Help with cat's diet, please?

Question

I have 3 cats, all girls, 1 is 3 years old and the others are sisters, both 2 years. My eldest cat has put on alot of weight and it's really unhealthy for her. I wanted to cut down on the food I'm giving her, but I don't want to starve my younger two. Any tips on how I can get her to lose weight and not starve the younger ones?

Answer 1

i have both a "plump" cat and an active slender cat

i mix two types of dry food- because no matter what, i cannot get them to eat out of seperate bowls.
one type is weight management and one is regular food.

i then give the slender cat a few treats throughout the week.
when my other cat is not looking of course. i feed him high protein food as treats.

Answer 2

The first thing to do is take your overweight cat to the vet. The vet can tell you how much this cat should weigh, depending on her bone structure. Then the vet will recommend food to help your cat lose weight.

I had 3 cats, one of which was very overweight (looked like a striped basketball). I fed them dry food and I had to put the overweight cat in a separate room during the day. I gave him half of his food in the morning and half at night. The other two were snackers so I left their food out all day (the other cat wasn't in the room). When I let them get together, all food was put away. This seems to be the most simple way to do it without building any elaborate devices for them to use and without trying to make the cats think. The only thing cats think is "What's In It For Me?"

I fed my cat IAMS less active and followed the directions on the bag for the cat to lose weight. It has to be done VERY slowly. Your vet may recommend Science Diet, which is also a very good food. However, the litterbox stinks less with IAMS. Whatever you decide, if you change the food do so gradually so the cat doesn't get tummy troubles.

Really, your vet is your best resource.

Answer 3

Yes. Switch all cats to the same good quality canned food. Or a variety of good canned foods.

In a nutshell, most cats are fat because they've been fed too much (free-feeding or indulging them) and because they're fed dry food which is NOT appropriate food for them due to the grain/carb/sugar content. Cats are obligate carnivores who need to eat a high meat-based protein diet, which is also high in fats and low in carbs.

Many vets, who are sadly ignorant on the topic of proper cat nutrition, will recommend prescription diet foods (usually dry). Cats are expected to lose weight on a starvation diet of 1/4 or 1/3 cup of food per day. Everyone is miserable in these situations.

The solution is to switch the fat cat (and any others in the household as well) to a good quality canned food. Because these foods are species appropriate, the cat will lose weight at a safe, slow pace (no more than 1 pound per month). Switching foods needs to occur slowly, and if you're trying to get a kibble junkie to eat canned food, that will happen naturally.

That's it. Easy as pie. Not only will fat cats lose weight, but it and any others in the home will reap many benefits of eating a speciies appropriate diet.

See the links below for detailed information on this topic.

Answer 4

First, make sure all your cats are being fed portion controlled meals. If there is food left out all day you will never fix the weight issue.

You then need to feed your cats in separate areas so they cannot eat each other's food. If your cats like to snack all day long, you will have to start training them to eat meals. Put the food down for 10 minutes then put it away. Your cats will learn to eat what is given when it is given. This works best when you can provide them with 3-4 small meals per day.

Another thing to consider is the quality of their food. Look at your ingredient list. You should avoid any food with corn, wheat, soy, or by-products. Too many grains increase the carbohydrates in the food. This can cause weight gain in cats, especially older and inactive ones. Just switching your food to a higher protein, lower grain option may help quite a bit. That way you would not have to change their feeding routine.

Another option is to take them off of dry food and switch to canned. Cats do better on canned food anyway. The higher moisture content helps prevent urinary infections and kidney problems. It also helps reduce the risk of diabeties.

good luck

Answer 5

It's not the amount of food you are feeding. It is the bad food you are feeding which I know is dry food aka kitty crack.

Nutrition since there are so many bad things out there is very important to your cat’s health
Contrary to what you may have heard, dry foods are not a great thing to feed a cat.
Dry foods are the number 1 cause of diabetes in cats as well as being a huge contributing factor to kidney disease, obesity, crystals, u.t.i’s and a host of other problems. Food allergies are very common when feeding dry foods.
The problems with it are that they are loaded with carbohydrates which many cats (carnivores) cannot process. Most of the moisture a cat needs is gotten
out of the food and 95% of it is zapped out of dry foods in the processing. Also, most use horrible ingredients and don't use a muscle meat as the primary ingredient and use vegetable based protein versus animal. Not good for an animal that has to eat meat to survive.
You want to pick a canned food w/o gravy (gravy=carbs) that uses a muscle meat as the first ingredient and doesn't have corn at least in the first 3 ingredients if at all. Fancy feast is a middle grade food with 9lives, friskies whiskas lower grade canned and wellness and merrick upper grade human quality foods.Also, dry food is not proven to be better for teeth. Please read about cat nutrition.
http://www.newdestiny.us/nutritionbasics.html
http://www.catinfo.org/feline_obesity.htm

http://maxshouse.com/feline_nutrition.htm#Dry_Food_vs_Canned_Food.__Which_is_reall

Answer 6

I have 4 cats. For a while one of them was too fat. Feed them premium cat food,such as Purina One (at the low end or Iams or Science Diet at the high end) & absolutely NO table scraps. they have food for multiple cat households . Your kitty will loose weight .& the other ones won;t loose any. You can still give them treats of wet canned food (the good kind. ) They donot eat as much of the premium cat food as the other kind because meat is the first ingrediant. Therefore,it really isn't costing you any more in the long run.

Answer 7

Well you could build about 2 different 'pits' (They usually take up about 30mins to build, it wouldn't cause you so much trouble.) and then make sure there is a way to get inside and out. Put different amounts of cat food in each pit. Make sure your eldest cat does NOT go into your other cat's pit (this sounds like a lot of work, but trust me, you'll get used to it) and don't let your other cats go into your eldest cat's pit. Or if you want to make it easier, instead of making a way to go inside and out just make it two complete squares. Make sure it is as big as your cat's so they could see each other when they jump up on the edge of the pit, so you have nothing to worry about. Once they are done eating, take them out. Don't even take one out even if it is done eating. Just wait. Keep doing this routine every time your cat is hungry. Make sure you keep track of the time they eat and make sure they eat together.

Making a pit is easy;
Combine 2 1/2 pieces of hardwood together make sure it is square. (at your local hardwood store)

Hope this helped! :D

Answer 8

Mew... I think its nasty but use diet dry food and plain mixed so the other kittys can have a fine dinig experience as well meow

Answer 9

Get some of that deit cat food and give her a seperate bowl. Eventually, with some guidance, she will learn to eat out of that one only.

Answer 10

let her run around the neighborhood picking through other peoples garbages OR give it the nasty dry food which many cats wont touch!!