Food dosage advice needed please.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

You could try reducing the dry and increasing the wet.   Dry food can cause weight gain due to being very energy dense so they don’t need much.  Most are also quite carby. 

It’s hard to say how much an individual cat should eat as they are all different.  For example, my younger cat weighs more than my older cat but he seems to need slightly less food in order to maintain his body weight.

[Desley (booktigger)]

You can't overfeed by feeding two complete foods, but you do have to be careful with complimentary as they need to be part of a balanced diet (should make up no more than 10% of the diet) or you are risking nutrition issues. I read years ago that 20g of dry food is equivalent to one pouch of wet, and have worked on that logic ever since, so in theory you are feeding him the equivalent of just over 3 pouches. Ideally, you should feed for what they should weigh rather than what they do, however you can't reduce their food intake by more than 10% without risking health issues, so this should be done gradually. I would reduce the dry rather than the wet, as dry contains more calories and a purely dry food isn't ideal for male cats and overweight males are more at risk of urinary issues.

Good luck, we've pretty much given up trying to get my overweight cat to lose weight!

[cheesephetamine]

Hi and  to Purrs, I look forward to hearing more about your feline masters when you have time 

If the other 3 cats are healthy weights and not losing/gaining weight, I would not change the amounts you are giving them. One of my 2 cats is greedy and prone to putting on weight (he goes and and catches his own food on top of what I give him) and we have gradually reduced his food from 75g twice a day to 55g twice a day as the vet always tells us he has put on a bit of weight! I would suggest reducing your lad's intake by about 10% and see how he does. Don't forget that dried food is quite high in calories, so be particularly careful with that. You are not looking for a rapid weight loss, just a gentle reduction.

The other thing you could try is increasing your lad's exercise by adding an extra play session into his day. Get him to the point of panting, let him get his breath back and then repeat for 10-15 minutes (unless he has any heart problems etc, in which case you should discuss this with your vet first).

Thank you on the advice on reducing calories and play time!

This cat in particular has put on weight since we switched from cosma wet food (complementary food) to felix wet food (complete food).

I wonder if it would be advisable to feed them felix in the morning (50 grams) and kibble only at night (25 grams each) and see how they get on with that? I am concerned we might be feeding two complete foods so over feeding all of them?

[Lyn (Slugsta)]

Hi and  to Purrs, I look forward to hearing more about your feline masters when you have time 

If the other 3 cats are healthy weights and not losing/gaining weight, I would not change the amounts you are giving them. One of my 2 cats is greedy and prone to putting on weight (he goes and and catches his own food on top of what I give him) and we have gradually reduced his food from 75g twice a day to 55g twice a day as the vet always tells us he has put on a bit of weight! I would suggest reducing your lad's intake by about 10% and see how he does. Don't forget that dried food is quite high in calories, so be particularly careful with that. You are not looking for a rapid weight loss, just a gentle reduction.

The other thing you could try is increasing your lad's exercise by adding an extra play session into his day. Get him to the point of panting, let him get his breath back and then repeat for 10-15 minutes (unless he has any heart problems etc, in which case you should discuss this with your vet first).

[cheesephetamine]

Hello! I am new to the forum, I will try to introduce myself and my cats later on, I just want to ask this question really quickly as we don´t know how to do this!

I would like to know what is the best food dose to give our cats.

We have 4 cats. They are all male, all neutered and ages 5, 6 and 7. Two of them are moggies and two are ragdolls. All of them are indoor cats only.

Weights are: 4.3 KG, 5.2 KG, 5.4KG and 6.2 KG
The 6.2 KG moggie is overweight and we would like him to lose some weight for his own health.

We feed them using microchip feeders so each have their own food so we can monitor what they eat.
We feed them twice a day, morning and night.

Currently we feed them as follows:

Each of them eat:
Morning:  50 grams of wet food (felix as good as it look) and 25 grams of purizon adult deer and fish
Night: 25 grams of purizon adult deer and fish

They have access to 3 bottled water bowls at all times.

I would like to know if this dosage is correct or if you have any advise on how to feed them with those two choices of food. We are not willing to change diets at present, but we are happy to modify weights and even feed them only wet and/or only dry depending on feeding time etc. I am specially interested in knowing what quantities I should feed my overweight moggie (who is a very big boy to begging with but is getting quite chunky).