Tubby kitties

[tyleete]

Hello all! I've got a few chubs in my clowder here. 3 to be precise. Ages 10+, 5+ (strays I took in), & a 5yr old.
I do NOT feed them a lot. I give this set (ones in main living area) American Journey grain-free dry chicken for adults.
My question is, has anyone had good experience with a dry food on weight loss? I don't even know what I should be looking for in a healthier food. And no, I'm not rich. I do a lot of rescue with 11 permanent residents and about half of them with medical conditions. The dry food I buy these three costs me $31 per 12lb bag. And I really can't afford much more. Only 1 of them eats some wet food. Other 2 won't touch it.
So any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

 

[maggie101]

FANCY FEAST Classic Chicken Feast Canned Cat Food, 3-oz, case of 24 - Chewy.com
$17 for 24 pack 3 oz cans fed twice a day for each cat.. Any ff classics.
check out the catfooddb.com and visit the thread cat food deals forum. One of my cats I mix in freeze dried treats to add some crunch to her pate. That's what your cats are missing

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Hello all! I've got a few chubs in my clowder here. 3 to be precise. Ages 10+, 5+ (strays I took in), & a 5yr old.
I do NOT feed them a lot. I give this set (ones in main living area) American Journey grain-free dry chicken for adults.
My question is, has anyone had good experience with a dry food on weight loss? I don't even know what I should be looking for in a healthier food. And no, I'm not rich. I do a lot of rescue with 11 permanent residents and about half of them with medical conditions. The dry food I buy these three costs me $31 per 12lb bag. And I really can't afford much more. Only 1 of them eats some wet food. Other 2 won't touch it.
So any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Are you free feeding or do you feed scheduled meals and each cat have their own bowls and EAT from only their own bowls? Really, the only way to get them to lose weight (that I know of) is to reduce the amount of calories they consume or increase their exercise, just like with humans. The best way to do that is to feed scheduled meals and monitor how many calories you give them at each meal. If they don't lose weight with those calories, then decrease them a little at a time. You should be able to do this with either wet or dry food, but some of us believe that they may be better satisfied with wet food. If you cannot afford to do that, then dry food should still work. Also, for the being satisfied part, the fewer carbs in the food the better, for cats. Again, you feed what you can afford.

Just in case, here is an article on putting cats on scheduled feedings:

Transitioning Free-fed Kibble Kitties To Timed Meals - TheCatSite

Kitty parents find themselves wanting to transition from free-fed kibble to timed meals and/or a new type of food for many reasons: The need to monitor food intake in multi-cat homes Kitty health As part of a transition to canned, raw, or homemade food, where the food is not left out and must be...

thecatsite.com

 

[TardisDance]

Following this. I adopted a cat that was originally a TNR from a feral colony and he eats a ton of food. He eats 2 cans of Fancy Feast Classics plus a 1/2 cup of American Journey dry right now. He has a bit of starving cat syndrome. I tried to put him on Dr. Elsey’s (what my resident cat eats) according to serving size, but he thought I was starving him and kept stealing from my other cat’s food! I couldn’t keep him on it because it’s too expensive to free feed this food.

I’m thinking about transitioning both to Tiki Cat Born Carnivore since it’s a bit more in the middle calories wise and low carb, high protein like Dr. Elsey’s. It’s not cheap but relatively cheaper than Dr. Elsey’s. I’ve seen that there’s lower calories Turkey version, but it’s only sold in 2.8 lb. bags.

Other than Tiki Cat, I saw Petcurean Go is a slight step up as far as carb/protein content, but the pricing has been all over the place on Chewy. I think it’s because it’s a Canadian food sold on a US site.

 

[lisahe]

Following this. I adopted a cat that was originally a TNR from a feral colony and he eats a ton of food. He eats 2 cans of Fancy Feast Classics plus a 1/2 cup of American Journey dry right now. He has a bit of starving cat syndrome. I tried to put him on Dr. Elsey’s (what my resident cat eats) according to serving size, but he thought I was starving him and kept stealing from my other cat’s food! I couldn’t keep him on it because it’s too expensive to free feed this food.

Yes, it can be very hard to feed cats with food insecurity. We adopted one eight years ago and she still seems to feel like she's not sure she'll ever be fed again. (I recently tried cutting the cats' meals back to only (only!) four a day... it seemed to work for a while but then it was clear I had to go back to five.) We stopped free feeding about a month after we adopted the cats. And thank goodness!

What we do is feed a lot of small meals a day (five! plus a nighttime snack) and feed the cats separately for many meals so Edwina doesn't steal her sister's food. One area where she's improved is that she's no longer so predatory.

Good luck. It can take time and a fair bit of patience to find the right combination of foods and schedule.

 

[tyleete]

I leave their bowls out, but only feed them so much a feeding and usually that's only twice a day. Not just a bowl of constant food. One eats just dry food and that's 1/3 a chip American Journey a day and another for dinner. Another has been trying to use Hill's W/D as he's my fattest, thesame amount and it's dry too. The other is a youngster that's 5 and he eats half that in dry (American Journey) & also about 1/2 a can of Friskies (wet).
The link earlier shown is for wet, raw, and 2 dry foods. One Dr. Else's which I can't afford & the other that's Wysong but it's a dog AND cat food. That just doesn't seem right at all to me.:/

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

If you leave their bowls out, could it be that the chubbiest one is finishing off the other's bowls? Just asking? I understand that you only put food in all their bowls twice per day, but if they don't finish their meals right away, that leaves the food available for any one of them to eat it, which means the one who currently gets Hill's W/D may also be getting American Journey AND some Friskies wet.

Yes, there are companies who make food that is appropriate for both cat's AND dogs. They have to add taurine to the recipe to make it ok for cats, but Wysong is quite expensive, so may not work anyway.

 

[tyleete]

I don't think Wysong will be a whole lot more than the American Journey I feed. And I've got one that says their urinary food. I like Diamond urinary better (less useless ingredients), but only 1 of mine will eat Diamond while the other 2 prefer Wysong. Yeah! And aren't there a lot more differences in what a dog needs to a cat's dietary needs? They're not even close to the same species. And I know you can't give raccoons taurine because they're in the canine family and taurine can wreak havoc on their GI systems.:/
As for the bowls? The tubbiest eats all his food in the first few minutes. He refuses to eat wet food & so I watch him whenever he goes in the kitchen.around 11 or 12 I pick everyone's food up and feed or to them is they cry for their leftovers. If I have to leave the house, all the food gets taken up too.
I just really need do find a dry food I can afford (no more than $16 for 5lbs) that's low in carbs. I've tried researching. It's rough brands by brand. I can't even pronounce half of what's in the lusty of ingredients.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I think it's only certain of the Wysong foods that are appropriate for both dogs and cats. The urinary food is NOT one of them. Sorry if I didn't indicate that in the first place. And yes you are correct in that it's more than just taurine that makes dog and cat food different, since cats are obligate carnivores and dogs aren't. I can't explain how it is that their one specific food that I'm aware of is for both species, but they say it's been around for 35 years and animals do great on it. And it IS pricey! $23.19 for 8 ounces. Now for the Uretic diet, it's $22 for a 5lb bag, which (I guess) isn't too bad. As an aside, Nature's Variety used to have the exact same recipe for their canned dog food as their canned cat food. Some people on TCS used to feed the dog food simply because it was less expensive since it came in large cans. I think it was back in 2017 when they changed their recipe. They still put taurine in the dog food, but the recipes are no longer identical. (I don't know anything about their kibble, but that could have been identical too)

I bought a bag of Epigen 90 (wysong) once to have for emergencies in case someone needed to step in and feed our raw fed beasties if something happened to us, and none of our cats would touch it. But it's VERY LOW in carbs! Just saying.

 

[Babypinkweeb]

I also bought Epigen 90 once as a back up for Dr. Elsey chicken as both are very low carb dry food, but weirdly enough the full bag was not liked as much as the sample I got. They looked the same but my dry food lover who loved the sample turned his nose at the full bag. I agree that in some degree I feel iffy to support the company who makes foods that are supposedly for both cats and dogs (they also make a vegan option? It's stated as supplementary for elimination protocol/used with animal meat but it feels weird that it's offered.) If only there was more options similar to Dr. Elsey chicken kibble for those of us who have cats who just will not have wet no matter what.