Thread: Feeding Advice

Hi All

Up until last year, I used to feed my cats a completely raw diet. After the supplier closed down and we failed to find a new one, we switched over to a commercial biccie and wet food diet.

Gradually, the cats have learned that they don't need to eat everything all in one go and that the biccie is down all the time....except for our neuter girl Lola. No matter how much I feed her, she is super greedy and cannot leave any biccie in the bowl at all. This is proving difficult as she has a very sensitive tummy and so too much goes straight through her (a full on cat bath at 5:30am this morning was not fun!!)

I can't not leave food down as I have Malia who is pregnant and Star who need bulking up still after having her kittens.

Any ideas on how I can retrain Lola into grazing?? All the cats have wet food morning and evening and then James Wellbeloved biccie the rest of the time. I guess I could shut Lola in the conservatory during the day but she loves being in the house with the rest of us. I also have a new girl joining us next week and I know that she will be used to grazing as well so want to make sure that she can free feed too.

Any ideas appreciated

Louise

Fingers crossed on this one Louise that someone can come up with a good answer & I will then try it on my Merlyn,even when he is not hungry every time you move you can just see him think that food could be on offer & he runs straight to the utility room door & looks so expectant,gives up after a few minutes but next time you move he tries again,can be a bit tiring for both of us on my days off although in the evenings he is always fine...

I wouldn't mind her being greedy if she could handle it. Unfortunately, if she has more than her recommended amount, she gets the runs. This morning I discovered that my husband had allowed her to pig out yesterday and she had gone in the litter tray, sat in it and then proceeded to smear it around the conservatory.

I had no cat shampoo in at all so had to wash her in head and shoulders and I can still smell her!!

Oooops,thats not good,don't have that problem with Merl he can take almost any thing & amount. In the early days to try & put him off we left dishes of food out & he pigged until he made himself sick then went back & ate until he done it again,if he sees food it has to be put into his tummy to try & keep it safe but touch wood have only had the runny bum when he has had odd bug not through stuffing food.
Have you been using plenty of air freshner in the house today then...? Bet hubby was popular,he will have to keep his head down for the day !

She's the only one of mine like it fortunately - she smells lovely now though and no sign of dandruff!!!

I am wondering if I keep to her allotted amount (around 70g per day) for a week to let her settle and then gradually up the amount by 1g per day until her stomach is able to cope with more food....I wouldn't mind but she's a big girl at 5.3kg so it's not as though she's wasting away!!!

We are dealing with related problem in trying to get our big boy Remy to lose a bit of weight when there is dry food down all the time. Our girl Bella eats mainly dry, and grazes, so it must be available at least most of the time for her, plus the other two also graze. Unfortunately, Remy has a tendency to go eat dry whenever bored or when anyone else eats it, and when his fast growth quit around two years old, this resulted in a bit of excess weight. We have done two things to reduce his dry food and thus calorie intake: (1) we removed the dry food dishes from downstairs so there is less availability of dry, and (2) we have been trying to feed him more canned food. Remy spends quite a bit of time downstairs, and we had dry in three places in the house, including downstairs. Saw that he was nibbling frequently downstairs during the day. Now he has to want food enough to go seek it out upstairs (plus a bit of exercise going up the stairs). Since the canned food is nearly 80% water, it seems like a good way to make cats feel full but not really get that many calories. So far this seems to be working, but the basic issue of having one cat that eats too much dry in a multiple-cat house is certainly a very tough problem.