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Changing how I feed my cats
Bionic Monkey
Registered User, ClubPA regular
Registered User, ClubPA regular
I have two cats, one a 6 year old maine coon, and the other an 2 year old tabby.
Primarily, the wife and I have just let them eat from one of those trough type dishes, where you fill the reservoir, and don't have to fill it again for a week or so until they've eaten through it all.
Lately though, they've been overeating something fierce. Now if they were just getting fat from this, that wouldn't be that big a deal. What is becoming a big deal is that they're eating so damn much that they're vomiting. At least once a week, I've been finding myself having to clean up kitty vomit from several spots around the house when I get up some mornings.
As such, I want to move them to a set feeding schedule, and control how much they're allowed to eat. What I'd like to know, from other people that feed their cats this way, is what kind of schedule is best to feed them? I'm thinking once in the morning, when we get up, and then again in the evening when we get home from work. The absolute longest they'd ever be alone under this schedule is 13 or so hours, but the more typical would be around 9-10 hours.
Second thing I'd like to know is how much do I actually feed them? The Maine Coon is probably somewhere between 15-20 pounds, or more, so he'd obviously need more food. The tabby, on the other hand, is actually kind of small, and can't weight more than maybe 5 pounds.
I've done some cursory research online, but so far, the only information I've found has been about what kind of food to feed your cat, not really how much of it. However, I did read that some vets are saying a dry-food-only diet is bad for cats? Any truth to this?
Primarily, the wife and I have just let them eat from one of those trough type dishes, where you fill the reservoir, and don't have to fill it again for a week or so until they've eaten through it all.
Lately though, they've been overeating something fierce. Now if they were just getting fat from this, that wouldn't be that big a deal. What is becoming a big deal is that they're eating so damn much that they're vomiting. At least once a week, I've been finding myself having to clean up kitty vomit from several spots around the house when I get up some mornings.
As such, I want to move them to a set feeding schedule, and control how much they're allowed to eat. What I'd like to know, from other people that feed their cats this way, is what kind of schedule is best to feed them? I'm thinking once in the morning, when we get up, and then again in the evening when we get home from work. The absolute longest they'd ever be alone under this schedule is 13 or so hours, but the more typical would be around 9-10 hours.
Second thing I'd like to know is how much do I actually feed them? The Maine Coon is probably somewhere between 15-20 pounds, or more, so he'd obviously need more food. The tabby, on the other hand, is actually kind of small, and can't weight more than maybe 5 pounds.
I've done some cursory research online, but so far, the only information I've found has been about what kind of food to feed your cat, not really how much of it. However, I did read that some vets are saying a dry-food-only diet is bad for cats? Any truth to this?
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The picture is from when the tabby was still a kitten, but she hasn't gotten much bigger than that in the year or so since the picture was taken.
Me and my wife have a schedule of feeding our cat and dog in the morning when leave for work (approx 7), and then when we get home from work (approx 6). Seems to work pretty well. We throw in a 4th of a can of wet food for the kitty a the dinner feeding.
The only downside to this is the cat KNOWS when its food time. And he will not let us sleep in. Or, he eventually does give up waking us up, and then at like 10 i look and their foot is completely empty and I feel like the worst person.
The dog doesnt seem to care much either way.
Lots of people do just fine feeding their cats dry-only, but if your cat gets diabetes (my cousin's did) that's a contributing factor. He had to give his cat a couple of insulin injections a day. His vet gave him awful advice about switching to a dry food that was for diabetes cat, he did his own research, switched them to wet food, and now his cat's glucose stays stabilized and he rarely needs insulin anymore.
On that note, I don't trust vet food suggestions anymore, and I sure as hell don't trust the amounts written on the cans or bags. Pet food has about as much regulation in the US as cock fighting.
I have 2 kitties. One recently had to have surgery because he couldn't poop properly, and long story short, he can't have dry food since he shows no interest to drink water. My other kitty is fine on dry food (refuses to eat wet) but drinks from the cat fountine. Both have been doing fine according to the vet.
As Disrupter said, once they have a set routine. They always freaking know. So weekends they will want to be fed the sametime as weekdays, and if your kitties are like mine...I swear it's starting to get earlier and earlier....
That's some BS. Cats are obligate carnivores; anything that isn't protein or a select few amino acids are useless to them at best, detrimental at worst (and dry cat food can have a lot of the worst)
At least your not the one who gets up at 5am and feeds them!
But this is true... terribly true.
Cats KNOW...
I swear to god Salem and Alias can tell friggen time.
The look we get (Neyla and I) if we are home late is the look of death...
Assuming other problems have been ruled out.
1. You don't need to feed more than once a day, unless you have a food that will go bad during the day. Starting with 2 feedings might cause the cats to scoff everything down so the bowls are empty come second feeding, sometimes it is best to feed a set amount and they can work out how to ration it until the next day. You'll have to work out what works for your cats, they might need it split in 2, only you will know.
2. With a single feed, I would feed at night before bed so they don't bother you in the mornings when you are sleeping in. Dry food and canned wet food won't go stale or bad in a single 24 hour period.
3. You need to know if your cats are an appropriate weight for their body before you can decide on how much to feed them. Using this chart:
http://media.marketwire.com/attachments/200802/MOD-402887_weight-chart1.jpg
Figure out if your cats are on target or not. For the maine coone, you'll probably want to stand over him and pet his fur down to get a good look. Can you feel the ribs with minimal pressure? You should be able to. As you run your hand over the cats side, with a slight pressure, you should feel each individual rib with a small amount of fat over the ribs between the skin and ribcage. If you can't feel the ribs distinctly or with light pressure only, the cat is overweight.
You should also be able to easily see both from above and from the side view, the hip of your cat. As shown on the chart, the cat should have from above, a definite dip inwards behind the ribcage and from the side, an upwards turn before their backlegs.
A vet can help if you are not sure.
From there, I personally read the bag, reduce by about 20% and start there. If you are feeding a high quality dry food, a half cup or so per animal is usually about right, so a little more for your coone and a little less for the tiny guy. If you are looking to diet the cat(s) first worry about the schedule change. Once you have the new schedule down, then reduce the food by 10% for 4 weeks to start. Assess any weight loss, if none, reduce by another 5-10% and assess over 2-3 weeks to see when you hit the sweet spot.
Weight loss for cats should be extremely gradual.
4. As for the question about dry vs wet. Cats often don't drink enough, so they get urinary tract problems. If your cats drink a lot of fresh water all the time, you can probably just keep going as you are.
If the cats don't drink a lot, or are having hairball coughups and so on, you might find some benefits with introducing canned food (a lot of people are fans of raw food diets too, but they are quite high maintenance to do so you know, thats your call). If you provide canned, you might want to do just a spoonful to test the cats interest. If they are happy with it, reduce the dry slowly as you ramp up the wet food.
If you are concerned about the cats water intake and they shun the wet food, it can be a long hard road, but there are some websites out there that get even stubborn cats onto wet diets so don't be discouraged.
EDIT: I forgot to say, if you're feeding a low quality food, the vomiting is probably going to continue. You might need to change it if the ingredients are basically junk food for cats.
They're both currently lounging, so I can't check visually how fat they are, but I just checked their ribs, and aside from the fur on the Maine Coon, the ribs were fairly easily felt on both of them.
You should go to a dedicated pet store to buy your food. You know they make food specifically for Maine Coons as well? Royal Canin is the company.
If you're going to buy from the grocery store, at least buy Iams or Wellness if they have it. That Purina shit is terrible for your cats.
Esh, we still have a bag of Purina to get through, but I'll talk to my wife about switching over to something healthier for them.
One of these.
Once you've changed the schedule I would consider a different food. See how the vomiting goes on the new schedule, first.
Is the vomit just full of food? No hairballs? If its just food you may need to spread the feedings to 2x a day, but you may also have to try a new food. Might want to see if they are just pigging out too fast.
If there's hairballs I can give you some different advice.
our big guy is probably around 14 lbs and the little more is probably like 10. the dry food is a mix of purina urinary, hairball and nutro weight indoor max or something like that.
the two purina's are pro plan. we used to feed pro plan weight food as well but the nutro has a better composition.
While Maine Coons are indeed awesome cats, and Royal Canin isn't too bad, saying a food is specially made for that breed is really mostly a marketing ploy. That said, it's still going to be better than the Purina.
If you can find a dedicated pet food store, chances are they could probably recommend a better brand - the premium stuff costs more, of course, but you will get dividends in the form of better health if they're not eating junk
Our cats (15 pound boy and 10 pound girl) get the Wellness Core grain-free canned food - 1 5.5oz can for each of them, split into one feeding at 6 AM and the other at 6 PM, and sometimes a small snack around 10 or so before bed. We used to also give them Wellness dry food, but our boy got a urinary blockage (and a $$$$ stay at the pet hospital) a couple summers ago thanks to pigging out on it and never drinking any water....so it's been all wet for them since then.
There's some decent reading at http://catinfo.org/ written by a DVM, although she does get a bit preachy sometimes.
Our two furballs:
Nikki:
Tasha:
Not at all actually. The three breeds they make food specifically for (Persians, Wedge Siamese, and Maine Coon) all have different ways of ingesting than most other cats. It's one of the only foods my wedge can eat without barfing because the shape of the kibble slows down his eating speed immensely.
As far as feeding times go, I feed my cats in the morning. The added benefit is that even if I sleep through the alarm, they wake me up.
Well, all I was really commenting on in particular was the Maine Coon version. If something works for you, then ignore me entirely and go with it
I can't deny that if you're dealing with a cat that's eating too fast, it (again, only looking at the Maine Coon version here) does at least have a large kibble that will slow them down - but that's pretty much all it is, just an extra-large kibble with some added glucosamine and extra antioxidants that are going to be found in pretty much all high-quality foods in one form or another.
Regarding your question about schedule, remember that cats are better at remembering patterns than times. So for example, we intended to feed our cat around 4:30 which is just when I get home from work. So I get home, and then he gets fed. Now if I come home anywhere from 2:30 onwards, he'll think it's dinner time and can be a downright pest when it isn't.
So when you're scheduling, think events, not times.
The thing that you have to be careful of with all brands is to watch out for fillers such as nut hulls; I kid you not, I saw this on a pet food label that was being pimped as "Premium" at a pet shop one time. Freaking crazy! As others mentioned, the domestic cat really can only properly process protiens and a few amino acids so meat content is key. Keep in mind, though, that with a dry food, 80% or so of the moisture in the meat comes out. No matter what the marketing guys tell you about "slurry processes" or whatever, if "Chicken" or "Beef" is listed as the first ingredient, that means they weighed it before processing. Labels are sorted by weight so the moisture they weighed is not included in that bag of food. This is highly disingenuous, IMO, but they do it all the time.
Nutro lists a meat meal (chicken, beef or whatever) which is essentially the meat less the moisture. That doesn't sound appetizing but when it comes to actual content in the bag, this is key to keep in mind. Keep in mind as well that vets are often compensated for pushing certain brands, as are pet store employees.
You fill it up and attach it to an outlet timer, and it will automatically dispense however much food you set it for. If you have a cat that HAS to eat at 7am, set it for 7am. The feeder comes with a nice metal bowl, so after a few days your cats will associate the clink-clink-clink of food on metal with feeding time.
Just read the ingredient list, if it's mainly filler, don't buy it. If it's full to bursting with meat/fish, go nuts.
A good middle-of-the-road brand food is no worse than a million dollar brand, a long as it's got the right stuff in it.
We used to feed Amys cat the supermarket brand canned food, because it was literally fish, in fish oil, in a can. Whereas the expensive stuff had all sorts of other shit including artificial flavours and colours in it.
You don't eat beluga caviar for every meal, your cat doesn't need to either...
Kirkland's Costco is a very acceptable option when you are on a budget, far above any store brand and Iams, etc.
Orijen is really great. I recommend it.
Getting your cats on the right food will probably make more of a difference than resorting to mechanical means to limit their food. (I would, however, suggest using a smaller bowl, and just filling it more often - having a trough sitting out for a week at a time means that icky things like dust and hair have time to settle on the food).
That food looks good, Kate. Maybe I'll pick that up as my new wet food for my dumb babies. Who are also very healthy, not fat and have the best coats in the world. It really is super noticeable if you feed your cats good quality food for the record.
Very handy, because my Felidae supplier has been taken out by the Christchurch 'quake
(Been working with maine coon and persians for ~15 years)
Persian's I can see, especially extreme face Persians. But my extreme (ex show cat double national champion) can eat whatever he darn near wants as long as it fits in his gaping maw. They tend to be pretty good at self regulating.
But Maine Coons will eat just about anything that you put in front of them. I tend to free feed until they start to bolt the food. When I restrict I use 3/4 cup twice a day for one 22lb Maine Coon. Remeber that Coons will keep growing till they are about 5 years old. So they sometimes just eat and eat so they can grow.
If you add a water fountain it will also help. I never have luck with 1 week feeding schedule, even only ocne day can cause proble,
The dry foods are available all for them the time, in addition they get wet food about twice a day. Canned food mostly, occasionally some frozen pollack (they love that! just leave it to thaw and it's good to go), and sometimes raw pig heart. Those are definitely the favorites here, the heart is nice and chewy and good for the teeth too. I think this goes for chicken as well, doesn't have to be de-boned as long as it's NOT COOKED. The bones can break in a bad way after cooking, which could cause damage to the cat's intestines.
I myself am slightly lactose intolerant, so sometimes I give them a bit of my low-lactose milk. Maybe mix a raw egg in there too.
On a side note, the grass marketed as 'cat grass' is usually just oat or wheat seeds, which are much cheaper without the 'cat grass' tag. I've heard some stores sell Cyperus alternifolius as a cat grass, which is apparently poisonous.
@frellnik dustie, pantsu redirects me