Question regarding feeding schedule

Mimis mom

Mimis mom

Member Since 2019
For my recent DKA kitty how often should I be feeding her? Every 6 hours? Or every 4 hours with an 8 hour break (for sleeping- me not them lol)
I got automatic feeders recently too.
They seem to be working out great only complaint is eating out of a cheap plastic, I usually feed them out of glass or stainless steel.
 
I cannot address DKA specifically, however with most diabetics the goal is to keep blood glucose numbers lower and fairly even. Frequent small meals can help with that. Once you get the numbers down, I'd feed every two hours...but that's just me and my limited experience with diabetes and blood sugar swings. If you avoid extremely low numbers (by feeding) then you'll avoid those big bounces on the other end. With DKA you also don't want to be skipping doses either.

Perhaps some with DKA experience will come on soon to comment.
 
Feeding in the latter half of the cycle can have the unwanted effect of bumping up the amps/pmps.

With George I only fed after +7 if the numbers required it (he was too low)
A normal day for him was.
A large meal (3ounces) at amps/pmps
+2 1 ounce
+4 1 ounce
+6 1 ounce

Originally I used to feed at amps/pmps and at +6, but I found the small meals resulted in more stable BG.
 
Marje and Gracie said:
I got them at Williams Sonoma. They fit perfectly into my PetSafe 5 auto feeder.
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I got the 2 auto feeder. (well there are three- one is for the first feed but I feed them out of the glass plates still)
Should I get ones that hold even more meals? my question is should I feed them every 4-6 hours while I am awake- or every 4-6 hours in a 24 hour period? does that make sense?
 
There is no one "right" feeding schedule. With a post-DKA kitty, the bottom line is that the cat must eat. Your cat meeds the calories to help keep ketones out of the picture. In terms of DKA, when the cat eats is less important than the fact that your cat is eating. many cats who are immediately post-DKA still feel crummy. They may not want to eat a larger meal so several small meals may be better.

With diabetes, however, several small meals is better than 2 large meals per day. The small meals put less pressure to a healing pancreas to perform in a large scaly way. What works best for your cat is an empirical question. You may want to experiment with different feeding schedules and then look at what the effect is on
 
Mimis mom said:
I got the 2 auto feeder. (well there are three- one is for the first feed but I feed them out of the glass plates still)
Should I get ones that hold even more meals? my question is should I feed them every 4-6 hours while I am awake- or every 4-6 hours in a 24 hour period? does that make sense?
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I agree with Sienne 100% especially about feeding post DKA and to keep the chance or recurrence down.

And it depends on the cat as well and how the insulin affects her cycle.

For non-diabetic cats, it can vary. My two are non diabetic. The little one eats four times a day; my big guy likes lots of small meals a day....like 6-8.
 
Sienne and Gabby (GA) said:
There is no one "right" feeding schedule. With a post-DKA kitty, the bottom line is that the cat must eat. Your cat meeds the calories to help keep ketones out of the picture. In terms of DKA, when the cat eats is less important than the fact that your cat is eating. many cats who are immediately post-DKA still feel crummy. They may not want to eat a larger meal so several small meals may be better.

With diabetes, however, several small meals is better than 2 large meals per day. The small meals put less pressure to a healing pancreas to perform in a large scaly way. What works best for your cat is an empirical question. You may want to experiment with different feeding schedules and then look at what the effect is on
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well right now I am feeding her every 4-6 hours - is that good? should it be more often?
 
Marje and Gracie said:
I agree with Sienne 100% especially about feeding post DKA and to keep the chance or recurrence down.

And it depends on the cat as well and how the insulin affects her cycle.

For non-diabetic cats, it can vary. My two are non diabetic. The little one eats four times a day; my big guy likes lots of small meals a day....like 6-8.
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well my question to that is - how much do they eat out of the container- sometimes they eat half and come back in a little bit. but I suppose the bottom line is they are eating more frequently than twice a day which is what I have fed them their entire lives until just a few days ago.

If you think the 5 auto feeder is better- ill return the ones I have and do even smaller meals more frequently
 
also, when you say eat every 2-3 hours - is that around the clock? assuming cats only sleep for a couple of hours at a time? (unlike us, who has 6-8 hours without food)
 
Mimis mom said:
well my question to that is - how much do they eat out of the container- sometimes they eat half and come back in a little bit. but I suppose the bottom line is they are eating more frequently than twice a day which is what I have fed them their entire lives until just a few days ago.

If you think the 5 auto feeder is better- ill return the ones I have and do even smaller meals more frequently
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It’s not that I think the other one is better; the one that is better is the one that suits your needs.

I’m not using the auto feeder now because I feed a balanced raw diet. I used it with my diabetic Gracie to give her snacks if we were gone or asleep.

Mimis mom said:
is this the one you have?https://www.chewy.com/petsafe-eatwe...hRzMs6IzI58u5FAYg1oUvxbDo9iv6brBoCbWsQAvD_BwE
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yes...that is the one I have and many of us use.

My little one eats every day at 8 am, 1 pm, 6 pm, and 11 pm. My boy eats starting at 8 and usually the times Liv eats plus in between if we are home. Neither eat after 11 pm or before 8 am.

My diabetic kitty ate after PS while I was giving insulin, +2, +3, +6, +7 because she was on Levemir insulin which has a different curve than Lantus.
 
A kitty recovering from DKA should consume 1.5 times the daily calories required to maintain ideal body weight.
(somewhere around here there is a calculator...)
 
Marje and Gracie said:
It’s not that I think the other one is better; the one that is better is the one that suits your needs.

I’m not using the auto feeder now because I feed a balanced raw diet. I used it with my diabetic Gracie to give her snacks if we were gone or asleep.


yes...that is the one I have and many of us use.

My little one eats every day at 8 am, 1 pm, 6 pm, and 11 pm. My boy eats starting at 8 and usually the times Liv eats plus in between if we are home. Neither eat after 11 pm or before 8 am.

My diabetic kitty ate after PS while I was giving insulin, +2, +3, +6, +7 because she was on Levemir insulin which has a different curve than Lantus.
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so the cats you have now are not diabetic? and why don't they eat for a full 9 hours? I have them on a raw diet too- does that mean I should feed less often?
 
someone tell me how often I should feed my cat because now I do not know. right now I'm feeding her every 4-6 hours- is that good for a recent DKA kitty or should it be more?
 
Mimis mom said:
someone tell me how often I should feed my cat because now I do not know. right now I'm feeding her every 4-6 hours- is that good for a recent DKA kitty or should it be more?
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Please reread post 7 above. Sienne explains it is more important that she gets plenty of calories. She also said feeding more, smaller meals is better for the pancreas. But perhaps your kitty does not want to eat small meals. Follow her lead but be sure she gets plenty of calories.....she probably needs 20-30 calories per lb now.
 
Mimis mom said:
is that good for a recent DKA kitty or should it be more?
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Every 4-6 hours is fine or you could feed every 3-4 hours...what's important is that she eats more than she normally would right now so you can get those extra calories into her to help fight off another DKA

If you can get more calories into her by feeding more often, that's the way to go. If she'll eat enough in each feeding to get enough calories, you could feed less often (with more per feeding)
 
The automatic feeder was a savior for me. BK was my office cat and my office was in a small cottage behind our main house. I spent many nights sleeping on a small futon in my office so that I could make sure he was fed if needed during the overnight cycle. Getting the feeder made it possible for me to sleep in my bed in the house without worry.

I fed him his shot time meals and set the automatic feeder to feed a mini meal at +4 and +8 both am and pm. Additionally, since I really didn’t know if he ate the +8 meal at +8,9,10 or 11, I set the feeder to advance at +10 with 1 chunk of freeze dried chicken breast (aka kitty crack). This way I knew the PS numbers were not food influenced.

For DKA recovery, it’s important to get the additional calories in.
 
Chris & China (GA) said:
Every 4-6 hours is fine or you could feed every 3-4 hours...what's important is that she eats more than she normally would right now so you can get those extra calories into her to help fight off another DKA

If you can get more calories into her by feeding more often, that's the way to go. If she'll eat enough in each feeding to get enough calories, you could feed less often (with more per feeding)
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Ya I mean whatever I feed her she eats right away, all of it. She’s always hungry.
I just tested her ketones and it starts off the first 10 seconds in negative then it goes to trace.
Does she have ketones in her urine or am I reading it wrong
 
When it’s “trace “, the stick will have sort of a glow to it. Make sure you test fresh urine and you read the results in the timeframe indicated on the box and in good light. Since you are not certain, get another test ASAP.

Do not let 24 hours pass without a test. It’s your first line of defense.
My BK once went from “negative” to “large” within 24 hours. He almost didn’t survive that episode.

BE746F15-DFC7-4A60-AEC1-BF8059896671.jpeg
 
Marje and Gracie said:
Please reread post 7 above. Sienne explains it is more important that she gets plenty of calories. She also said feeding more, smaller meals is better for the pancreas. But perhaps your kitty does not want to eat small meals. Follow her lead but be sure she gets plenty of calories.....she probably needs 20-30 calories per lb now.
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I did read that- it still isn't clear to me how often is best. This is what I've been doing- I feed them when I wake up, before her morning shot.
Thats me feeding them, so thats once. Then I set the timer to feed them the next little meal 4 hours later- then another one 4 hours after that- then I come home to give Mimi her night time shot and feed her before that. Then I reset the timers to feed twice throughout the night- so if I dose her at 9 pm and feed her, and I go to bed at 12. I set the feeder to 1 am, and then again at 5:30 am. then I wake up, test, feed her and give the morning shot.
my question is- should I be feeding her to my schedule, or a humans schedule- we are in bed about 8 hours of the day right? So does that mean if we wanted to eat smaller meals more frequently- say every 2-3 hours, there will be a time when we are sleeping. but for a cat- they don't really sleep full 8 hours right? they sleep an hour or two throughout the entire 24 hour period, so should we be skipping meals while we are sleeping because that is what we would do?
does that make sense?
 
Sandy and Black Kitty said:
When it’s “trace “, the stick will have sort of a glow to it. Make sure you test fresh urine and you read the results in the timeframe indicated on the box and in good light. Since you are not certain, get another test ASAP.

Do not let 24 hours pass without a test. It’s your first line of defense.
My BK once went from “negative” to “large” within 24 hours. He almost didn’t survive that episode.

View attachment 48616
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well heres the thing on testing right away- if I'm lucky enough to catch her in the box peeing- i put the strip right into her stream.. how can I retest again asap? Are most of you guys home a lot during the day, or have care takers, because I can't sit around and wait for her to pee again. :(
I think its negative. those strips aren't terribly accurate I'm guessing too- like having just a slight difference in shade- so slight its hard to tell between negative and trace is going to drive me mad. - I think I need the blood test one.
 
Sandy and Black Kitty said:
When it’s “trace “, the stick will have sort of a glow to it. Make sure you test fresh urine and you read the results in the timeframe indicated on the box and in good light. Since you are not certain, get another test ASAP.

Do not let 24 hours pass without a test. It’s your first line of defense.
My BK once went from “negative” to “large” within 24 hours. He almost didn’t survive that episode.

View attachment 48616
Click to expand...
why do you think that happened? went from negative to large, and how did you proceed after it went to large?
 
Mimis mom said:
why do you think that happened? went from negative to large, and how did you proceed after it went to large?
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That happened because he never fully recovered from his first episode which was on month earlier. once ketones develop, they really pick up steam and reach life threatening levels very quickly.

We proceeded to the vet he was seeing, who ( for about the third time) recommended euthanasia as did the local ER. Frankly by then we could not afford another hospitalization. Everyone here cried “NO”. A local member made an appointment for us and met us at a specialty clinic about an hour away. In the mean time the members of Lantus Land ( as it was known back then) passed the virtual hat around offsetting half the bill. BK life was saved by the folks on this forum.
 
Sandy and Black Kitty said:
That happened because he never fully recovered from his first episode which was on month earlier. once ketones develop, they really pick up steam and reach life threatening levels very quickly.

We proceeded to the vet he was seeing, who ( for about the third time) recommended euthanasia as did the local ER. Frankly by then we could not afford another hospitalization. Everyone here cried “NO”. A local member made an appointment for us and met us at a specialty clinic about an hour away. In the mean time the members of Lantus Land ( as it was known back then) passed the virtual hat around offsetting half the bill. BK life was saved by the folks on this forum.
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And you were doing everything right? Feeding frequently, making sure he drank enough fluids.

Is Black Kitty still with us? I couldn’t afford another visit either- I have an 8000$ bill... random- I just noticed she has diarrhea... I’m feeding her canned and raw- maybe that’s messing with her.
 
Mimis mom said:
I did read that- it still isn't clear to me how often is best. This is what I've been doing- I feed them when I wake up, before her morning shot.
Thats me feeding them, so thats once. Then I set the timer to feed them the next little meal 4 hours later- then another one 4 hours after that- then I come home to give Mimi her night time shot and feed her before that. Then I reset the timers to feed twice throughout the night- so if I dose her at 9 pm and feed her, and I go to bed at 12. I set the feeder to 1 am, and then again at 5:30 am. then I wake up, test, feed her and give the morning shot.
my question is- should I be feeding her to my schedule, or a humans schedule- we are in bed about 8 hours of the day right? So does that mean if we wanted to eat smaller meals more frequently- say every 2-3 hours, there will be a time when we are sleeping. but for a cat- they don't really sleep full 8 hours right? they sleep an hour or two throughout the entire 24 hour period, so should we be skipping meals while we are sleeping because that is what we would do?
does that make sense?
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You want to feed her for when it works best for her, not on a human schedule. (The nondiabetic cats should be fine staying on the schedule you have them on now). As you build data, you might find that your current feeding schedule is perfect for her as it as long as she isn’t eating in the two hour window before her shot. (Note: there are some exceptions to that but not that we need to deal with right now).

You might also find, as you get more data, that her feeding schedule needs tweaking. I found, on Lantus, that my kitty dropped fast early in the cycle. Based on that, I changed her feeding schedule to PS, +1, +2, +3 to slow down and flatten the big drops. I further refined it in changing how much food she got at each feeding. Using the same amount of food, I just proportioned it differently. She did better if I gave her a little larger portions early and less later on.

Generally, we find that feeding a cat on Lantus after +6 or so shortens the duration of the insulin so it doesn’t stretch the full 12 hours. But, I have seen some members here that free feed their cats throughout the cycle with LC food and never have an issue.

How do we tell if the duration is shortened? If the numbers shoot up really fast over a short period of time but then come back down after the next shot is given, then the duration of the previous shot was shorter than it should have been.

Does that help? Let me know if you need more info.
 
Mimis mom said:
And you were doing everything right? Feeding frequently, making sure he drank enough fluids.

Is Black Kitty still with us? I couldn’t afford another visit either- I have an 8000$ bill... random- I just noticed she has diarrhea... I’m feeding her canned and raw- maybe that’s messing with her.
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No, I did not do everything right...

We took BK, an intact male, in off the streets of Baltimore when he was about 5 years old. He was born in the spring of 2003 to a female cat across the street that had been left behind when the family that lived there moved.

It was January 2008 when we took him in. It was cold and damp and he looked terrible. I don’t think he would have survived one more night outside.

We were able to get him right in to a nearby vet. He had an upper respiratory infection, conjunctivitis and tested positive for FIV. A blood sample was taken for a CBC and sent out. The vet recommended euthanasia. I told him I could not agree to that and took the prescriptions and BK home. The next day the vet called to tell me that the blood work revealed BK was diabetic. My head was spinning- I had no idea a cat could be diabetic. The vet told me taking care of a diabetic kitty was a big commitment (little did I know) and once again recommend the pink shot. I broke the news to my SO and we both felt very strongly that we wanted to do all possible to help BK. He had a wonderful demeanor and spirit in spite of being so very sick. I did find the FDMB pretty quick. Early on we stumbled and fumbled with learning to test and shoot like most CGs do.

The recipe for ketone development is:
Not enough calories + not enough insulin + infection, inflammation or some other systemic stress.

We ditched the dry and started him on lc wet and cleared up the 2 infections, however we could not seem to get enough insulin into him to move the numbers. We didn’t know at the time and wouldn’t know for several months that the deck was stacked against him big time. He tested positive for IAA, ( insulin auto-antibodies) which put him in a state of extreme insulin resistance. Just to make life more interesting, he was the first FDMB kitty to be diagnosed with IAA. We were in uncharted territory.

It’s a miracle he lived through those first 6 months. But survive he did ...survive and thrive - against the odds The tribute video tells the rest of the story. :cool:
 
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