My young cat getting fat already... questions?

[Tess]

We adopted two kittens in August. They are now 8 months and 10 months old. The 8 month old I think is too fat. He weighs about 11 pounds and is just huge. He snacks all day on the dry food.

(the 10 month old is just fine for weight)

Anyway, I've been reading about how bad dry foods can be for cats, all the carbs, sugar swings and so forth. We also have an elderly cat who is too heavy.

So I'm thinking of switching everyone to scheduled feeding of canned food, rather than free feed for dry, with once a day canned for treat. The trouble is, my cats won't eat very much of the canned food, and appear to prefer going hungry.

What is all your advice on how to proceed?

[Susan]

You might find the article below to be helpful. The first page discusses certain benefits of switching, but the rest of the article discusses the "how to":

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Tips%20f...%201-14-11.pdf

[shan841]

Make sure you try different brands/flavors/consistencies. I have a 6 month old kitten who was addicted to kibble and wanted nothing to do with the canned food. After a lot of trial and error, i found out that he doesn't like the pate-style foods, and he doesn't really care for wellness brand. He LOVES Avoderm, which is chunks of meat in gravy. So now, I mix the avoderm with the blue buffalo or the wellness, warm it in the microwave, and he scarfs it down right away. Also, try getting them on a schedule with the dry food first. 3 times a day if you can. Take away any uneaten food after about 20 minutes. It will be easier to get them to eat the canned if you have them on a schedule and know when they are going to be hungry. Good Luck!

[Tess]

Thanks for the tips! Much appreciated!

[Tess]

Susan, that was a terrific article. I think it has everything I need in there. Thanks again so much!

[Tess]

Shan, thaks so much for the synopsis. I think you hit the high points of the article in a very concise way.