Cat is not wanting to eat his dry food after I started feeding him a good wet food

Alldara

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F Forry if you need your cats to eat some dry, you can try tossing it. We have two cats very interested in treat balls and the like too, but not so much our third cat.
 

Cat McCannon

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"Every cat is a law unto itself" 😊 seems to be very true! When you say that you feed Belle raw liver,do you mean raw liver you would buy at the supermarket? Like cow liver? And you give her raw chicken hearts?that's something I could do.
Chicken liver we buy in the supermarket. We place the liver, heart & gizzards in a small Ziplock bag as single meals and freeze them for a few days. Then, we place about five of seven baggies in the refrigerator. Before feeding time, we fill a bowl with hot water from the tap and submerse a baggy to warm everything up.
 
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Forry

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I see,chicken liver and hearts.that sounds like a mouth watering meal for a kitty!I guess it's a small amount of the liver and hearts and gizzard?
 

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I see,chicken liver and hearts.that sounds like a mouth watering meal for a kitty!I guess it's a small amount of the liver and hearts and gizzard?
These are all excellent "mouth watering" ingredients for a kitty meal.

Almost every carnivore will eat liver first--it is packed with vitamins and nutrients--and typically my cat (and dog) will gobble up liver as the first item in a mixed meal.

The only rub comes in the proportions of such food items to ensure a balanced diet if this sort of feeding moves beyond the occasional treat.

For example, the consensus PRM ratio for liver is 5% of overall diet. Too much liver can cause animals to get "the squirts" and getting too much fat-soluble Vitamin A isn't a positive.

So there are issues of balance and proportion as "treats" become a significant part of (or the entirely) of a diet.

Also missing is a source of soft raw edible bone. An inclusion of an appropriate amount of chicken feet or chicken necks would provide both crunching opportunities (invaluable for dental health) and vital minerals (including calcium).

PMR ratios for cats are 84% "meat," 10% edible bone, 5% liver, and 5% other "secreting" organ (such as kidney).

In PMR the chicken heart counts as "meat," as do the gizzards (which are an oddball, but a good add in moderation).

Hearts can be fed pretty freely following this model, but adding dark meat poultry would better reflect "prey" ratios. And an edible bone source is necessary (unless supplementing).

Bill
 
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Forry

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Thank you for the very good information Bill,I appreciate it. Seems like raw feeding is pretty complicated! I think I could occasionally give him some chicken liver and heart, but probably not as a big part of his diet 😊
 

Box of Rain

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Thank you for the very good information Bill,I appreciate it. Seems like raw feeding is pretty complicated! I think I could occasionally give him some chicken liver and heart, but probably not as a big part of his diet 😊
Feeding PMR (prey model raw) seem a little complicated at first. What's with all these percentages? LOL

But after a while, it seems like a simple-ish way to assure that a cat's (or dog's) nutritional needs are met.

It is true that one could feed an imbalanced "raw" diet if just feeding willy-nilly, and no one wants that.

Liver is something that is great to feed cats, but in tiny amounts. Hearts and gizzards one can feed copiously.

Bill
 
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Forry

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Hello everyone, having a little bit of a hard time figuring out the correct amount of wet food to feed my cat. I'm reading that 5-6 oz a day is sufficient for a 2 year old male cat.i have been feeding him both dry and wet,but in the last few days he developed constipation so I switched him over to only wet food.Yesterday I feed him a good amount of wet food to try and help loosen his bowels up.It worked and I think his drinking water helped. So now I'm not sure exactly how much to feed him.this morning he woke up feeling really good with a very large amount of energy. Lots of running and playing and being rambunctious, which I'm always happy to see. He had been very lethargic. Anyway, I don't want to make this too long.thank you very much.
 

Alldara

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Hello everyone, having a little bit of a hard time figuring out the correct amount of wet food to feed my cat. I'm reading that 5-6 oz a day is sufficient for a 2 year old male cat.i have been feeding him both dry and wet,but in the last few days he developed constipation so I switched him over to only wet food.Yesterday I feed him a good amount of wet food to try and help loosen his bowels up.It worked and I think his drinking water helped. So now I'm not sure exactly how much to feed him.this morning he woke up feeling really good with a very large amount of energy. Lots of running and playing and being rambunctious, which I'm always happy to see. He had been very lethargic. Anyway, I don't want to make this too long.thank you very much.
Can you tell us approximately how much he weighs? Feeding a cat is based on weight, energy levels and body index. It is 10 to 30 calories per lb depending on your cat's metabolism and energy levels.

You can always add some extra water to the wet food as well. You can even add some to the dry food if he likes it that way!

For example, my 10 lb very active cat gets approximately 300 calories per day (high yes but that keeps weight on him. No medical issues causing weight loss).

Our 12lb active cat gets 240 calories per day. He has a low metabolism.

Our 16 lb cat gets 200 calories per day.

These are all maintenance diets, meaning we aren't going for weight loss of gain through food. They eat a 90% wet diet and share only 2/3 of a cup of dry food per day, which they eat 100% through treat balls, puzzles, snufflemat, "hunting" and chasing them. Basically that's their workout for their high calorie food.
 
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Forry

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He went to an emergency vet visit four days ago and vet was supposed to give me his weight but didn't. This was his first vet visit. Im in process of finding a primary vet this week. I would guess he weighs approximately 10-12 pounds. He's definitely put on weight since I've had him which is about 6 weeks. I am feeding him good quality cat food.I try to feed him a can of ziwi 3 times a week and other days he's getting wellness or I and Love and you "oh my cod". So for example, when I was feeding him his dry food,he would get about 3/4 cup of dry food a day and 3 oz of ziwi.Now I'm giving him no more dry food,I guess.i notice after he eats wet food he tends to want to go to sleep pretty fast,and can sleep for a long time if I don't wake him up.im truly have a difficult time figuring out a diet for him.thank you!😊
 

Box of Rain

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Do you have a bathroom scale?

If so, you could weigh yourself holding the cat, then weigh yourself alone, and subtract to find the difference.

That would get you reasonably close.

Bill
 

Alldara

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He went to an emergency vet visit four days ago and vet was supposed to give me his weight but didn't. This was his first vet visit. Im in process of finding a primary vet this week. I would guess he weighs approximately 10-12 pounds. He's definitely put on weight since I've had him which is about 6 weeks. I am feeding him good quality cat food.I try to feed him a can of ziwi 3 times a week and other days he's getting wellness or I and Love and you "oh my cod". So for example, when I was feeding him his dry food,he would get about 3/4 cup of dry food a day and 3 oz of ziwi.Now I'm giving him no more dry food,I guess.i notice after he eats wet food he tends to want to go to sleep pretty fast,and can sleep for a long time if I don't wake him up.im truly have a difficult time figuring out a diet for him.thank you!😊
Or just very less dry food most likely. The pouches and cans should have a rough calorie count on them, then just see how many calories you need to "make up for" in dry food, and give him that in an enriching way. It's very normal for cats to sleep after eating. Some cats like to sleep and others like to play at that time.

Likely, it will be about an 1/8th of a cup for him.
 

Box of Rain

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Hi Bill 😊 I don't have a scale right,I should.
What I would do--and actually do "do," as I'm not feeding commercial foods myself--is to make your best estimate as to your cat's daily need and then monitor the "condition" using charts and things like "knuckle test" comparisons when palpating the cat's ribs.

If the cat's condition starts to creep up above what you consider ideal then mildly trim back, or vice versa if weight starts to drop.

Really the best way to regulate feedings IMO, as a cat's activity and energy needs can change depending on a lot of factors (including weather), so feeding a "fixed" number of calories only works to a certain degree in any case.

Bill
 

Alldara

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Box of Rain Box of Rain that's a very good description actually. Thank you for giving a much better elaboration :)

Also to the original poster, calories counts will be estimates anyway. Even in human food is allowed to be off 40% in either direction for many countries.
 

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What I would do--and actually do "do," as I'm not feeding commercial foods myself--is to make your best estimate as to your cat's daily need and then monitor the "condition" using charts and things like "knuckle test" comparisons when palpating the cat's ribs.

If the cat's condition starts to creep up above what you consider ideal then mildly trim back, or vice versa if weight starts to drop.

Really the best way to regulate feedings IMO, as a cat's activity and energy needs can change depending on a lot of factors (including weather), so feeding a "fixed" number of calories only works to a certain degree in any case.

Bill
This is how I look at it, too. Since we feed foods with varying calorie densities, I also observe how the cats eat: sometimes they finish their food, sometimes they don't so sometimes I need to adjust what I feed and how much I feed. I do know the rough calories of everything I feed (including homemade) but take those numbers as rough estimates.
 

Box of Rain

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This is how I look at it, too. Since we feed foods with varying calorie densities, I also observe how the cats eat: sometimes they finish their food, sometimes they don't so sometimes I need to adjust what I feed and how much I feed. I do know the rough calories of everything I feed (including homemade) but take those numbers as rough estimates.
Observing finishing (or not finishing) meals is an excellent point--and one I might have thought of if I had a cat who didn't always devour every morsel. LOL

Bill
 
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