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maryct

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Hi, My name is Mary Tommelleo and my 14 year old cat Bunny has just been diagnosed with Feline diabetes. She has her good days and bad days but I was wondering if others have had problems with their cats waking them up during the night? I can't leave food and water out because it attracts mice or rats (I live in the country). Do other have to feed their cats more frequently? Any info on any suggestions that will make Bunny's new way of life more bearable would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You and God Bless the special caretakers of these wonderful,beautiful animals.
 
Welcome Mary and Bunny! This is a great site with lots of resources and information that can help you take care of your sweet Bunny.

Re the night hunger, there could be a couple possible reasons. Unregulated cats are often very hungry - they aren't processing their food well. How much are you feeding? Maybe more food would help. Would an automatic feeder work at night? They would have a cover and probably discourage any other critters from eating the food?

Another reason is that when they go lower than their bodies are comfortable with, they want to eat and bring themselves back up. Are you testing at home? That would be the best way to tell how low the insulin is taking Bunny and whether it is too low. It is also important to know if the dose you are giving is safe so we test before we give the shot. We can teach you how if you would like.
 
Hello.
What is Bunny eating? Like Sue said - she might be extra hungry these days.
A high protein, low carb diet is best for diabetics. Low-carb canned food is ideal. Dry food tends to have too high a carb value for diabetics to eat and stay healthy. There are a few low carb dry options out there (Young Again, Wellness Core) in case your cat doesn't want to switch to canned food right away.
Welcome aboard!
 
Welcome Mary and Bunny.

Is your cat a gobbler or a grazer? In other words, does she eat her food really fast, within a few minutes (gobbler), or doe she take her time and eat small amounts throughout the day (grazer)?

How much does she weigh? This will let us calculate how much food Bunny needs to eat.
 
Hi deb and Wink, It is so nice to have someone to talk to that knows what your going through so thank you so much for your reply. I think the covered feeder is a good idea because she was so used to eating whenever she wanted to before pests became a problem. Also the change in her diet isn't going over to well so I think she tries to out wait me to see if I will give in to her and let her have the dry cat food she used to eat. She the lioness of the house!
Thanks,
Mary and Bunny
 
If the change in diet is not going over well, you may want to try a slow transition. Give some of the old food, mixed with the wet. Cut down on the proportion of dry and give a bit more wet each day.

My cat Wink was a dry food addict. He would chew through the bag to get to the dry food. Still would if there was any dry in the house but I got rid of it all.

FDMB member, Dr. Lisa Pierson, is a vet and has a great website with a whole list of transitioning tips for getting dry food addicts to switch to wet food. I probably used a dozen of these tricks to get Wink to switch over to wet food.

I tried these tips: Heat up the wet food until mouse body temperature, chip and dip, sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, crush the dry food and sprinkle that on top of the wet, mix some of the wet food with the dry, add tuna water to the wet food to make it more tempting, hand feed, roll the food into tiny balls and hand feed, sprinkle the food with flortiflora, sprinkle small amounts of cooked chicken on top but pressed into the wet food a bit, try different flavors ( he hates fishy flavors, loved turkey and giblets).

I slowly cut down on the amount of dry food and fed more wet food. I did this for 3 weeks and then stopped all dry food at once. By that point, he was only getting 2 tablespoons of dry food where he had been eating a cup of dry food.

Her website is catinfo.org and the specific document is this one: http://www.catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf
 
Welcome, Mary! :YMHUG: How are things going with you two? You might also want to check out this discussion on feeding kitties as much as they want.

As to food attracting rodents, isn't that what a cat is for: pest control? :lol: All joking aside, I have a link somewhere full of suggestions for leaving wet food out for cats but protecting it from other critters, but I can't seem to find it right now. :? As soon as I do, I'll post it for you. :-D

Is Bunny on insulin yet? If so, what kind?
 
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