

Question

i heard dry is better, is this true? i guess after 7 years , it will be hard for them to stop waking me up for their small potion of can food, i give them a very good dry food, that they eat also, but they still want their can food in the morning, it a small 9lives divided in 3 small amounts, which started out as a treat, but one cat is obese , they all want their can food and will not stop meowing until they get it, HELP!!

My question is how do i wean my three, 7 year old cats off can food,( not my 37 year old cat).

Answer 1

Is it the little bitty can of food? That's not a huge amount divided by three kitties. I would say, just slowly cut back to splitting half of a can between the three of them.
And I agree with the above answer, switch their dry food to a light diet, a good senior diet would be excellent, since technically a 7-year old cat is considered 'senior' even though they might have 13 years left...but the lower calories would be good for them.
If you can, try to get them all, especially the chubby one, to play more. Get some fun toys, a laser light, or even just paper tied with a ribbon, whatever they will bat around and chase, and try to get them a little more exercise.

As to whether dry or canned food is better, frankly neither. Both canned and dry diets are designed to include all the nutrition that an animal needs. It is a government requirement! The pet food industry must meed standards just like human food. The disadvantage to canned food is that it is more expensive and spoils easily compared to dry food. But since you have fed both canned and dry for 7 years to these kitties, there is no harm in continuing! Just watch the portions because a fat cat is not a healthy one; they will be more prone to various diseases including diabetes, hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease), and joint problems. Hmmm, just like people!

Good luck to you and your kitties!

Answer 2

I can help you! A can of nine lives divided by 3 cats once a day is not making your cat fat. It's a nice treat and a reasonable amount of food. Your cats are aging. Change their dry food to Purina Indoor formula in the green packaging. My little porker dropped weight and had never looked and acted so young. He loved the food and lost weight. ( It should be so easy for us :)

I continued to give him a small can of food every day.

Answer 3

You can keep giving both-switch to diet food or feed less dry food for the obese one. That small amount of wet food will not make a difference.

Answer 4

9 Lives is an atrocious canned food and I would hope you use a better brand of dry food. You need to go to www.littlebigcat.com and read Dr. Jean Hovfe's article "Why Cats Need Canned Food". It's at the end of about sixty articles on cat health, diet, diseases and behavior. You might also read her article titled, "Selecting a Good Commercial Pet Food".

So don't take wholesome meat out of your cat's diet - just choose some better food. Your cats are now addicted to a canned food that is manufactured with artificial flavor additives and they won't take to a quality food right away.

Your cats will eat what you provide for them eventually and it won't hurt them to miss a meal or two when you make a conversion.

Natural Balance has a good line of canned foods which are reasonably priced and available now at PetCo I believe. Their dry food is very high quality too. Wellness and Lick Your Chops are also high quality canned foods.

To switch dry food click on my name at the icon for a "recipe" for success.

Answer 5

Have you tried out the different flavors of Wellness? There are a few my cats don't care for, but a few they love. There are other good brands you can try out; Chicken Soup, Merricks, Fromms and Felidae are all good. I buy a few selections from different brands; my kitties prefer variety. If he still won't try the newer better stuff, the mixing & gradual weaning may be your best bet. Though if the kitty gets hungry enough, he won't be quite so picky...

Answer 6

My son and his wife give their cat a combination of both dry and wet cat food, as well as water daily. They claim it is good that the cat has both.

Answer 7

Just put the dry food out for them but add a little gravy to it.

Answer 8

We feed a combo of the wet and dry. Wet in morning and night free feed dry. In my research I have found this to be best. So thats what we do.

Answer 9

you need to start cutting down the amount of canned food u give them and increase the amout of dry u give them and you keep cutting it down till u are giving them none

Answer 10

Just quite feeding them the canned cat food. They'll miss it. They'll want it. They'll get over it.