How much?

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racn1320

racn1320

Member Since 2014
Have my little girl almost completely to wet friskies pates food! She weighs 14lbs. Is two 5.5 oz a day twice aday ok at insuline shot time? Want to make sure she doesnt go into shock with not having enough food. Reason i ask this i have always fed her wet food with some dry kibble out. Now no more kibble.
 
This is a matter I still don't quite know how to work out myself either...

Two 5.5 oz twice a day? So four 5.5 oz cans per day? That is a heap when compared to what my cats eat! This is why I'm worried I'm not feeding them enough. I am so used to basing everything on them having some dry food too.

It doesn't help matters when each 2.9 oz can of the only safe low carb cat food I can find around here costs $4 PLUS the postage as I can't get it locally!!!!
 
Im wondering if two 5.5 oz cans aday will be enought,each can at feeding time a total of 11oz of food for the day?
 
I think my feeding of wet food has been skewed for the past six years thanks to the dry food being involved as well. My boys would eat a half of a small Fancy Feast can twice a day in TOTAL for the both of them, and even then they'd often leave a little on their plates.
 
It depends on how active the cat is.
I have a mix of younger and older cats. It seems like they eat 1/4 to 1/2 ounce per pound am and pm.
 
When my sugardude Wink was still unregulated, he was eating 10-13 ounces of food a day. Now that he is in remission, he only eats 6 ounces a day to maintain his weight of 10.75 pounds.
 
I'm still trying to convert the ounces and pounds into gram and kilos. :)

Dweezil is 12.2 pounds, six years old and an indoor only not so active cat. Each of the Ziwipeak cans is 3 ounces. He is right now eating one can per day, broken up into three meals. Plus he still gets a very small amount of the Royal Canin Diabetic biscuits as we gradually change the diet. Is this way too low?
 
Ok...I think I have to really adjust the amount of wet food now there's hardly any dry food. I know dry food is more calorie dense so would have been filling them up much more so they never needed to eat very much wet food.
 
I'd probably give Dweezil 1.5 to 2 cans morning and night, possibly spread into 2 meals each.
 
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Weigh your cat.
Is the weight ideal?
If not, does the cat need to gain or lose?
Slowly adjust the food for what is needed.
 
Don't forget to add in the fact of calories. I keep my cats around 250 calories a day for a weight of 14 lbs. With the food im feeding thats 6 oz of wet food, and 1 TBS young again zero carb dry food for each cat.

Some foods have more or less calories.
 
I have a mix of ages and sizes here so this is an average of everyone...but I feed 15 cats ranging from my youngsters at 5lbs and just barely over a year or two old to my big kids at 16, 17, and 14 lbs and ranging in age from 13-18 years old on 20 (5.5 oz) cans per day. The big guys get about a can and a half, while the little ones get about 6 ounces a day, the kitten slightly more at about 8-10 ounces but she is normally bouncing around the house like she's on springs, the rest are between 6-18 and are far less active. Now I have some that are long and lean in body frame (Siamese & Orientals) as well as some that are big linebacker body types so it takes knowing your own cat's ideal body type and adjusting the food accordingly. On Autumn that we suspect has a lot of Maine Coon in her family tree @ 5 lbs she was a walking skeleton, but that same 5 lbs on my little petite dainty meezer girl Arabella she is well a bit 'fluffy' around the middle.

Need to gain weight feed more, need to take the pounds off feed less.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
Yea she weighs 14.0 lbs but little bonie in places so wouldnt hurt to gain a couple lbs,whats the safest amount for a cat on insulin twice a day,whats the min. i can give her so she doesnt go into shock by not being fed enough,thx
 
Start with 7 ounces morning and night.
And if the insulin is too high, she can go into hypoglycemia shock anyway. You need to be home glucose testing so you can monitor for it.
 
BJM said:
Start with 7 ounces morning and night.
And if the insulin is too high, she can go into hypoglycemia shock anyway. You need to be home glucose testing so you can monitor for it.
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Sorry to ask,14oz per day or 7?? thx!! she is getting 2units twice a day,lantus
 
14 oz total per day or 7 oz per meal. And it really doesn't matter what the dose is, if it's too high she can go into hypoglycemic shock and die regardless of the amount of food. Two cats that weigh exactly the same, eat exactly the same amount and the same kind of food can have two very different ideal doses of insulin. The only way to know for sure if she is safe on the dose she is on is to test her at home. My Autumn is the same weight but she takes only 0.08u of Levemir which is a very similar insulin to Lantus. Yet friend's cat that lives net door to me, has a little girl that also weighs 14 lbs and her girl is well regulated on 1.5u of Levemir.

It isn't a simple formula of if the cat weighs X and eats Y then they need Z units of insulin. We all wish it was, but that just isn't how it works. It takes finding the right balance for each cat based on a lot of testing to keep them safe.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
Deb & Wink said:
Agree with BJM. 3 ounces of food a day for Dweezil is not enough.
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Hmm. Yes, I can see that now. In the past, I have judged the amount of wet food needed by whether they finished their plates or not. It is now very different with them not having much dry food anymore. It used to fill them up so they'd barely eat a quarter tin of FF each per meal. Monty still doesn't finish all his FF even now he's getting less dry food. He needs to lose a bit of weight though.
 
You want him to lose weight slowly, though, because too much fat breakdown can cause hepatic lipidosis. That is where the fat goes to the liver for processing, but there is too much so the liver swells, bile backs up into the blood stream, and digestion gets totally boluxed.
 
Oh yes, definitely! I'd read that before. We're just feeding Monty a little less than before, that's all.

Dweezil on the other hand, we want to put on just a little bit of weight.
 
Tabitha weighs between 7 to 8 lbs. The vet told me to give her 2 or 3 cans of the 3oz cans a day but if it was the 5.5 oz cans give her 1.5 or 2 cans a day.
 
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