Food for Non-Diabetic Cats?

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tecnobrat

Member Since 2013
Hey all,

This is LindaMS's son Brian who is cat sitting her cats (one which is diabetic). However this is a question about my own!

I've learned so much the last week about diabetes in cats and how food has a really large impact. I have also learned that most food they sell is just not good for cats in general! I have a kitten, 5 months old named Leo, he is doing fantastic, perfect weight etc. I also have a 2 year old cat Selma. She is overweight.

We were free feeding them dry food (I know, this is bad) and giving them wet food at night. I am going to switch them entirely to wet food, regulating when they receive it. They both LOVE their wet food, making it easier to feed them separately, and do not seem to be picky with what we feed them. So my question is two fold.

1) I assume moving Selma to a low carb food such as fancy feast pate would be a good idea?
2) Does anyone have any suggestions for kittens? What should I be looking for in a kitten food?

The advise of my vet was "just check the energy levels in the food". But it seems so much more complicated than that.

Thanks!
 
Moving them both to a low carb wet food is a great idea. It should help prevent diabetes and even kidney issues later in life.

Here is a sheet that shows low carb foods. You want column C (% calories from carbs) to be under 10% - lower the better. Fancy feast classic pates are good.. There is even kitten food on here http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf - and I even see FF kitten food!

Wendy
 
Picked up some Fancy Feast for both my mom's kitties and my two.

Sammy and Sylvester (my mom's) got the Seafood Feast and my two got Savory Salmon Feast, Kitten Tender Turkey Feast and Kitten Tender Ocean Whitefsh Feast.

The lady at the store mentioned that she would be concerned about the sodium in this food. According to http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm it has about 0.60-0.65 for the "classics" we bought, which is about double the other more expensive food we were feeding them at 31. However the food we were feeding them was way up there on "calories from carbs", listed at 25!

Obviously I am keeping Sammy on the Seafood Feast, she seems to like it and its right there where she needs to be.

For my cats, what should I be more concerned with? Carbs or Sodium? A little reading I just did indicates that sodium isn't good, but has a small impact overall. Thoughts?

Thanks
 
My Mikey was diagnosed with diabetes when he was only 6 months old. Luckily, most of the canned kitten food is already low carb. Unluckily, none of the stores around me seem to sell the kitten varieties for some reason. ohmygod_smile I got Henry a couple of months later, so I had two kittens under foot. Henry ate exactly the same thing Michelangelo ate: low carb, high protein wet food (Friskies Special Diet, FF, Tiki Cat, etc...).The general rule of thumb for kittens is that they eat about double the calories that are recommended for an adult cat until they're about 10 months to a year old. Henry automatically stopped eating twice as many calories once he hit about 10 months old. Michelangelo slowly weaned down on the amount of food he was consuming at around a year. Now, at a year and a half, Mikey still eats slightly more than he should for his size, but as of a couple of weeks ago, he's also still growing so that's to be expected (part Maine Coon).

The important thing is making sure there's enough protein in the food when it comes to kittens and nursing queens. I personally think this holds true for all cats (unless they have other problems going on like renal disease) but it is just emphasized when it comes to kittens. :roll: To save time finding high-protein foods, I put together a sorted version of the catinfo.org food list and added a column for protein:fat ratio so I could easily spot the higher protein foods. I try to stick with anything over 50% protein/fat and less than 5% carbs. Since neither of your cats are diabetic, you have a bit higher %calories from carbs window at around 10-12%.

For knowing how many calories they need, check out catinfo.org's feline obesity page for some good information on helping Selma lose some weight in a healthy manner and for Leo to get enough calories in for his weight. It has a nifty formula that helped me figure out how much both Mikey and Henry should be eating based on their kitten size:

Required calories per day = [13.6 X optimal lean body weight in pounds] + 70
Click to expand...

Since that formula is for adult cats, all you'll need to do is double the number for Leo.

Btw, Mikey says, "hello!" to his new TMNT friend, Leo. :lol: You have beautiful kitties! :YMHUG:
 
I wouldn't worry too much about sodium. Carbs have a much more detrimental impact on a cat's health and should be the number one concern. As for seafood, you don't really want to feed them that more than once or twice a week. When you're first transitioning them over from dry or if they have a lack of appetite and it's the only thing they'll eat, it's okay to feed it then, but you don't want to do it long-term.
 
Thanks for the advice! I was able to find kitten food which was what I was hoping for. Benefit there is they both eat their wet food so quickly, I'm hoping we can feed them separately, but at the same time and not worry about fatso eating kitten food :)
 
Oh and Leo's full name was "Leonardo Dicatrio" when we adopted him from the rescue. But I never thought of TMNT ... now it all makes sense... hes not a Lion ... hes a Ninja!
 
Sorry for the random order of these posts! I'll make sure to grab some other non-seafood food as well. They sure do love their seafood! LOL
 
I wouldn't be surprised if "Fatso" :lol: automatically lost weight naturally just from the switch off dry. Cats often overeat on dry because they're trying to make up for the lack of balanced nutrients. Since wet comes closer to what a cat naturally eats in the wild, they end up not eating as much of it. You can also mix in some water with the wet food to make it last longer so it doesn't dry out and to satiate them longer. I mix as much water in as they'll allow: about half a 5.5oz can of water to a full can of food.

Leo the Ninja! bcatrun_gif Love it!
 
Sammy is still bouncing eh?

Do you think you could get a random test in the PM cycle? You are missing half the data and many cats drop low at night. We usually recommend a test 2-3 hours after the pm shot..If this number is less than the pre shot test number you may want to set the alarm for a test a few hours later as this implies an active cycle.

Wendy
 
My little Leo is driving me nuts. Switched him to wet. According to the can we are giving him enough. He is scrounging through everything. Garbage. Licking plates on the counter. And begs constantly.

He gets two cans of kitten fancy feast a day.

Anyone have suggestions for a begging cat?
 
Well, he's still just a kitten, right? I'd let him eat as much as he wants. Cats are really good at self-regulating when fed species-appropriate diets (aka low carb, wet food), so you shouldn't have to worry about him getting fat. I free-fed both Mikey and Henry and just kept an eye on their overall intake. Some days it was more, some days less, but they were both eating about 3-4 cans of FF each day so I think Leo could stand to eat a bit more. ;-)
 
I would free feed him, however his sister is overweight, and she will eat his food (or even if its not kitten food, she will just eat everything).

I'll try putting more down at a time and keeping them separated like I have been.
 
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