Help with putting chubby cat on a diet!!

Beavis_cat

Hi there

I was wondering if a kind forummer could please help me with my chubby cat...

We got a pair of rescue boys a few weeks ago. They're both darlings, but one of them is somewhat overweight - we took him to the vet at the weekend and he tipped the scales at 6.9kg :eek: So he's now on a diet.

Both cats are fed a mixture of wet (approximately one pouch a day of the best we can afford - at the moment it's Iams, which they love) and dry (Hills Science Plan mature cat, around 30g a day each). Our second cat is a healthy 4kg, so we'd been giving them both the same amount assuming that Fat Cat would lose weight. Wrong! He's very sedentary and hasn't lost a thing in the past couple of weeks.

So my question is: how much should I cut Fat Cat's food by - I know it's not good to crash diet cats, so I don't want to hugely underfeed him. I've read the guidelines on the back of all the packets we feed him and we're giving him what they recommend for a 4kg cat - is that the right thing to do? We've cut out all treats and are trying to get him off his chubby bottom too to do some exercise! The vet said she'd like him to be 5kg, but he's a big-framed cat.

Would be very grateful for any help x

lynnemcf

My friend has just "dieted" her cat on the advice on her vet, and she bought special diet food from the vet. However, she has only the one cat, so didnt have to make sure the dieting cat didnt eat the non-diet food! If the vet thinks the cat should lose weight, the vet would be the best person to give advice.

Buttonmoons

One of my cats is very petite, she was the runt of the litter and it shows, she weighs anything between 3.9kg and 4.1kg and that's apparently too much, she should be about 3.5kg, but she sounds like your podgy cat, she rarely moves unless it's to move spots to sleep in! I bought one of those catit senses play circuits for the male cat actually, as he plays with everything and I thought he was getting bored.

Well he ignores it completely but she is always batting it around, which shocked me as she has never shown an interest in ANYTHING before. So now her exercise has upped from 2min run arounds and 5 minute fights with the other cat, to at least 10minutes of attacking a ball she can't get, poor thing is just exhausted afterwards

faded_flowers

The maximum you'd be looking for him to lose in any 4 weeks is 5% of his bodyweight, which is what - 300-400g? It's going to be a long, slow process

I'd reccomend a light catfood for his dry food, because they're designed to make him feel full whilst providing less calories. If he's food motivated maybe try a cat feeding toy, where he has to work to get the dry food out?

mboro

I also had a fat kitty cat, Vet advised cutting out all wet food and leaving dry food out only, Over the months she lost the weight and is now back to a healthy weight and shape. But she was quite active, always playing about or going in and out of the house.

lindyloo47

We have litter sisters, one is slim and just about right weight but the other is a chunky girl. They also have one pouch of wet food per day and i weigh their dry food which is usually james wellbeloved senior/light version. I have no idea why one is so much bigger than the other except she did have steroids when she was younger. We have tried all sorts to help her lose weight i don't know what the neighbours must think when they see us running up and down the garden with a piece of string with the cat just looking at us. I guess she is just meant to be this way, but we still live in hope that some of her weight will drop off.

rising_from_the_ashes

I've got a similar problem....

Cat1 is skin & bone - he's huge (size) and weighs 6kg - the vet says he's not to loose any weight & could do with putting a bit on (not something you hear often). He is a terrible eater and will eat a few bits of dry food, go away and then come back for a few more a bit later - 'cos of this I have to leave food down.

Cat 2 is the total opposite - really small & like a barrel. She is a Lab in disguise (all Lab owners will probably "get" that) and eats anything.

Luckily I have found a Royal Canin diet that he eats but the "monster" doesn't touch, however, if I remove her food then she will start on his (even though she obviously doesn't like it - it's better than nothing!)

I've recently started her on a Royal Canin Light version and, touch wood, so far she's been tucking into it.

If you want to continue with the pouches as well, I'd try cutting his 1/2 packet by a 1/2 so it's really just a wee treat rather than his main diet (the packet will be OK open for a day if cat 2 doesn't want it)!

I'm also hoping that she will start to get a bit more exercise now the weather's getting better.

It will take a long time - good luck

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Dieted one of mine down over about a year now. But the main factors were finding somewhere he was too fat to reach for the skinny cat to have her food, moving somewhere with stairs (all I ever seem to hear is der-dunk-der-dunk-der-dunk-der-dunk as he hefts his carcasse up and down to the litter tray) and his discovering the excitement of the outside world (and a ten foot wall he wants to climb).

It isn't easy, as he would sulk, attack the other cats and go and deliberately chew plastic if he wasn't fed. But eventually he has become more cat like in shape instead of weeble shape.


If in doubt, try drugging the little porker with cat nip for some manic exercise!

Beavis_cat

Thank you all so much for the suggestions!!! We're going to try super-hard to slim him down by gradually cutting down his grub - no doubt he'll be miffed but he's too far too roly-poly to be healthy. We're also going to attempt to get him to exercise more (not easy - he likes playing with a feather-toy-thing that we have, but generally only lies on the sofa and bats it gently around with one outstretched paw ;-)) We are determined to get there though.

Thank you again everyone x

Alcmene

I have 3 cats and one of them is prone to fattness.

Difficult to separate food so all of them are now on Hills Light.

Also THE best thing to get them running around is a laser pen! Try it! I used to make him run up and down the stairs every night to tire him out.

Make sure they have plenty of water, a water fountain works wonders for this. Do not place it next to food so that they do no equate drinking to only when they are fed, they should be drinking throughout the day.

tammy73

We have a 3 legged cat so it's very important for him to keep the weight off. He's also a lazy so&so.

I can highly recommend Sannabelle Light dry cat food from www.zooplus.co.uk He was on a vet prescribed diet food that cost a fortune, he has about the same amount of this as the prescribed diet food and its a good deal cheaper - we buy a 10kg bag which lasts about 9 months.

We weigh a days portion as per guidance on the pack, for our cat it is 30g and put it in a sandwich bag , tie a knot in it and pop into a biscuit barrel, then repeat approx 14 times so you have a fortnights food ready to go.
Throughout the day he gets a bit of this allowance but never in one go, he would eat it all and be unbearably noisy.
Also every day we take a small handful of his daily allowance and make him chase af ter it, he is very food orientated.
I know this sounds like a lot of effort but really it isn't.