What do you all recommend for food? I’d like to reduce the weight of male Aby, Thank You
Claire Rosenbaum: Mines on Hills Science Diet and she’s doing well. But there are a ton of good foods out there, specifically weight reducers and otherwise. The key is read the ingredients and make sure that it’s mainly/exclusively proteins (vs things that contain grains). As for getting some weight off the best way is to feed the amount that is recommended for the weight that you want him to be (so if he’s 6.5# and you want him down to 6# feed how much a 6# cat should get)
Jeffrey Marino: Thank you Claire. I use dry in the morning and mixed with wet in the evening for both my Abys. The portion is just enough to cover the bottom of a small bowl that they share, morning and evening. Seems like it’s not too much
Monica Spooner: A good estimate is approximately 1/2c dry food per cat per day, if that is all you are feeding. In this amount, my male aby is slender, my male bengal is muscular, one of my domestic short hairs lost some weight and is not maintaining an appropriate body condition, and my other mixed breed is just a wee bit chubby. Considering they all live/eat together/swap bowls, I think they are doing pretty well. I use 4health from Tractor supply; Grain Free Indoor Cat variety.
Jeanette Meech: Try raw. Hills is awful stuff IMO.Royal Canin is quite good, and Orijen and others do a high meat content dry diet but dry food is best fed in very small amounts.
Michelle Socha: My two Abys will have nothing to do with raw food. They eat a mixture of dry and wet. But the male had bad stomach problems until we put him on prescription venison and green pea. So both eat dry prescription and then wet canned food that is duck as well.
Jeanette Meech: Michelle Socha 25 years ago I had an Aby who wouldn’t eat any raw other than chicken livers, they are funny!I’ve lost 5 Abyssinians to CKD , even though they were mostly teenage, it’s made me very wary of dried food.One vet actually said to me once, I see your Abyssinians regularly but never your moggie cats who have access to rain water and mice! My cats who went out never seemed to be ill and my Burmese mix lived to 21. Food for thought.
Gaby Harvey-Jones: Jeanette Meech that is exactly why, as a vegetarian of nearly 40 years, I am determined to keep my puppy on the raw feed his breeder was giving him and, probably, move Leo and Merlin on to it, too, if I can! Just seems logical! ?
Jeffrey Marino: I hope you give them meat
Jeanette Meech: Cats are 100% carnivores.
Isabel Gallé: Yes you are right–dry food is kitty crack and does contribute to CKD obesity diabetes and more !
Isabel Gallé: Jeanette Meech You have just given proof about the awful results of dry food . I hope your future Abbys will get wet food !
Jeanette Meech: Isabel Gallé they always have had wet and dry. I know more than when I first owned cats 35 years ago though!I use a fair amount of raw now, some tins, some pouches, and a little grain free dry.Maude is my present Aby and has a passion for raw turkey mince!
Isabel Gallé: Jeanette Meech Sorry _ I tend to get preachy on the subject of dry ! I do exactly as you. I’ve had cats for 65 years !! and had to learn by experience also !!
Jeanette Meech: Isabel Gallé not at all preachy, pure good advice! My vet said to me that cats are designed to eat what they catch, we should try to replicate that in our feeding regimes!One funny incident I witnessed was my elderly Burmese snoozing in the garden, Sparrowhawk hit a bird which dropped about a metre from Otto! Otto thought thanks and ate the bird whilst the Sparrowhawk sat on a wire squawking at him.?
Isabel Gallé: Free meal from heaven for the old fellow ! Lol
Jenny Cook: Obligate carnivores, they have zero requirement for carbs and many dry foods, including Hill’s and Royal Canin, are around 50% or higher carbs.
Shannon Doane: I’ve had my two boys on Orijen and they’ve done quite well.
Cathy Sagmo Parks: Orijen has sold and now has a lawsuit pendu
Isabel Gallé: If Orijen is dry–your kitties may have done well SO FAR but have a greater chance of the above problems in the future !
Shannon Doane: Hmmmm….I’ll look into it.
Isabel Gallé: There is alot of info online about the horrors of free fed only dry !!
Tatiana Allen: My boy has only eaten RC dental…9yrs NO tater no plaque – but he is a chub so I will be switching him to the Satiety diet…
Isabel Gallé: Please make it wet food !!
Tatiana Allen: Why???
Isabel Gallé: As I mentioned above dry only especially free choose can cause kidney disease obesity diabetes and others The pet food companies coat each morsel with an enzyme whicch cats become addicted to .
Isabel Gallé: Tatiana Allen
Cathy Sagmo Parks: Jeffrey how much do you feed? My cats get 1/2 each per day (of Fromm’s)
Marta Peterson: If you are in the USA and want to feed some dry, look into Young Again Zero — online only, and they answer phone calls in person.
Jennifer McCollum: I’ve been working with a morbidly obese rescue cat. Could barely walk. It’s the same logic as people – calories in versus calories out. Get wet food, measure and track calories in food as well as treats.
Isabel Gallé: What ever you choose please feed mostly wet food. Cats fed only dry are in a constant state of mild dehydration. And also prone to obesity .
Claire Forrest Lmt: Hi Jeff, looks like you’ve received lots of helpful information about kinds and amounts of food to help him reduce his weight. Cats used to have to hunt in order to eat. Domestic cats very often do not get the exercise they need to be healthy. Vigorous play time with feather toys, laser light, or whatever he favors, twice a day for ten minutes will work wonders. If he starts panting it’s too much. Let me know how it goes.
Janet Agre: What are you feeding him now?
Jenny Cook: Wet is better, raw is best. Kibble is not species appropriate for cats and leaves them in a chronic state of dehydration. It is loaded with starches like peas, rice, beans, corn and potatoes, and starch converts directly to sugar. It is literally what holds the kibble together. Combined with leaving cats chronically dehydrated it is a key driver to the epidemic levels of feline obesity, inflammation, diabetes, urinary problems, kidney disease, allergies and cancer we see today. It is literally killing our cats. We can do better by our cats and when we know better we do better. You can read more at catinfo.org.
Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition
catinfo.org
Jenny Cook: I also recommend watching Pet Fooled on Netflix. Here are a few good short videos that are worth a watch as well. On grain free food…it talks about dog food, however this directly applies to cat food as well.https://youtu.be/zUJaiYLYDp4Jackson Galaxy on free feeding dry food…https://youtu.be/sh_PzBx1MVsRaw Diet for Dogs and Catshttps://youtu.be/G3wLTlqnMMgDr Becker’s Best and Worst Foodshttps://youtu.be/v0lFwdNm_GoSome really good stuff from Rodney Habib…https://www.facebook.com/rodneyhabib/videos/10155996998017028/https://www.facebook.com/PlanetPaws.ca/videos/1428501593891385/https://www.facebook.com/rodneyhabib/posts/10156184379177028
THE UNKNOWN SUGAR IN PET FOOD
youtube.com
Jenny Cook: ps Cats tend to lean up quickly on a raw diet and you’ll eventually even see muscles. We have a cat exercise wheel and they get a lot of play time too, which definitely helps.
Janet Agre: Exercise
Janet Agre: Exercise
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Jenny Cook: Look at that sexy bod!
Janet Agre: Jenny Cook he loves running on it
Jenny Cook: Dalila loves the wheel too.
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Janet Agre: Look at her go!
Jenny Cook: And that was the first morning after we assembled it, she loves it so much!
Sarah Leone: This what I feed Rain. He eats around 4.50-5 ounces a day and stays pretty leveled at around 9 pounds. https://facebook.com/pg/MrRainCat/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1350707811714330&ref=page_internal&mt_nav=1
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Mr Rain added 53 new photos to the album My Raw Food Diet Adventures.Like Page
22 August 2017
I am a purely raw fed Feline. No kibble, no canned. In this album, you can see how it all started in 2015, to today. Follow my raw food adventures and see how i…t all started when I was 5 months old, to today and how I am doing with it. I am quite happy to share my love of such Natural Deliciousness >^.,.^<
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Jenny Cook: Doesn’t seem like I can feed too much raw, but of course we do have limits lol. They maintain a good weight so well and have so much energy on raw.
Sarah Leone: Thankfully Rain isn’t the kind of cat to overeat his meal. He likes to take his time in a few sittings. I think the higher level of water content I have been adding helps a lot to fill him up
Jenny Cook: Wait til he starts running more on the wheel. Dalila is like a bottomless pit lol. Run, eat, run, eat, lol.
Sarah Leone: Haha. I actually look forward to seeing Rain freely running on his wheel without initiation from food or toy^^
I have 4 Abys, they all eat wet Natures Logic Turkey in the mornings – one 5.5 oz can split 4 ways. they also each get 1/2 cup of Natures Logic Turkey dry food in the evening. THey are all fed with their own bowls and in separate areas of the house but definitely get into each other’s stuff. The sorrel and fawn mails are strong, solidly built, 11.5-12 pounds each and play hard every day and go for walks on lease. The blue male is thin, svelte, 9.5 pounds and constantly on the go. He only eats what he wants. The ruddy female is 12.5 pounds with some extra. I purposely researched a diet that would eliminate any potential of peritonitis or kidney issues. Science diet, Royal Canin and Lotus did not work for them. They started on Royal Canin at the breeder, then I moved them to Innovo EVO until that company tanked. This food is awesome – made in Kansas and I’m impressed as is my Vet.