Cat bad behaviour (wanting food)

1886

Thank you for all of the replies.

My cat weighs roughly 4kg. If we let him in to the bedroom at night he will still meow for food between 4.00-5.00am.

I find the information on the boxes of wet food very confusing. They all seem to say that a cat of a certain weight should have a different amount of wet pouches daily.

Our vet advised us against feeding him wet food. We are trying to get him to eat a dewormer tablet today and will start feeding him more dry food of a better quality and possibly less pouches.

If we made dry food available throughout the day I'm pretty sure it would be gone very, very quickly though. If nothing changes we'll book an appointment at the vets ie. thyroid

A couple of weeks ago I looked after a friend's three cats and they were SO well behaved. Not once did they meow for food, they just waited by the bowls. This made me realise just how bad our cats behaviour has gotten but he was'nt like this for the first 3-4 years. It's just crept in gradually

GwylimT

Two pouches is nowhere near enough, for a 4kg four 100g pouches are advised for a high meat content food, more would be needed if the food is in jelly, gravy and has a low meat content. Hunger is not poor behaviour.

Be careful with dry, it can cause all sorts of health problems and makes males more susceptible to urinary blockages.

paddypaws101

I really would be wary about feeding him more dry food and less wet as it can cause urinary problems and the higher carb content can actually make them hungrier!
Try feeding him an extra high protein wet meal at bed time and see if that keeps him quieter over night.
Larger cans are better value and often better quality than supermarket sachets.....Bozita, Smilla or Animonda carny from Zooplus are all decent options.

gettingready

Pls do not listen to your vet about giving more dry and less wet - has the vet recommenced any of the food HE sells by any chance for that?

Cats need meat, they need wet food.Unfortunately vets know very little about cat nutrition and try to push whatever they sell as "the best" - and it is not.

As Paddypaws above listed, have a look at GOOD quality brands of wet food at:

https://www.zooplus.co.uk

Free delivery on orders over £29.00 too. 2 pouches is nowhere near enough for a 4kg cat I am afraid. What brand are you feeding anyway?

Feral_Moon

I'm not surprised your poor cat is constantly hungry if he's only getting 200g per day of the poor quality brands from the supermarket.

It's not the dry food you need to increase (big mistake in male cats particularly) but the quality of the wet food you're feeding. You might get away with 200g a day of a good quality high protein food but certainly not with any of the supermarket rubbish such as Felix, Whiskas etc.

Poppy3008

I agree - the better quality food the happier your cat will be. Also, I now use an automatic feeder - I can fill for 4 days (only breakfast as I feed twice a day and feed her myself in the pm) so my cat knows the feeder will open at 7am and has stopped nagging us at 5am for food. Takes a week or so for them to get it - you can also record a message 'here puss puss' etc! mine thought it was ridiculous so I now leave it silent. I think it was and Andrew James one. best money I ever spent and can also go away for a few days without needing someone to come in and feed her!

tea_lover

Just a quick note with regards to the amount cats need, it varies! My male, 11yr old cat gets two 85g pouches a day, and a few biscuits. He's a big cat (really big!) and definitely not wasting away on two pouches a day.

seven-day-weekend

tea_lover wrote: »

Just a quick note with regards to the amount cats need, it varies! My male, 11yr old cat gets two 85g pouches a day, and a few biscuits. He's a big cat (really big!) and definitely not wasting away on two pouches a day.

My two have two pouches a day between them and constant availability of dried food. They are 18 years old, fit as fiddles and one of them is quite fat. So, like humans, it varies greatly in what they need.

Deep_In_Debt

Agree with the posters who say it varies on what they need.

I have two 15 year old females, both have a pouch each in the morning and a pouch each in the evening with kibble left as well. One is a bit fat and the other is average weight. Both in good health and they've been fed on Felix all their lives.

Feral_Moon

Deep_In_Debt wrote: »

Agree with the posters who say it varies on what they need.

I have two 15 year old females, both have a pouch each in the morning and a pouch each in the evening with kibble left as well. One is a bit fat and the other is average weight. Both in good health and they've been fed on Felix all their lives.

You see, both your cats are a prime example of eating junk food. Two pouches a day plus kibble left out 24/7 is equivalent to a human eating high carb/junk food at every meal plus snacking in between.

You already admit they're overweight and I'm sure you'd find they're far from healthy if you did a full health screen - blood tests, scans etc.