How Much to Feed Cat?

I usually give Mico one half of a tuna sized can of food a day. Lately he's
been eating it all, and then wanting more. Mico is almost one and a half
years old, and is Siamese. I don't want him to become obese. Due to hunger
he's taken to ugly habits like licking the floor when there's no more food
left. Ugh. Should I feed him more? What is 'normal' for a cat like him?


Thanks in advance,

- Ruby Tuesday

"Ruby Tuesday" wrote in message
...
I usually give Mico one half of a tuna sized can of food a day. Lately
he's
been eating it all, and then wanting more. Mico is almost one and a half
years old, and is Siamese. I don't want him to become obese. Due to
hunger
he's taken to ugly habits like licking the floor when there's no more food
left. Ugh. Should I feed him more? What is 'normal' for a cat like him?

When mine were on tinned food they used to get a tin each a day & were still
hungry. I've been feeding scienceplan dried food for the last 10 or so years
and just leave a bowl out for them to help themselves.

Initially they binged because I assume they were used to eating food while
it was there when I fed them twice a day but quickly they realised that
there would always be food when they were peckish and just nibbled all
through the day. Unlike dogs, cats are able to excercise self control and
not eat everything within their line of sight and therefore shoud not really
get obese.

Of course there are rare exceptions but it also depends on what they are
fed, high fat human food might taste nice and be cute to feed them but is
basically bad for them. If you feed a good quality dried food and leave it
available all the time your cat shoud not need to binge and will eat to
suit.

--

I.P.Freely

On 2004-11-22, I.P.Freely penned:
"Ruby Tuesday" wrote in message
...
I usually give Mico one half of a tuna sized can of food a day. Lately
he's
been eating it all, and then wanting more. Mico is almost one and a half
years old, and is Siamese. I don't want him to become obese. Due to
hunger
he's taken to ugly habits like licking the floor when there's no more food
left. Ugh. Should I feed him more? What is 'normal' for a cat like him?

When mine were on tinned food they used to get a tin each a day & were still
hungry. I've been feeding scienceplan dried food for the last 10 or so years
and just leave a bowl out for them to help themselves.

Initially they binged because I assume they were used to eating food while
it was there when I fed them twice a day but quickly they realised that
there would always be food when they were peckish and just nibbled all
through the day. Unlike dogs, cats are able to excercise self control and
not eat everything within their line of sight and therefore shoud not really
get obese.

Hey now, watch the gross generalizations! My dog "grazed" for his entire
life. The bowl of food was always there for him, but he tended to only eat
when we were eating. It probably helped that he had no other dogs to contend
with for food.

Anyway, I also leave dry food out for my cat. I think most animals can handle
this sort of approach, especially if they become accustomed to it while young.
I use Nutro Natural Choice, as an aside, because it seems to produce the least
noxious litterbox offerings.

Of course there are rare exceptions but it also depends on what they are
fed, high fat human food might taste nice and be cute to feed them but is
basically bad for them. If you feed a good quality dried food and leave it
available all the time your cat shoud not need to binge and will eat to
suit.


--
monique

In article ,
enlightened us with...

Initially they binged because I assume they were used to eating food while
it was there when I fed them twice a day but quickly they realised that
there would always be food when they were peckish and just nibbled all
through the day. Unlike dogs, cats are able to excercise self control and
not eat everything within their line of sight and therefore shoud not really
get obese.


Many cats cannot be free-fed and will overeat, especially cats that are
indoors all day. They eat out of boredom, just like many people. America's
pets have an obesity problem much like their humans these days - cats
included. Indoor-only cats have a much higher obesity problem when free-fed
than indoor/outdoor, at least from what I've seen and read. I have yet to
have a free-fed indoor-only cat that *wasn't* at least chubby. The barn cats,
however, are free-fed and quite trim.

Many dogs can be free-fed and NOT be obese. I've had some that could be and
some that had to be portioned. Some breeds are notorious for having to be
portioned, such as labs and beagels. My GSD was free-fed, yet slightly
underweight, her whole life. Dogs with a high food drive cannot be free-fed.

If you feed a good quality dried food and leave it
available all the time your cat shoud not need to binge and will eat to
suit.


They don't just eat when they're hungry. Neither do most humans.
And cats can have very low thirst drives. Eating nothing but dry food is a
known risk factor in having kidney problems later in life because of chronic
dehydration. Some cats will drink plenty to make up for the lack of water in
their food. Others will not. If a cat doesn't drink enough, their urine gets
too concentrated and they can develop stones, infections, and be constipated.
So if you choose to free-feed, be aware of how much your cat drinks. If it
isn't enough, you NEED to add wet. A cat's natural diet consists of all the
water they need, so in the wild, they wouldn't need to drink at all.

If I had known this earlier in my life, I really think I wouldn't have lost
the cats I lost at early ages due to bladder and kidney problems. We always
free-fed dry, too.
I now feed a combo of portioned dry in the morning and wet at night. (If
they'd eat decent quality wet food, I'd only feed them that.)

--
--
~kaeli~
Never mess up an apology with an excuse.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

On 2004-11-22, kaeli penned:

They don't just eat when they're hungry. Neither do most humans.

I still haven't figured out how Oscar is more than skin and bones, since she
seems to eat one kibble at a time. She never parks herself at the bowl and
just eats. Maybe she read somewhere that many small meals are better than 2-3
large ones? Still, one kibble at a time ... it's just weird. She seems to
drink more often than she eats.

Of course, she deals with tuna entirely differently!

And cats can have very low thirst drives. Eating nothing but dry food
is a known risk factor in having kidney problems later in life because
of chronic dehydration. Some cats will drink plenty to make up for the
lack of water in their food. Others will not. If a cat doesn't drink
enough, their urine gets too concentrated and they can develop stones,
infections, and be constipated. So if you choose to free-feed, be
aware of how much your cat drinks. If it isn't enough, you NEED to add
wet. A cat's natural diet consists of all the water they need, so in
the wild, they wouldn't need to drink at all.

If I had known this earlier in my life, I really think I wouldn't have
lost the cats I lost at early ages due to bladder and kidney problems.
We always free-fed dry, too. I now feed a combo of portioned dry in
the morning and wet at night. (If they'd eat decent quality wet food,
I'd only feed them that.)

I didn't know this. As with human care, it seems that good advice for one
goal conflicts with good advice for another goal. Isn't constant wet food bad
for their teeth?

(Oscar eats entirely dry food except for a small portion of the can when
I'm having tuna, and her breath is daisy-fresh! Well, maybe not daisy,
but it's not smelly at all.)

--
monique

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...

I didn't know this. As with human care, it seems that good advice for one
goal conflicts with good advice for another goal. Isn't constant wet food
bad
for their teeth?

I don't know about that, but I *do* know that dry food is bad for them
period, according to this article:
http://www.catsincanada.com/articles/feeding.html

- Ruby Tuesday

On 2004-11-22, Ruby Tuesday penned:

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...

I didn't know this. As with human care, it seems that good advice for one
goal conflicts with good advice for another goal. Isn't constant wet food
bad
for their teeth?

I don't know about that, but I *do* know that dry food is bad for them
period, according to this article:
http://www.catsincanada.com/articles/feeding.html

- Ruby Tuesday

Interesting. It makes some intuitive sense, but I'm reluctant to believe
anything I see based on only one opinion (not that sheer volume of opinion
guarantees accuracy, either!).

I'm trying to find more such opinions online, without much luck. Can't seem
to find the right search criteria.

Oscar is also getting some shots in a week; I can ask our vet what she thinks
then. (Not that vets and doctors can't be wrong! We talked to a doctor while
Eric was in the hospital who had "never heard of" cat saliva being involved in
cat allergies, and gave us that condescending "I'll humor your silly layman's
ideas" look that I really, really hate.)

--
monique

"Ruby Tuesday" wrote in message ...
"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
...

I don't know about that, but I *do* know that dry food is bad for them
period, according to this article:
http://www.catsincanada.com/articles/feeding.html

- Ruby Tuesday

Dry food is not "bad" for cats - such a claim is utter nonsense
and totally unsupported anywhere in the literature. Neither are canned
foods "bad" for cats either. Current hysterical carbo-phobic claims
not withstanding. Every one of the individuals currently pushing
carbo-phobia in pet foods have consistently failed to answer the
biggest question of all. Feeding canned foods, particularly some of
the ones currently on the market, _vastly_ increases the intake of
calcium and phosphorus. Take Pro Plan Adult Ocean Fish & Crab Entree
for an example. Here's a zero carbohydrate food - perfect for the
carbo-phobics. What happens when you take away energy provided by
carbohydrates and substitute energy provided by fats and proteins? In
almost every case the levels of various minerals _greatly_ increase.
The Pro Plan product is typical example. Calcium at a whopping 2.72%,
phosphorus at a whopping 2.07% DMB. Way in excess of what even a
grwoing kittens needs, much less an adult.

The carbo-phobics consistently ignore the number two killer of cats
in this country - renal failure. Nobody can determine which cat will
die from this disease. Nobody has a crystal ball capable of
determining which kitty will be the next victim. Unfortunately we
cannot tell if a cat has renal failure until 70+% of the kidney is
destroyed and the cat is on a uninterruptable spiral to death. Feeding
a diet with phos levels as high as the majority of the carbo-phobics
preferred diets, to a cat with undetected sub clinical renal failure
would unquestionably speed that cat toward death. What would happen to
the cat population which contains literally thousands upon thousands
of cats with currently undetected sub clinical renal failure, if we
suddenly dumped all these cats on the carbo-phobics diet plan?

This is the hard question that the carbo-phobics never want to
answer. If the current crop of hyperbolic carbo-phobics at least had
the common sense to caution prospective cat owners of the dangers
involved it would be one thing. If that had the common sense to at
least caution pet owners with older cats to check phos levels in a
diet it would be one thing. But instead they launch off on a
hyperbolic fantasy trip and alledge, without any proof whatsoever,
that every disease known to cats is the result of feeding a
carbohydrate based diet. An allegation for which they have zero
clinical trials or peer reviewed published data to support.

The website you quoted is typical example of carbo-phobia hysterics.
Below are a few errors from the website.


"Cats have a physiological decrease in the ability to utilize
carbohydrates due to the lack of specific enzymatic pathways that are
present in other mammals, and the lack a salivary enzyme called
amylase."

Nonsense – cats can and do utilize carbohydrates quite well. Cows lack
salivary amylase as well – following this nonsensical logic cows must
also eat a meat diet. While not recommended, cats can and do survive
quite well on a pure vegetarian diet. UC Davis currently has a colony
of cats that have survived quite well for generations on a corn gluten
based diet without any meat of any kind for many years.

"Diabetes:
"Diabetes is a very serious - and difficult to manage - disease that
is very common in cats. Why is it so common? The species-inappropriate
high level of carbohydrates in dry food wreaks havoc on the blood
sugar level of an obligate carnivore. The blood sugar level rises
significantly upon ingestion of dry food. With chronic hyperglycemia
(high blood sugar) the insulin producing cells in the pancreas
down-regulate, or "burn out," leading to diabetes."

Again nonsense. Cats that already have diabetes may be better served
with a low carb diet, or even a high fiber diet. There are lots of
peer reviewed published data to support either method. To make the
fantasy jump in logic that dry foods _cause_ diabetes is just plain
nonsense. Using this same logic - cats with renal failure must eat a
low phosphorus food, therefore high phosphorus _causes_ renal failure.
The proof of this logical fault is as follows: "My father ate green
peas as a child, he died of colon cancer at age 34, therefore green
peas cause colon caner" While the first two parts of the argument are
true, they in no way make the last part of the statement true.



About time for the legalese I suppose:
While I have been an employee of Hill's Pet Nutrition for over 20
years, any comment I make here is my opinion and my opinion alone and
should in no way be construed as representative of the company I work
for. It is my opinion and my opinion alone.

From: "Ruby Tuesday"
Date: 11/22/04 2:15 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote in message
. ..

I didn't know this. As with human care, it seems that good advice for one
goal conflicts with good advice for another goal. Isn't constant wet food
bad
for their teeth?

I don't know about that, but I *do* know that dry food is bad for them
period, according to this article:
http://www.catsincanada.com/articles/feeding.html

Dry cat food is not "bad" per se. There is a certain segment of the population
that is fanatical in their beliefs. Since most cats in the US are fed dry,
wouldn't "most" cats in the US be sick?

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

I didn't know this. As with human care, it seems that good advice for one
goal conflicts with good advice for another goal. Isn't constant wet food bad
for their teeth?

It used to be believed that dry food was better for their teeth (not
that canned was bad for teeth), but that opinion didn't consider the
fact that most cats either gobble dry without chewing, or chew it
very little. Meanwhile, if they do chew, it's grain-based dry foods
that tend to leave a starchy coating on teeth to cause plaque,
while a low-carb canned leaves less debris in the mouth.

--
jamie )

"There's a seeker born every minute."