Food servings

[tessamalk]

How can I tell how much food to give Viggo? There's no weight:serving recommendations on cat food packaging that I've seen (like there is on my dog's kibble).

We've bought Friskies 5.5 oz cans. I gave him half when I got home from work and was considering the other half before I go to bed... then maybe half a can when I wake up and half just before I leave for work? Is 11 oz of food per day a good start?

 

[BJM]

I feed roughly 1/2 ounce food per pound body weight per meal.
(I'm feeding 15 cats 4 cans 13 oz big twice a day, an average of about 3.4 oz per meal.)

Tweak up or down as needed to obtain or maintain a good weight.

 

[tessamalk]

I'm assuming I should use ideal weight, and not current weight?

I'm guessing he should be around 9.5 lbs... which would be 4.75 oz per meal. Two meals a day I guess? So two cans a day might be a bit much, in that regard. But we'll start there and work him down as he loses a little more weight.

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

I like to feed mini meals through the day to keep the blood sugar more stable.

Weigh him once every couple of weeks and adjust food quantities accordingly..

 

[Jennifer and Hannah]

On my Fancy Feast cans it says "Feed an average size adult cat 1 can per 3-1/2 pounds of body weight daily" and these cans are 3oz cans. For my 10 lb cat (who used to be around 13 lbs pre-diabetes), I feed her 3 to 3-1/2 cans which is about 9-10oz which seems right for now because she needs to put a little weight back on and she is doing that (started at 9.3 lbs and is now 10 lbs). I break the 3-1/2 cans into 7 small meals and feed her only when her insulin is active (she is on Vetsulin which peaks at 4-5 hours and wears off after 6-8 hours) so she gets 1/2 can right before her shot, then another at around the 2-hr mark (when her BG is dropping), another around 4-hr (when her BG is lowest), and then during the day I give her another at around 6-hrs after her shot mostly because she cries for more food if I don't, but at night she doesn't get the 4th mini-meal because the house is quiet and we're all sleeping and she hasn't figured out yet that she can wake me up for food.

If you're not on insulin yet, then the best thing to do is to figure out how to feed mini meals throughout the day even though you are gone at work. Larger meals will tax the pancreas more and drive the BG up. There are a lot of responses on other forum posts from more experienced members on how to do this if you're not home to feed him (get an automatic feeder, freeze some food and put it out before you leave so he can't eat it until it thaws, etc) so I won't repeat, but I would suggest spending some time reading through a bunch of other people's posts and the responses they got. You'll learn a lot in a very short amount of time! These people here on the forum are a goldmine of information!