How much wet food per day?

We have two seven year old cats. Ali (16 lbs) was diagnosed with diabetes two weeks ago. We have had his first glucose curve and it was still reading in the 400's so our vet changed his ProZinc to 3 units twice per day. Our other cat, Tyson weighs 22 lbs and has showed no signs of diabetes. We are feeding them one can each of wet food in the morning and one can each in the evening, at shot times. Our vet did tell us that we could leave dry food out for them to nibble on during the day. I've been reading labels and finding the low carb varieties but I also noticed that the recommended amounts to feed adult cats are 1 ounce per pound. That means that my cats should be eating about 4 cans each per day!!! We have also been cautioned on calorie counts and at four cans per day they are at about 600 calories with NO dry food. Is the two cans per day per cat a good place to be given their weight????

 

I fed my diabetic cat 3 cans of Fancy Feast (the small cans) twice daily when he was unregulated. Newly diabetic cats are literally starving because their bodies are not able to use the food well. We say to feed a new diabetic more than you might normally if he is hungry. My non diabetic cat gets 2 cans of FF a day.

There are no hard and fast rules. It depends somewhat on the cat's activity level and whether they are overweight to begin with.

Was the curve at the vet's office or are you testing at home? I know we gave you information on hometesting before; I hope you are able to do that. Curves done at the vet may be much higher than the numbers you would get at home. Stresss raises blood glucose levels and kitties are usually stressed at the vet. Doses based on vet curves can often be too high once you get the cat home.

What was the dose before the 3 units? With PZI, we generally say .25 to .5 increases, hold for several cycles before increasing again. Slow and steady works here.

Dry food is full of carbs. It combats the work of the insulin. You can leave out wet food for them to graze on. Lots of us freeze the canned food and leave it out during the day and night.

BUT, I wouldn't take the dry food completely away until you are testing at home. When we switched Oliver from dry to wet, he dropped 100 points overnight. If we hadn't been testing and gave his the usual amount, we would have overdosed him.

 

We have one diabetic cat, one asthmatic cat and two civies. We probably go through 7 - 10 cans of Fancy Feast a day. Jack, our asthmatic, tends to be hungry almost 24/7 due to the inhaled steroids for his asthma that amp up his metabolism, but the rest don't shy away from eating either. I usually add a little hot water to the cans to melt the jell that remains from the food, then pour that over it to help keep it moist. Not that it lasts that long. :mrgreen:

I second ditching the dry. Since we got rid of the dry, our fattest cat (not diabetic) has actually lost two pounds, something the vet is very happy about.

 

I have 11 cats ranging in size from 19lbs to 7 lbs, we average about 14 cans (5.5 oz) of Friskies a day, or about 98 cans per week. I figure it as about 1 1/2 cans per day for the bigger guys and about 1 can a day for the delicate ladies. Of course right now I have a couple that I'm trying to take weight off of and still trying to put a little more weight back on Max.

I also put a little hot water in the can to melt the jelly stuff and then pour that over the food and mix in. We feed 4 times a day here.

Mel, Max & The Fur Gang

 

i have 8 cats including one diabetic. They are fed eight 13 oz cans per day. Sometimes they will get a little more if they seem to beg for food. I also have found that the pate' type flavors seem to fill them up better than any of the sliced/chopped flavors.

 

I have a question about leaving frozen canned food in the auto feeder.
Is 20 hours too long for leaving frozen food in room temperature(60F)?

I am trying to see if this is going to work when I have a pet sitting coming once a day.
Yesterday, I made some frozen cubes (about 1 OZ size), took two from freezer and left them in 4th and 5th hoppers at 9am, the 4th hopper opens up at 9pm (12 hours later) and the 5th hopper opens at 1am then stay until 6:30am.
This morning, I found my cat's vomit on the floor--- I guess he ate the 5th hopper between 1am-6am, I am a little concerned that one went bad, I smell the remaining and vomit(excuse me) but I don't think they are bad?

My cat Mimi seems usual though.

 

I think that is stretching it a bit. We have left it for 12 hours and had no problems. I don't know that it would "go bad". It normally just dries out and gets crusty. He IS a cat; it may have been something other than the food....?

 

No clue... I know he's on dining table.... I found some his vomit on the table, too... but no food on the table.
He ate his morning meal with normal amount and now sleeping.
I don't like the idea leaving wet food this long.... but I am gonna try again today?
I don't like the idea leaving dry EVO in the 5th hopper, either, but could it be better than spoiled wet food?

 

I usually figure 90% of the time vomiting is a hairball issue.

The dry EVO would be better than nothing, if you need to go that long and are worried. I would only do the one section with it. Any limits you can put on dry are helpful.

 

My 17 year old cat eats 2 3oz cans of FF per day, and sometimes gets some little between-meal snacks (usually chicken). He is very inactive though so he doesn't burn many calories running around, playing, etc... I recently did some reading about proper caloric intake, and although the numbers ranged a bit, here's what I found:

Inactive or senior cats: 18-25 calories per pound of weight
Younger or active cats: 25-35 calories per pound of weight
Overweight cats should have their caloric intake reduced by 10%

But really the best way to determine how many calories your cats need is to keep track of how many calories they're getting each day and weigh them about once a week to look for changes.

And as far as leaving out wet food for quite a while, the jury is still out on that one. I've read anywhere from 20 minutes to 20 hours! My cat grazes a lot and usually has wet food left out for up to 12 hours and we've never had problems with him getting sick from it.

 

We hit day 510 OTJ today! We have been using Fancy Feast since September 19th 2009. Milo would eat all day if you let him...he was used to eating drying whenever he wanted. He LOVES LOVES LOVES the wet food. I bought an automatic feeder (and don't freeze into cubes). If I happen to work I set the feeder for every 2 hours (his usual day is eating at 6:30 AM, 8:15AM, 10AM, 12PM, 3PM, 5:15PM, 8PM and 10PM) he has this routine down pat and when he is sleeping (which he doesn't do much of ...he is awake from 6AM until at least 12:30PM helping me around the house) he will wake up like an alarm went off. He will hit us with his paw when he is hungry. He also LOVES LOVES LOVES people food and not the normal stuff (he loves lasagna and spaghetti, pork, turkey, chicken, taco meat, etc). Basically he eats when he is hungry and has us trained. I do know we go through 2-2.5 cans of fancy feast daily. He doesn't get HUGE amounts (I have some old sugar spoons that I use for his food). When we go on vacation I have 2 feeders so his grandpa just needs to fill them once daily (I program in all the feeding times). He hasn't gotten sick off eating food that has sat in the feeder all day, but I know some kitties are different. He will sit and watch that feeder (which is used every weekend so we can sleep) and leap off his bench in the kitchen to go eat when he hears it.

Good luck with kitty. These boards are fantastic and the people are so helpful.