Helping Elderly Cat Gain Weight

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weemomma

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I forgot how much she loves straight tuna fish. I was making tuna for lunch and my other cat begged for the leftovers in the can. While he was taking care of that for me, I took some to her. She ate about a tablespoon of it!

It’s nice to know there’s a once in a while treat she’ll eat.
 

daftcat75

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See if she likes Tiki Cat. I keep a number of cans of Tiki Cat Aloha Friends Tuna with Pumpkin and Tiki Cat Ahi Tuna. If Krista stops eating or slows eating, it's comforting to know I have a nutritionally balanced food rather than a tuna treat pot (just tuna in water like Pure Bites makes) to keep her going until the crisis has passed.
 
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weemomma

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I've never tried Tiki Cat, but I can definitely put it on the list.
 

daftcat75

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Tiki Cat got Krista through pancreatitis. The recipe was simple enough that it wasn’t flaring her IBD and the fish flavors really appealed to her when she was too nauseated to want to eat anything else.
 

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I can keep trying on the wet food, but she is a gravy licker and then she just leaves the meat behind. The only thing I might try is pulling all her other kibble and just leaving her with the wet, but then I'm afraid she just won't eat.

Today, we had another vomiting set back. The foster kitten is now gone, so here's hoping the house calms down!
Don't give up with wet food! My boy NEVER would touch wet food since he was a kitten. When he was around 12 I started trying because I was afraid of him getting dehydrated on just kibble. Like you I found lickable liquid treats he loved and I fed him one every day. Slowly I tried other foods and he finally would try Rachel Ray Nutrish wet foods. He mostly just licked it but would eat some chunks. I tried pates which I thought he would hate because its not very gravy based and he hadn't eaten them before but he suddenly was crazy for it. Now he'll eat pate or gravy lovers fancy feasts everyday. At times I was ready to give up because it seemed like a lost cause but its so worth it now that he'll eat wet food!
 
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weemomma

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I have her over on a kitten food 100% at the moment. When I can afford to get her some TIKI, I will give that a try. She's still maintaining right at 8lbs. Maybe that's just our new comfort area?

She is eating up to 2/3 a cup a day of food. I've been very diligent about measuring it all otu and I've divided her into two meals, one in the morning and one in the evening.
 

daftcat75

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Can you add an extra meal? Like midnight snack? Maybe a wet meal of Fancy Feast Classic? You’ll get more calories out of FF pâté than Tiki which is a shredded texture. And you can’t beat FF for price and still have a decent cat-appropriate recipe.
 
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weemomma

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Can you add an extra meal? Like midnight snack? Maybe a wet meal of Fancy Feast Classic? You’ll get more calories out of FF pâté than Tiki which is a shredded texture. And you can’t beat FF for price and still have a decent cat-appropriate recipe.
I could try her out on a small amount to start, I suppose.
 
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weemomma

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I just don't think that she's getting enough calories to gain anything at the moment. Which as long as she can maintain until the summer time when her next blood work is, I think she'll be okay. I'd certainly like to see that number go way up.
 

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Cat digestion efficiency goes down with age. Just like people. To compensate for not getting as much nutrition from her food, she needs to eat more. But her stomach size hasn’t changed. So you’ll need to add an extra meal (or three?) Even though dry food packs more calories, those aren’t all usable calories due to her slowing digestion. You’d be better off feeding her smaller meals, more frequently with highly digestible wet food and supplementing with dry food for periods you won’t be around to feed like overnight and daytime (if you work away from home.)
 

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If she’s a healthy drinker of water, you may also want to swap out some dry food for freeze-dried raw. Obviously not whole meals because that gets expensive. But as much as you can afford will be more digestible than what she has been getting. Just offer the raw separately from the dry because the dry would impede the digestibility of the raw.
 
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weemomma

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If she’s a healthy drinker of water, you may also want to swap out some dry food for freeze-dried raw. Obviously not whole meals because that gets expensive. But as much as you can afford will be more digestible than what she has been getting. Just offer the raw separately from the dry because the dry would impede the digestibility of the raw.
She drinks decently. She's sneaky with water. She has a cup of water on my nightstand that is her primary source, but I have spied her drinking out of the cat water fountain in the hallway that she swore to always hate.
 
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weemomma

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So, we got some pate today and she actually had an interest in eating it! I gave her half of a 3 oz can, which she probably won't eat all of, but she was definitely into licking it and eating some.

She also finally hit 8.05 lbs today! An improvement!
 

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My Krista does a first pass on her food for about 50%. Then she wants to do a fish flake hunt, her dessert. Then she'll come back for another 25%. Then a groom and a nap. And finally she'll finish the plate on waking up from her nap. It's pretty frustrating how long it takes to get her to eat an ounce of food. But she's getting through about six ounces a day for 200 calories. So we'll give it another week or two to see results. She may still have teeth issues but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and working with her where she's at now since we just did a dental and extractions.
 
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weemomma

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My Krista does a first pass on her food for about 50%. Then she wants to do a fish flake hunt, her dessert. Then she'll come back for another 25%. Then a groom and a nap. And finally she'll finish the plate on waking up from her nap. It's pretty frustrating how long it takes to get her to eat an ounce of food. But she's getting through about six ounces a day for 200 calories. So we'll give it another week or two to see results. She may still have teeth issues but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt and working with her where she's at now since we just did a dental and extractions.
Hariette ate about 1/3 cup of dry kibble through the day and then about 3/4 of the half a can of wet food I just gave her, which surprised me. She has about 1/3 a cup of kibble for the evening time. I know that she threw up at some point today, but she doesn't seem to have an upset tummy because she's still eating.
 
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weemomma

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Well, she's very interested in the wet food still, but now it seems to be all she wants, but she will only eat little bits at a time before it goes to waste. She's still sitting right at 8.0 lbs. Last night she only ate a little bit of the kibbles that were out for her.

She is the most frustrating cat I have ever known.
 
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weemomma

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Well, she seems to be done with wet food. I left her about a quarter of a can this morning and she ate very little. She ate 1/3 of a cup of dry kibbles. SHe lost about an ounce and a half today.

I'm so incredibly frustrated with her.
 

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Try putting the food on a flat paper plate, it's odd but it can often work with picky kitties :)
HK will only eat his food on small sized paper plates.

Well, she seems to be done with wet food. I left her about a quarter of a can this morning and she ate very little. She ate 1/3 of a cup of dry kibbles. SHe lost about an ounce and a half today.

I'm so incredibly frustrated with her.
maybe she needs more variety of flavors. HK is very picky about flavors, and will suddenly completely stop eating a previous favorite. he's underweight, so we keep offering him flavors till he eats one. if all else fails, we give him a gravy flavor and usually after that he makes a circuit of all the other flavors that are out on the floor.
 

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Hi!
Hang in there, don't get frustrated, I have been there and it can be scary, I know.

Can you finger feed, or spoon feed her?
Does she need more appetite help from the vet?
 
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