feeding 2 spoiled cats
LynC
and the other 15 lbs. The vet said they were healthy and not to worry about
their weights. I have 2 himmies and they tend to gain weight over time.
My problem is that I am used to feeding some canned cat food at night for
them both. I go to Petsmart and purchase about 21 cans of cat food for them
for the month. I get Iams, Nutro and Whiskas. That is what they always
liked. They used to fight over the food but now..... don't want the canned
food.
They don't eat the canned anymore other than a couple bites. I continue to
put it out each night as they are into the routine of being fed and beg for
it if I don't give them the canned food. They don't eat it however. I
throw it all in the garbage disposal the next morning.
I feel badly if I don't give the canned food to them but again, I just throw
it out the next morning. Is it possible to completely give up canned food
and is that okay?
LynC
"LynC" <ii493@xxyy#ww.com> wrote in message
news:403d49ba$0$3086$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
Ted Davis
I have a dozen very healthy cats that are given one can for all of
them once or twice a week as a treat. They eat Special Kitty dry food
from Walmart and love it. Two are obese, but were that way when I got
them. One that I got as a kitten is chubby. Two are skinny - they
were skinny when I got them, but the vet says they are healthy.
I must add that some of them partially feed themselves with what they
catch, but they are no healthier then the others.
If you feed only dry food, you need to make sure they are getting
enough water, and you need to watch out for problems due to specific
formulas and for things like urinary problems that need special
formulas.
If they are overweight and not eating something, it could be because
they are overfed.
T.E.D. (tda...@gearbox.maem.umr.edu - e-mail must contain "T.E.D." or my .sig in the body)
LynC
news:dtjq301v3ms3cvilp...@4ax.com...
I do take them to the vets each year for a check up and the vet says they
are healthy. I am worried because they are males and I guess I read
sometime back that males can develop some kind of urinary tract problem
related to diet and now for the life of me I can't remember what that was.
I am concerned because they have stopped eating the canned food. That was
their favorite.
Yoj
I suspect you'll get a lot of strong opinions on this, as I did when I
asked a similar question. My cats aren't quite as large as yours, but
they are definitely healthy. Skeeter never has been very interested in
canned food, although she'll occasionally take a few bites. Lindy was
eager for it, although picky, and she changed her preferences
periodically. Then I ran into a similar problem. She would beg me to
feed her, then turn up her nose at the food.
I finally settled it by continuing to buy her favorite flavors. I have
plastic lids that fit on the cans, and I divide 1/4 can between two
dishes every evening. Sometimes Lindy cleans out both dishes.
Sometimes she empties one and ignores the other. Skeeter still takes
the occasional bite or two. I'm throwing out a lot less food, but still
satisfying their desire to be given the canned food.
Joy
Karen Chuplis
wrote on 2/25/04 7:20 PM:
Cats fed exclusively dry are apt to put on weight. The canned is more
efficient and provides water as well. Mine prefer dry, but I have gone to
set amounts of dry available, and set feeding times with wet. It took a long
time but I found some canned they like. If you go with completely dry, make
sure you have lots of water available around to remind them to drink. It
does work to put bowls in different areas at different heights.
Karen
Karen Chuplis
wrote on 2/25/04 7:58 PM:
It's true that males can develop problems (not will, but it's a lot more
possible). Cut back on the amount of dry available and keep tempting them
with canned.
Karen
LynC
news:tDc%b.8335$yZ1....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
started to give both cats only a quarter of the canned food and they still
don't eat it. They only lick up the gravy and then want dry food. They are
a creature of habit and beg and claw at my legs for the canned food and then
turn their noses up. Happens every single night.
They do have fresh water and drink a lot more of it since this has been
happening over time.
I guess as they mature, they have changed eating habits as well. I dunno.
Stumped.
Hopitus2
Straining to urinate or cries of pain while doing so? A trip to vet ASAP if
you have (urethra blockage can quickly kill in males) or possibly bad teeth
causing them feeding pain. Vet expense will answer any health concerns or
confirm mere eating pickyness on their parts.
"Karen Chuplis" <kchu...@alltel.net> wrote in message
news:BC62B653.1D912%kchu...@alltel.net...
: in article 403d49ba$0$3086$61fe...@news.rcn.com, LynC at
:
LynC
news:N-6dnSLGPMe...@comcast.com...
> Have you observed any unusual litterbox happenings with the two tomcats?
> Straining to urinate or cries of pain while doing so? A trip to vet ASAP
if
> you have (urethra blockage can quickly kill in males) or possibly bad
teeth
> causing them feeding pain. Vet expense will answer any health concerns or
> confirm mere eating pickyness on their parts.
>
about their change of eating habits. What they craved before is no longer
their favorite and now they don't eat it at all. Thanks for the reply.
Brian Tucker
well. I leave a can of food out each day and a small bowl of dry food.
They just nibble little bit several times a day. Takes them about 3
days to finish the small bowl of dry food. I feed them Hill's Science
Diet, Oral care and Hairball formula. A 3 1/2 lb bag of each lasts them
two months. I would be leary of just feeding them just dry food. Maybe
too much ash for them. Maybe different brand of cat food. Serena
(Sis) and Sonscere' always ate Whiskas, wouldn't touch 9 lives now it
is just the opposite, they let Whiskas sit there and rot and love 9
lives, go figure. They eat what they want when they want and maintain
there weight very well. Sis always is about 9.8 lbs and Sonscere'
always 9.2 lbs. Just my 2ยข.
Brian
My photo albums
http://public.fotki.com/Sonscere/
"IIt's not love that causes the pain
Whenever a heart has been shattered,
It's the losing of love that's to blame." VG
Victor Martinez
> it out the next morning. Is it possible to completely give up canned food
> and is that okay?
Wet food is better than dry food, but they will survive on a dry diet.
However, you might want to try different foods, some cats get bored with
a particular flavor or texture. Our cats go bonkers for the new Proplan
cans, particularly the "and rice" flavors. Available at Petsmart.
--
Victor Martinez
Owned and operated by the Fantastic Seven (TM)
Send your spam here: u...@ftc.gov
Email me here: pistor...@BOXaustin.rr.com
badwilson
other brands and a variety of flavours to see if you could tempt them.
--
Britta
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album
"LynC" <ii493@xxyy#ww.com> wrote in message
news:403d49ba$0$3086$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
John Biltz
(in article <403d5d69$0$3072$61fe...@news.rcn.com>):
> Thanks for replies. I have the plastic lid containers and have recently
> started to give both cats only a quarter of the canned food and they still
> don't eat it. They only lick up the gravy and then want dry food. They are
> a creature of habit and beg and claw at my legs for the canned food and then
> turn their noses up. Happens every single night.
>
> They do have fresh water and drink a lot more of it since this has been
> happening over time.
>
> I guess as they mature, they have changed eating habits as well. I dunno.
> Stumped.
Maya did the same thing. She would lick the gravy and leave the rest. I
stopped feeding it to her. She wasn't eating it so the simple truth was
the nutritional value didn't matter because, like I said she wasn't
eating it. I started off figuring if I would feed it every other day
maybe she would start eating it again. So over the next few weeks I just
kept lengthening the interval and then I stopped. Every 3 or 4 days I
treat them with some tuna. I was feeding her the canned food and leaving
out dry food so when I stopped the canned food I went to a quality dry
food. The cost of the canned food offset the new cost of the quality dry
food nicely and she loved the new food. So everyone was happy about it.
Steve Touchstone
>"Yoj" <jgay...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:tDc%b.8335$yZ1....@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>> I suspect you'll get a lot of strong opinions on this, as I did when I
>> asked a similar question. My cats aren't quite as large as yours, but
>> they are definitely healthy. Skeeter never has been very interested in
>> canned food, although she'll occasionally take a few bites. Lindy was
>> eager for it, although picky, and she changed her preferences
>> periodically. Then I ran into a similar problem. She would beg me to
>> feed her, then turn up her nose at the food.
>>
>> I finally settled it by continuing to buy her favorite flavors. I have
>> plastic lids that fit on the cans, and I divide 1/4 can between two
>> dishes every evening. Sometimes Lindy cleans out both dishes.
>> Sometimes she empties one and ignores the other. Skeeter still takes
>> the occasional bite or two. I'm throwing out a lot less food, but still
>> satisfying their desire to be given the canned food.
>>
>> Joy
>>
>Thanks for replies. I have the plastic lid containers and have recently
>started to give both cats only a quarter of the canned food and they still
>don't eat it. They only lick up the gravy and then want dry food. They are
>a creature of habit and beg and claw at my legs for the canned food and then
>turn their noses up. Happens every single night.
>
>They do have fresh water and drink a lot more of it since this has been
>happening over time.
>
>I guess as they mature, they have changed eating habits as well. I dunno.
>Stumped.
>
From my own experience, their favorite food of all time can become
disgusting garbage not worth sniffing overnight. When that happens I
push it to the back of the cupboard. A couple weeks later it becomes
their favorite again. Not that they're spoiled or anything - heaven
forbid.
There is one thing in your post, though, that my bunch does like
your's seem to be doing now. If I feed them the type in gravy they'll
lick the gravy, then move fill up on the half cup of dry that I leave
out for snacks during the day. By the time they go back for more, the
canned food is dried out from sitting out with no gravy and ends up
being thrown away. When I feed them ground up type of canned, they eat
that first leave the dried for later snacks, which is what I prefer
anyway.
--
Steve Touchstone,
faithful servant of Sammy, Little Bit and Rocky
stou...@JUNKsirinet.net [remove Junk for email]
Home Page: http://www.sirinet.net/~stouchst/index.html
Cat Pix: http://www.sirinet.net/~stouchst/animals.html
Fat Freddy
> cans, particularly the "and rice" flavors.
Ours also. They love the ProPlan "Salmon and Rice" and Chicken and
Rice".They don't care too much for the ones with liver. They eat about
half of it and pester me until I give them the Salmon or Chicken. I
wish it came in larger cans. Those little cans get expensive.
Seanette Blaylock
about feeding 2 spoiled cats:
>I feel badly if I don't give the canned food to them but again, I just throw
>it out the next morning. Is it possible to completely give up canned food
>and is that okay?
For quite a few years, Felix didn't get canned [I was under the
mistaken impression he didn't like it] and stayed quite healthy,
except for one instance of FUS about a year after we got him [I
switched his dry food and he's been fine since].
--
"The universe is quite robust in design and appears to be
doing just fine on its own, incompetent support staff notwithstanding.
:-)" - the Dennis formerly known as (evil), MCFL
Seanette Blaylock
>Thanks for replies. I have the plastic lid containers and have recently
>started to give both cats only a quarter of the canned food and they still
>don't eat it. They only lick up the gravy and then want dry food. They are
>a creature of habit and beg and claw at my legs for the canned food and then
>turn their noses up. Happens every single night.
Maybe try the type that's more mush, not chunks in gravy. Felix did
the exact same thing to the "chunks in gravy" type but eats mush-type
quite enthusiastically. [Are you sure there aren't maybe dental
problems in play?]
Seanette Blaylock
say about Re: feeding 2 spoiled cats:
>Wet food is better than dry food, but they will survive on a dry diet.
>However, you might want to try different foods, some cats get bored with
>a particular flavor or texture. Our cats go bonkers for the new Proplan
>cans, particularly the "and rice" flavors. Available at Petsmart.
OTOH, some cats throw fits about trying to change their dry food. We
tried switching Felix to a different type of the same brand, and the
little stinker went on a hunger strike! When his worried slaves caved
and bought him his usual dry diet, he was trying to climb into the bag
as soon as it was opened and gobbling it down as soon as he could
reach some.
jXwXeXr...@sonic.net
> If they are overweight and not eating something, it could be because
> they are overfed.
You know, this is a thought. Do your cats go outside? If so, I wonder
if they are getting food from someone else as well. They could be begging
for food at night because that ritual is part of their nightly habit.
But then when they get it, they're not hungry enough to eat it. Well,
that's my theory, which of course is worth nothing if they're indoor-only
cats!
Joyce
jXwXeXr...@sonic.net
Hmm... I've always avoided buying the "...and rice" flavors because
I figure that if the actual *name* of the flavor has a grain in it,
it's going to have even more grain than flavors that are just called
"beef" "chicken" or some other meat. And I've always thought that too
much non-meat food in a cat's diet wasn't nourishing enough for them.
Am I wrong about this? I'd like to try some new flavors on them so
it would be nice if the ones with rice added are actually OK to give
them.
Joyce
John Biltz
(in article <3ver30lrajimqc0rt...@4ax.com>):
> Victor Martinez <m...@nospam.com> had some very interesting things to
> say about Re: feeding 2 spoiled cats:
>
>> Wet food is better than dry food, but they will survive on a dry diet.
>> However, you might want to try different foods, some cats get bored with
>> a particular flavor or texture. Our cats go bonkers for the new Proplan
>> cans, particularly the "and rice" flavors. Available at Petsmart.
>
> OTOH, some cats throw fits about trying to change their dry food. We
> tried switching Felix to a different type of the same brand, and the
> little stinker went on a hunger strike! When his worried slaves caved
> and bought him his usual dry diet, he was trying to climb into the bag
> as soon as it was opened and gobbling it down as soon as he could
> reach some.
I was really afraid of that with Maya, I had all kinds of visions of
Maya not only refusing to eat and telling me how dare I serve her this
slop. Not all of that was fantasy either. I tried a lot of different
canned food and she could go toe to toe with some of the later French
Monarchs when it comes to haughtiness. I had no idea that cats would
actually stick their noses up in the air and sigh in disdain. I bought
Hill's Science Diet Nature's Best and she attacked the bag when I brought
it in trying to paw her way into it. That stuff must taste great to
cats. Matthew, Bruiser's little friend stops by to eat all the time and
Paul his person told me he works in a store and brings home shrimp,
chicken, fish and other things for him. The cat eats better than I do.
I did suggest to him that maybe he should have some dry food for him
because maybe he was missing some vitamins from that tasty diet.
Victor Martinez
> Am I wrong about this? I'd like to try some new flavors on them so
> it would be nice if the ones with rice added are actually OK to give
> them.
The key is to look at the first 5 ingredients listed in the label. If
most of those are meat (excluding of course the liquid that is the #1 or
2 ingredient in all canned foods), then I'm ok with it. For Proplan
chicken and rice they list: water, chicken, wheat gluten, liver, meat
by-products. Normally, I avoid by-products and any food with grains in
the top 3 ingredients, but they love it, so I gave in. We do feed them a
large can of Innova light (less phosphorous and about the same protein %
as the regular one) first and wait until they finish that before we
serve the "yummy" food. Kinda like with kids, who first have to eat
their veggies and after that they get dessert. :)
Also for dry food they get a mix of Innova, Felidae, and Science diet
oral health (large kibble that's supposed to be good for tartar
control), so we know they're getting a good nutrition.
JP Hobbs
but I still kept putting it down, different varieties, because there are
things
like viamins and minerals put into tinned food that cats need, or so I have
been given to understand, now he'll eat quite a bit of it ,he also has dry
food, and nightly gets different kinds of fresh meat, which he loves,
and a little dry food he wont drink milk, and only drinks his water out of
a beaker placed in the bath, although he has water bowls placed through
the the apartment he seems healthy enough. after all we wouldn't eat
something
we didn't want, orthat we were fed up of eating. best of British Jean. P.
LynC <ii493@xxyy#ww.com> wrote in message
news:403d49ba$0$3086$61fe...@news.rcn.com...
JP Hobbs
first started work. He told me he really LOVED peanut butter sandwiches
so I plied him with them day after day! untill one day he said, " Mum I
know I said I loved Peanut butter but I didn't mean day, after day ,after
day,"
and I thought I was doing him a favour LOL well we all make mistakes!
Jean.P.
Seanette Blaylock <seanette.spam...@impulse.net> wrote in message
news:3ver30lrajimqc0rt...@4ax.com...
Yowie
news:8be%b.1676$as....@fe2.texas.rr.com...
> LynC wrote:
> > it out the next morning. Is it possible to completely give up canned
food
> > and is that okay?
>
> Wet food is better than dry food, but they will survive on a dry diet.
> However, you might want to try different foods, some cats get bored with
> a particular flavor or texture. Our cats go bonkers for the new Proplan
> cans, particularly the "and rice" flavors. Available at Petsmart.
Shmogg goes in cycles. For about 6 months, he'll eat Whiskas canned food
quite happily for breakfast & dinner (he can free-feed on kibble at any
time). And then goes of it. He meows like I'm starving him until I get the
can out, but turns his nose up when i actually serve the tinned food.
Eventually this poor shtoopid hoomin "gets it" and goes out to buy Dine
canned food instead, and all is fine. For about 6 months. Then we go through
the same thing and eventually I"ll wake up to the fact we have to change
back to Whiskas.
No, I don't know why, I just put it down to one of those strange b*st*rd c*t
things.
Yowie
(Oh, and Shmogg must have loaf style food *only*. None of this "mince" or
"in gravy" for him, no siree)
Seanette Blaylock
things to say about Re: feeding 2 spoiled cats:
>(Oh, and Shmogg must have loaf style food *only*. None of this "mince" or
>"in gravy" for him, no siree)
By "loaf style", do you mean the mushy type? That's the only type
Felix will touch. If it has chunks in it, he'll lick everything off
said chunks and leave them in the bowl.
Yowie
> "Yowie" <yowie9644....@yahoo.com.au> had some very interesting
> things to say about Re: feeding 2 spoiled cats:
>
> >(Oh, and Shmogg must have loaf style food *only*. None of this "mince" or
> >"in gravy" for him, no siree)
>
> By "loaf style", do you mean the mushy type? That's the only type
> Felix will touch. If it has chunks in it, he'll lick everything off
> said chunks and leave them in the bowl.
Hmm, describing he texture of catfood....
By "loaf" I mean it can come out of the can whole if thats what you wanted
it to do - it holds its shape. The other two varieties we have here are "in
gravy" which has approximately 1cm cubed chunky bits in lot sauce, and
"mince" style which is smaller chunks with not so much sauce between the
chunks, but it still it won't hold its shape. Shmogg licks of the sauce so
fast, he barfs, and then won't touch up the remaining chunks, but still
meows because he's got an empty tummy. "Loaf" style is the only sort that
stays down and/or doesn't get fed to the dog. (Fluffy just looooves cat
food, whether its ben pre-digested by Shmogg or not, *sigh*)
Yowie
Steve Touchstone
Guess all mine are loaf eaters than. They love the gravy in the
others, but after they lick it all off they fill up on dry. There was
a time when Rocky acted as the garbage disposal, but the girls have
now convinced him that that just isn't how a proper cat should eat.
;-)
SUQKRT
In article <g2nt305noj9rv51n4...@4ax.com>, Seanette Blaylock
<seanette.spam...@impulse.net> wrote:
>
>
>>(Oh, and Shmogg must have loaf style food *only*. None of this "mince"
>or
>>"in gravy" for him, no siree)
>
>By "loaf style", do you mean the mushy type? That's the only type
>Felix will touch. If it has chunks in it, he'll lick everything off
>said chunks and leave them in the bowl.
In the US minced=ground, Spicey doesn't like ground, no tuna, no beef, and
loves chicken & salmon.
Suz
Macmoosette
Thank Heavens There's Only One
=^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^= =^..^=
I've learned to not sweat the petty things, and not pet the sweaty things.