Weight Gain Timetable?

[happyfeet]

Background: My 2 yo male was recently treated for tapeworms. He had gradually over the course of several months lost 1 pound (previous weight was 10.1 and dropped to 9.1). It was not noticeable to us at the time as his eating, litter box habits, and other behavior etc. was normal. He still had his normal fat pad on his belly so he appeared to be the same size but clearly he had slowly been losing weight. Vet discovered it was tapeworms causing weight loss. He was prescribed profender.

Tapeworms are now gone (and yes, he is also treated for fleas monthly). Vet is not concerned about other possible health conditions. Vet says that weight gain back to his previous weight will be slow so be patient and it's not necessary at this time to change his diet to make him gain faster. We free feed dry kibble and give wet food or canned salmon once daily. He eats until he's full and nibbles throughout the day (with a bit leftover each morning so he isn't being restricted from eating in any way. This is how he's always been). He continues to be playful, happy, and loving.

My question: do any of you have experience with weight gain in your kitty? How long should I realistically wait to see movement on the scale? Using a baby scale he's been 9.1 lbs every day for a week so far after tapeworm treatment. Any insight is appreciated! Thank you!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi!
My boy gained weight, it took several months but he's an extremely finicky eater. I had to add treats of all sorts - you could try freeze dried treats in addition to his regular diet. You could also possibly give him some more canned food.

 

[verna davies]

It takes a while for them to regain the weight so I wouldnt worry. Kitten food is higher in calories than adult food so you could replace some of his usual food with some kitten.

 

[happyfeet]

This is reassuring!! Thank you!

 

[daftcat75]

Don’t weigh more than once a week for both of your sanity.

Pick up some nutritional gel like NutriCal or Cat Cal. This will add a few more calories but it will also give him several more bites worth of the munchies if walking away from food has been an issue.

Give him an extra feeding. High protein wet food. Play with him at night and give him a meal after that play session. You want that weight to come back lean. Not just weight for weight’s sake.

 

[Furballsmom]

Don’t weigh more than once a week for both of your sanity.

LOL, this is a good point (along with the rest of daftcat75 's tips) - cats weight seems to fluctuate a lot, maybe even more than humans

 

[happyfeet]

I did buy some Nutri Cal but just haven't consistently tried to give him daily. Will definitely add this along with the other suggestions. Is there a high protein wet food that you recommend?
I especially agree that I should be weighing weekly. I've turned into a helicopter kitty mom! Lol Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll see at least some slight improvement. His annual checkup at the vet is in mid January so I know that if zero progress is made by then the vet will dig deeper into other possibilities.

Thank you so much for your ideas and feedback!

 

[daftcat75]

Do you have a daily calorie target? Buy a food scale to weigh his kibble so you know how much he ate. You can keep track of this daily in a Google Sheet.

For Krista, I have one sheet I labeled Calculations where I have all kinds of quick calculations I need like:
If x many calories in y grams of food, then this many calories per gram.
If z daily calories needed, then this many grams of food needed daily.
If meal size is 56 g (Krista has a 2 oz stomach—more than that, it’s probably coming back), then this many meals needed to reach daily target
Each of these are rows where I can adjust one value and see the others change.

So that’s the calculations.

The other worksheets are weekly accounts of daily tallies of grams of each food eaten. This allows me to see if she’s meeting calorie targets. There’s also one cell at the top for the weekly weigh-in. This way I can see that trend week to week. If that trend stalls out or goes the wrong way, I can look over the week to see if she was meeting calories. If she was, then I talk with vet to see if new calorie target is more appropriate.

It may be more work to put weight on a cat than to take it off!