Is my ragdoll over weight?

[caribou]

Hello all!
I have a male ragdoll will be 5 months old in less than a week. He is 7.2 lb. this is my first raggie so i am not very experience about them.
Is he too heavy? But he doesnt feel fat, just big. Are ragdolls normally that heavy. Please share some advice .
I tried to look online for a ragdoll weigh chart so i can keep him in line (adjust his diet if needed) but i couldnt find any reliable one.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers

 

[stephanietx]

Generally, kittens weigh about a pound for each month's age.  Having said that, my tabby boy weighed 8 lbs when he was about 6 months old!  At your kitty's age, I wouldn't worry about him being overweight as he is just a growing boy.  He will probably even out when he's about 18 mos old.

 

[franksmom]

I actually have a very small male ragdoll and he is only 9 pounds full grown but generally ragdoll males can be about 20 pounds. I would say if he is eating a healthy diet of mostly wet, homecooked or raw he should be fine, but I would be concerned if you are feeding him an all dry diet because that can lead to obesity. You also want to watch him as he becomes full grown he is not overeating because obesity is sadly very common and very problematic in a lot of cats. Here is some good information from a vet on feline obesity and some tips to prevent it (http://catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity). 

My Birman kitten is actually much bigger than my ragdoll and she was 5 pounds at 16 weeks. I feed her wet/homemade/raw food and she doesn't overeat with it and I think is a pretty good weight but still has her kitten chub. I know I can never free feed her dry food because she will gorge herself and just eat an entire bowl in less than an hour! I think like humans some cats have a propensity to overeat so you do have to be careful when your guy becomes an adult.

Some tips for cats who like to gorge is to use something like slim cat balls, I put freeze dried treats in one for my kitten and she loves chasing it around to get food. I also have other puzzle toys and I put freeze dried raw or treats in it. i have a dog tornado and both my kitten and dog love to use it to get food. Here is a video with ragdolls playing with one:

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[caribou]

Aww thanks for the video. They are beautiful.. And thanks for the replies!

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• caribou
• Sep 10, 2013

My ragdoll are on homemade raw diet only. Some treat occasionally. But we try to keep him off the dry food. But he really love to munch on them so i found him the highest quality dry food i could find in the market. ($30/ 5lb bag) . no by product. I would give him less than a table spoon full between the main meals (raw) . But i have heard that it is not good to have them on raw and dry diet at the same time. Any idea about this?

 

[franksmom]

I believe it is largely a myth that you can't feed dry and raw. If you check out the raw forum you will see a few threads on people who transitioned their cats onto raw directly from a dry diet and fed it at the same time. I also give dry as a treat too and I feed raw and it hasn't been an issue. The slim cat or the puzzle toy is a fun way to give dry as a treat and it makes them burn some calories too.

BTW he is super cute and does not look overweight at all.

 

[nbrazil]

Hello all!
I have a male ragdoll will be 5 months old in less than a week. He is 7.2 lb. this is my first raggie so i am not very experience about them.
Is he too heavy? But he doesnt feel fat, just big. Are ragdolls normally that heavy. Please share some advice .
I tried to look online for a ragdoll weigh chart so i can keep him in line (adjust his diet if needed) but i couldnt find any reliable one.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers

My OPINION is that he is spot on. At six months my ragdoll is 10 lbs and not fat. They go through growth spurts and don't fully mature for about 3 years on average.