We adopted a young rescue cat today. Their vet estimated her at 2 years old, yet she's rather small and is currently very skinny, weighs at 7.5 pounds right now. In early June she had 4 kittens, the rescue was called in to get her when they were just a day old. Kittens weaned, she was spayed about 3 weeks ago. She is still bone-skinny, weighs 7.5 pounds. Rescue has been feeding her dry Rachel Ray Nutrish, unlimited, and "a big spoonful of Fancy Feast grilled with gravy" three times a day, to help her regain her body weight.
She is just skin and bones right now, you can feel every bone in her body, which surprises me a bit since she's been away from her kittens for 3 weeks now.
To help her transition to our home, as we have 4 cats already (and a dog) we got her the same food she is used to, with plans to transition her to our feeding gradually as she adjusts, don't want to overstress her too many ways at once (she's currently isolated in a bedroom and we visit frequently until all cats are ready to meet each other.) We feed FF pate, low carb, 4 meals a day, to our cats as old Lamborghini was bordering on diabetes when we discovered his other issues.
So far today she has eaten 2 cans of food (3 oz FF grilled with gravy) and a considerable amount of the dry Rachael Ray Nutrish. The canned food disappears within seconds of us putting it down for her, have given her 8 servings of about 1/4 can at a time over the day. She will get more before the day/night is done.
Now, aside from the evils of dry food (we know, we know, and plan to phase it out) it's about 34% carbs, the FF grilled with gravy canned food is about 15% carbs, much higher than what our other 4 are fed. Now, new cat Phoebe is very underweight, recovering from having 4 kittens when very small, probably not cared for or fed, and possibly very young (will see what our vet estimates her age to be, this week). When trying to restore a cat who has been through so much body stress to a healthy weight, are the extra carbs okay, will they help, or will they actually hinder her regrowth of weight and muscle?
Or should we speed her transition to the very low carb diet we feed the others, will a high protein, high fat, low carb diet put more body back on her skinny bones than what she is eating now?
She is just skin and bones right now, you can feel every bone in her body, which surprises me a bit since she's been away from her kittens for 3 weeks now.
To help her transition to our home, as we have 4 cats already (and a dog) we got her the same food she is used to, with plans to transition her to our feeding gradually as she adjusts, don't want to overstress her too many ways at once (she's currently isolated in a bedroom and we visit frequently until all cats are ready to meet each other.) We feed FF pate, low carb, 4 meals a day, to our cats as old Lamborghini was bordering on diabetes when we discovered his other issues.
So far today she has eaten 2 cans of food (3 oz FF grilled with gravy) and a considerable amount of the dry Rachael Ray Nutrish. The canned food disappears within seconds of us putting it down for her, have given her 8 servings of about 1/4 can at a time over the day. She will get more before the day/night is done.
Now, aside from the evils of dry food (we know, we know, and plan to phase it out) it's about 34% carbs, the FF grilled with gravy canned food is about 15% carbs, much higher than what our other 4 are fed. Now, new cat Phoebe is very underweight, recovering from having 4 kittens when very small, probably not cared for or fed, and possibly very young (will see what our vet estimates her age to be, this week). When trying to restore a cat who has been through so much body stress to a healthy weight, are the extra carbs okay, will they help, or will they actually hinder her regrowth of weight and muscle?
Or should we speed her transition to the very low carb diet we feed the others, will a high protein, high fat, low carb diet put more body back on her skinny bones than what she is eating now?
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