- Joined
- Jul 29, 2020
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Hello everyone,
I posted about my sweet Luna here not too long ago about a weight concern, and unfortunately, it has not resolved itself. So, I'm back to get some more opinions and wisdom!
Luna is a little over 7 months old and currently weighs 9.8 lbs. She is definitely not abiding by the "weight should be about as much as the months old they are" rule for kittens. I think the number concerns me less, although it is high, but she is scoring high on the obesity scale based on appearance. I would peg her at about a 7 on the scale. Her head looks too small for her body, she has no abdominal tuck, ribs not visible, abdominal distention, pretty much all signs of being overweight or obesity. We really want to address this while she's a kitten and get her at a healthy place, so we did a lot of research into the amount of calories she should be getting (a kitten at 7 lbs should be getting around 320-340 calories a day based on averaging from multiple sources) and had started her on a diet based on that calorie count mid-September. She continued to gain weight so we are now giving her a diet that's around 310-315 calories a day depending on if she gets a treat or the flavor of food she gets. She currently gets 1.75 cans (111 calories per can) of wet food a day, and 1/4 cup of dry kitten food (114ish calories), and this is split up between 3 meals. But she continues to gain weight going from 9 lbs mid-September to 9.8 today. She gets plenty of exercise and spends the time she's not napping sprinting around.
We are kind of at a loss as too how she's still gaining weight. We were hoping that she'd at least stabilize and stay 9 lbs until she was around 8 months old but the weight gain seems rapid and unyielding. She went to the vet in August who gave her a clean bill of health, but we haven't been back to specifically look at her weight (on a separate note I believe we may need to change vets because our current vet suggests that all cats should be free fed dry food which by my understanding often leads cats to obesity). Any advice or words of wisdom are very helpful!
Thank you!
I posted about my sweet Luna here not too long ago about a weight concern, and unfortunately, it has not resolved itself. So, I'm back to get some more opinions and wisdom!
Luna is a little over 7 months old and currently weighs 9.8 lbs. She is definitely not abiding by the "weight should be about as much as the months old they are" rule for kittens. I think the number concerns me less, although it is high, but she is scoring high on the obesity scale based on appearance. I would peg her at about a 7 on the scale. Her head looks too small for her body, she has no abdominal tuck, ribs not visible, abdominal distention, pretty much all signs of being overweight or obesity. We really want to address this while she's a kitten and get her at a healthy place, so we did a lot of research into the amount of calories she should be getting (a kitten at 7 lbs should be getting around 320-340 calories a day based on averaging from multiple sources) and had started her on a diet based on that calorie count mid-September. She continued to gain weight so we are now giving her a diet that's around 310-315 calories a day depending on if she gets a treat or the flavor of food she gets. She currently gets 1.75 cans (111 calories per can) of wet food a day, and 1/4 cup of dry kitten food (114ish calories), and this is split up between 3 meals. But she continues to gain weight going from 9 lbs mid-September to 9.8 today. She gets plenty of exercise and spends the time she's not napping sprinting around.
We are kind of at a loss as too how she's still gaining weight. We were hoping that she'd at least stabilize and stay 9 lbs until she was around 8 months old but the weight gain seems rapid and unyielding. She went to the vet in August who gave her a clean bill of health, but we haven't been back to specifically look at her weight (on a separate note I believe we may need to change vets because our current vet suggests that all cats should be free fed dry food which by my understanding often leads cats to obesity). Any advice or words of wisdom are very helpful!
Thank you!