Chubby kitten!

[Cam]

So we took Bertie to the vet yesterday for his 2nd FIV shot, and the vet says he's 'borderline overweight'. He's 16 weeks old and 2.4kg.

We feed him 1/3can of wet food twice a day plus he has dry food in a dispenser (which he hasn't figured out how to dispense yet, so basically a bowl of dry food). We both start work at 7.30am so he gets breakfast at around 6am, then dinner around 4pm when I get home. So I thought we had a good thing going leaving him the dry to nibble on through the day. Both bowls are usually licked clean by the time I get home.

But we don't want him to be the neighbourhood fat kid, so how much should we be feeding him?! I thought he was just supposed to be growing! I don't want him to starve during the day either, any suggestions about that?

Cheers!

[CatsPride]

I hope you realize that now because he has FIV shots if he was ever picked up as a stray there would be no way of telling if he actually has real FIV or not. because of this he'd probably get put down. Furthermore there's no way of telling if he does gets FIV if he has a vaccine induced positive or the real thing its only 80% effective at preventing it. FIV vaccince use is controversal. Keeping cats apart with unknown FIV status is the best way to prevent.


Feeding dry is the reason he is chubby.

[def kitty]

There are automatic feeders for wet food, they open at a certain time and have an ice pack beneath the food so it don't go bad in heat. I am mentioning this because it's easy for cats to "overdose" on dry food, because of the low moisture content they need to eat more calories to get the same feeling of fullness they would normally get with an amount of wet food that is much lower in calories. Another reason could be boredom, the kitten seems to be alone most of the day (and I assume, the night - you can't be up playing with him when you work all day!) so he has nothing left to do but to nibble on his kibble. I strongly recommend getting him a playmate!

[Cam]

FIV is far more common in NZ and Australia than the rest of the world, and he's an indoor/outdoor cat so we can't prevent him meeting other cats. I would hope if he was picked up as a stray someone would check his microchip before putting him down!

He is alone most of the day but we play with him and give him cuddles all evening. He does go out to play on his own though, sometimes he's still out when I get home. We leave loads of toys and exciting stuff out for him too, like cardboard boxes, rattling balls and dangling things. So we are trying to ease the boredom. Can't afford a playmate though - we might have to move back to the UK in a year, and while we will definitely be bringing Bertie with us we can't afford transport for 2 cats!

I've heard of those timer things - will look into getting one. For now I've ditched the dry dispenser and am just putting 1 bowl of dry per day, as well as the 2 serves of wet.

[MowMow]

I don't think he's just going to get randomly 'put down' if he's caught as a stray because he *MIGHT* have FIV..........

They'll scan his chip just like they would any other cat and call the owner........

It sounds like he's got a lovely home WIth lots of toys and fun things to keep him occupied.

Canned food really is best though and taking away the dry will bring his weight down to where it should be.

[CatsPride]

Agree about the canned.


Our vet doesn't reccomend FIV shots for that reason though. cats should be indoors only so they don't kill things, get diseases get ran over/ect.