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Meal-fed cats do just fine (ie, a meal at 6am and a meal at 6pm with nothing in between). If they are now free-fed, it will take some adjustment, but they will be fine. If one cat is an acceptable weight and one needs to lose a bit, meal feeding is really the best way to accomplish that weight loss. Crooked Booty, I'm not Topoisomerase (obviously), but I will agree that simply substituting good foods based on calories is perfectly fine. Nutrient amounts in pet food are actually formulated to be on a per-calorie basis, so that if your cat gets the right number of calories, they get enough essential nutrients. As long as both foods meet or exceed AAFCO standards it's all good.
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| # ¿ Mar 8, 2011 15:20 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 03:34 |
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It seems like a lot of the good food have calorie info on the label, though I definitely haven't looked at all of them. It is also sometimes available on product websites. If that doesn't work, it's not perfect, but you can compare the recommended feeding amounts to get an idea of how two foods relate calorie-wise.
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| # ¿ Mar 8, 2011 18:02 |
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That's why my first choice would be to track down the actual calorie content, if available. Even if it's not on the label or website, calling the company can get you good results. Any decent food company should be willing to give that information to a customer. The math isn't that hard to do, so that's an option. Crooked Booty, would it be possible to put the formula for calculating calories in the FAQ somewhere, for people who might be inclined to calculate calories themselves? The formula I use is (protein %)*3.5 + (carb %)*3.5 + (fat %)*8.5 = kcal (or Calories) per 100g of food Of course, for that to be useful one has to have a gram scale to figure out how many grams are in a cup or other measurement they might actually use. As for over-feeding concerns, I get around that by frequently recommending that people weigh their pet regularly at home. In the case of a food switch it is then pretty easy to keep an eye on things and adjust accordingly. For a cat, that's as easy as acquiring a pet or baby scale and plopping the cat on it once a month (more frequently if people are trying for weight loss or gain). I have a spreadsheet for my cats. It's a great idea to do this for any pet, because weight gain or loss trends are hard for owners to notice until it's gone pretty far in one direction or the other.
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| # ¿ Mar 8, 2011 18:50 |
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Yeah, there is some variability based on the total digestibility of the food, so that formula does tend to underestimate for highly digestible foods and overestimate on the other end of the spectrum. It shouldn't be too radically different though. It probably is too complicated to be worthwhile. Also, I was told by someone from the Morris Animal Foundation (meaning I haven't looked this up myself) that calorie numbers given on the bag are generally from an actual measurement done with a real animal, as opposed to a calculation. So, if the company has that info, that would of course be best. Maybe it all boils down to estimating as best you can based on the info available, while closely monitoring your pet's body condition and/or weight when adjusting either amount or type of food?
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| # ¿ Mar 8, 2011 21:40 |
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Superconsndar posted:New nutrition thread is awesome, the old OP made me nerd rage so hard. So glad this was finally done. I like this idea, if it includes links to the various companies that are run by nutritionists who will formulate a diet for your healthy animal. I know some people will want to skip that step and use generic recipes or techniques available online, but I think it is important to make people aware that this option exists, and is a good resource for people wanting to make sure they don't screw up, especially if they are new to home-prepared diets. http://www.balanceit.com and petdiets.com are the two I am aware of, and both were recommended by my nutrition professor (who is also a veterinary nutritionist). Crooked Booty, the other place you may be having trouble with that formula is that it uses the percentages from the guaranteed analysis, not the dry matter numbers. So the end result is per 100g of food as fed, not dry matter. You're right, though, that it assumes the minimums and maximums are actual values.
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| # ¿ Mar 9, 2011 01:13 |
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That website says a lot of crazy things. What it all boils down to, regarding fat an preservatives, is that you need preservatives or the fat will go rancid. The choices for preservatives are mixed tocopherols (Vitamin E, essentially) or synthetic preservatives like ethoxyquin. Tocopherols are arguably less effective in terms of their ability to extend shelf life, but there isn't much debate that they are safe for consumption. Ethoxyquin, BHA, etc are very effective and possibly longer-lasting in their preservation properties, but there is debate over their safety. Pick which one you feel better about.
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| # ¿ Mar 11, 2011 04:32 |
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If he's eating dry food now, just switching to canned would be a significant increase in water intake. As for bottled water having fewer minerals, it is unlikely that the mineral content of your tap water is causing bladder issues, but if mineral content of his diet is a problem the vet will likely recommend a prescription food that is reduced in certain problem minerals. Edit: also, it's fine for all the animals to be drinking from the same bowl as long as it never runs dry.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2011 16:58 |
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Truly, I would recommend getting a second opinion before switching foods. Sudden, significant weight loss like that should be worked up more thoroughly before trying to fix it via diet.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2011 21:17 |
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Age is something to consider, but if you are aware of the risks of the procedure and you want to proceed, your vet should have a pretty good reason to refuse. If they can't give one, then yes, a second opinion is a good idea.
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| # ¿ Mar 15, 2011 22:15 |
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Mr. Beefhead posted:A few questions regarding cats and their food: A good starting point for weight loss is 80% of the calories currently being fed. You can post what food you are feeding and how much per day if you need help figuring that out.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2011 23:02 |
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Mr. Beefhead posted:
There's a fair amount of water in canned food, so it isn't surprising that he would drink less or even none when eating an entirely canned diet. As long as he doesn't have a history of urinary issues he's probably fine. For comparison, my two cats eat all canned food and I almost never see them drinking water. Now that you have a scale, I would weigh him weekly to keep track of weight loss. You may even want to weight him a couple times before decreasing his food now, just to see if the food switch is doing anything one way or another before you fiddle with amounts.
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| # ¿ Mar 16, 2011 23:56 |
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If they're starting to get porky then it's probably fine to start restricting access to food now. They shouldn't be growing much past eight months. Are they on kitten food or adult food? I had always heard the rule of "feed until adult size" or specific time frames, like 8 months, 1 year, etc. But, in nutrition class last quarter, we were told it's fine to switch cats to adult food one month post-neuter, because they tend to get obese on kitten food pretty easily once they are neutered. That time frame is actually a lot earlier than most people would think in some cases!
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| # ¿ Mar 17, 2011 16:51 |
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Unfortunately this is a pretty common pet food myth. There are a couple prescription kibble diets that are specifically designed to control plaque and calculus accumulation, through few different mechanisms (both mechanical cleaning of the teeth and chemical). The two I am familiar with are Hill's T/D and Royal Canin's DD. Other than those, there isn't any dental benefit to feeding kibble over wet food.
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| # ¿ Mar 23, 2011 04:17 |
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LunacySystem posted:It's mostly BS. Dry food keeps the teeth a bit cleaner then wet, but it doesn't actually clean the teeth. At least other than prescription food and even then I don't know if it's the food or if it's people prescribed it just are told to brush their teeth more and that ends up what makes it better (I'm not an expert on that though). Brushing her teeth is pretty much the only way to keep them clean. The prescription foods actually can help, but they are not as good as brushing, as you said. There are some other "dental" diets and products that are not prescription, that can also help. If you are interested, the Veterinary Oral Health Council (http://www.vohc.org/) has a "seal of approval" that you can look for on diets or products claiming to have an oral health benefit. The VOHC does not test the products themselves, but does provide guidelines for how the product testing should be done and how much of a reduction in plaque or calculus should be achieved. For reference, here's a bit about some of the different diets available: Hill's t/d: In dogs, shown to reduce plaque by 19% and calculus (tartar) by 32%; in cats, plaque and calculus were reduced by 42% and 47% respectively. Teeth are scrubbed when the kibbles are eaten. The food is also lower in protein, calcium and phosphorus and higher in fiber. Science Diet Oral Care: available OTC, not quite as effective as t/d Friskies Dental Diet: OTC, cats only, about as effective as t/d for cats. Royal Canin Vet Diet DD: Mechanism is similar to t/d (mostly mechanical) with some added chemical mechanisms to prevent calculus build-up by sequestering calcium Purina Vet Diets DH: Also mostly mechanical action Bottom line is that there are a lot of diet options out there, but the best plaque and calculus reduction will be from brushing the teeth daily. If that is not an option, and dental disease is a concern, one of the dental diets (or chews, there are a lot of those too) may be beneficial. Most of them will not meet the ingredient/nutrient profile standards put forth in this thread, but may be appropriate for certain individuals/disease states regardless of dental health (like the higher fiber/lower mineral/lower protein of Hill's t/d). Or, if the risk or consequences of dental disease is high enough and regular tooth-brushing is not feasible, then a less-than-ideal ingredient profile may be a worthwhile trade-off for dental health. As always, this would be a fantastic discussion to have with your vet.
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| # ¿ Mar 23, 2011 15:44 |
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Yeah, really in this case it sounds like the most important thing, above all else, is preventing further stone/crystal formation. Whichever one the nutrition people think will accomplish that best, go with that and don't even worry about the ingredients for now.
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| # ¿ Mar 24, 2011 21:05 |
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This is the ceapest one I found on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Scale-Quality...01457686&sr=8-2 I can't find the model I have, or remember where I got it, but the price was in that ballpark. And, for the convenience of being able to weigh my fat cats weekly, at home, it was definitely worth it.
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| # ¿ Mar 30, 2011 04:03 |
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The opinion of my nutrition professor was that nothing would change in terms of formulas for at least a year or two, if ever. She thought the main change in the various lines would be increased availability, since Natura foods were not sold in very many stores. This professor didn't actually work for Natura or Procter, so this was all her speculation based on previous similar occurrences.
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| # ¿ Mar 31, 2011 03:46 |
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Just a note, to be able to interpret Protein and Fat percentages, especailly in relation to other foods, you have to know the moisture content as well.
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| # ¿ Apr 7, 2011 14:09 |
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Yes, if your dog ever develops or is suspected to have an adverse reaction to food, it may be difficult to find a novel protein diet to switch to if you've fed most of the protein sources commercially available. If they handle the switching well otherwise that's the only problem I would potentially worry about, and in the event of a reaction requiring a special diet, there are still options, like home-cooked diets that use very weird meats. So, there is the potential for hassle later, but it's not a huge risk, and you may be ok with that. I will say that I think it's silly to ditch EVO simply because it was bought by P&G, unless they've changed the ingredients in a way you don't like. Unless, of course, you go out of your way not to support "large corporations", but in today's world that's awfully hard to do.
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| # ¿ Apr 17, 2011 21:14 |
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hhgtrillian posted:I just saw that Innova is going to be sold at Petsmart starting in June. That's kind of cool. Innova is a great food, so I hope being bought by P&G makes it possible for the foods to be distributed to a wider market.
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| # ¿ Apr 19, 2011 00:42 |
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Purina One Urinary Tract Health is nutritionally adequate for maintenance of adult cats, according to AAFCO feeding trials. It has more corn than meat, but you (or your vet) may not care about the ingredients as much as the nutritional adequacy. Is it being recommended for a specific reason, ie, urinary tract issues? If so, Purina's website recommend feeding only that, since it has less of certain minerals on purpose and mixing with another food might change that.
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2011 04:04 |
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Fremry posted:
As far as I know there is only one vet who posts on here these days, and he seems unlikely to contradict anything your vet said about your animal when he can't evaluate the pet himself. Other than that, you have vet students (14 more months for me!) and people who have done a lot of reading about animal nutrition. That itself is a field with a lot of debate, so if you don't want to trust opinions on the internet (which is a perfectly reasonable option), go with what your vet recommends.
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| # ¿ Apr 20, 2011 15:41 |
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For weight-loss in cats the recommendation I've been taught is to feed 80% of what is currently being fed, and to monitor weight often (weekly or every two weeks) so you can aim for 1-2% weight lost per week. Wellness is pretty calorie-dense, so to get your guy to lose weight you'll need to do three things: 1) figure out how many calories are in the amount you are feeding currently 2) multiply by 0.8 to get 80% of his current caloric intake 3) figure out how much Wellness has that amount of calories As for ideal weight, you say your cat is overweight, but not obese. Are you using a Body Condition Score? To me, that description puts him at about a 6 or 7 out of 9, where 4-5 is optimal. Each increase in number is equal to 10-15% change in weight. So, a cat that is a 6/9 is 10-15% heavier than he should be. A 17 pound cat sounds more like a 7/9, which is 20-30% overweight, but you may be correct that he's a very large cat.
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| # ¿ Apr 21, 2011 13:56 |
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At over 20lbs, it could easily take a year or more for her to get all the way to normal. Get a pet or baby scale and weigh her weekly, aiming for 1% weight loss per week--right now that's just over 3 ounces, or 0.2 pounds.
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| # ¿ May 3, 2011 15:20 |
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A smaller scale is likely to be more accurate, but weighing is better than not weighing! As for how much, I would weigh her for a couple weeks at the current amount to see if she is gaining, maintaining, or losing. If she isn't losing, cut back the food by 20% for a week and see what happens. Sometimes you have to cut back the food by a lot, because some cats just get lazier when you feed them less. Acana looks like a decently calorie-dense food, so you may end up with a very small amount of food at some point. If this is a problem in terms of the cat being a pest because she's not full, you can look into diet foods (the prescription ones are the lowest calories per volume). Weight-loss foods are also good because they have more nutrient density per calorie, so you can feed even less without inducing nutrient deficiency.
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| # ¿ May 3, 2011 16:26 |
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I would argue that cleaning the outside of the ears would be ok, but to stay away from the canal. My dermatology professor claims that a lot of ear infections are due to improper ear care, which includes owners unknowingly pushing earwax into the canal and blocking it, allowing nasty stuff to grow on the other side
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| # ¿ May 3, 2011 18:18 |
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I have never heard that cats CAN'T process soy protein, if that helps. The protein measurement on the label should include protein from all sources, animal and plant. Edit: regarding grains, they don't have any real benefit over other carbohydrates (say, potatoes). Any carbs are there to provide calories more cheaply than protein and less densely than fat. Whether or not you care about the percentage of carbs or the type of carbs is up to you. My nutrition professor recently gave a lecture that convinced me carbohydrates are not bad for cats, so that's what I'm going with at the moment. You can find lots of argument for both sides. Dr. Chaco fucked around with this message at May 6, 2011 around 04:21 |
| # ¿ May 6, 2011 00:41 |
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Any amount of obesity is bad. From your estimation, your cat is 14% overweight, which isn't terrible, but if you can get him to lose a pound or two, it will be better for him in the long run.
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| # ¿ May 6, 2011 04:18 |
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For people with picky cats that don't like pate-style food, have you tried breaking it up into chunks? I'm curious whether or not that would fool them--on the one hand, it seems like that would change the texture enough that they might eat it, but on the other hand it's so simple I have to imagine people have tried it and found it didn't work.
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| # ¿ May 6, 2011 17:48 |
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Most 15lb cats I see are obese. The largest, most well-muscled un-neutered tomcat I've seen was 14.5lbs. Some breeds, like Maine Coons, can be larger, but your run-of-the-mill domestic cat should be around 10 lbs most likely.
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| # ¿ May 10, 2011 00:39 |
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How large of a breed are we talking? In general, large breed puppy foods are restricted in calories and have less calcium and phosphorus, or a lower calcium:phosphorus ratio. These factors are thought to help reduce the incidence of orthopedic disease in growing, large breed puppies. The Taste of the Wild calcium levels and calcium:phosphorus ratio are higher than recommended, and the energy density is decently high as well, so your vet may recommend a large breed puppy food instead.
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| # ¿ May 11, 2011 16:19 |
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The large breed puppy foods are more designed to control growth rate, not total weight or body condition. Feeding to a "lean" body condition is a good idea anyway, to prevent obesity-related orthopedic problems, but I'm not sure if that approach is thought to affect developmental problems as well (such as osteochondrosis, panosteitis). Best to ask your vet what their approach to large breed puppies is.
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| # ¿ May 11, 2011 16:41 |
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Does she ever vomit afterward? If not, I would only really be worried about toxins on the grass if she eats other people's lawns, and foxtails if she eats long grass that's gone to seed. Other than that, some dogs just seem to think grass is delicious.
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| # ¿ May 12, 2011 14:49 |
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The studies I've seen are all comparing dental diets to regular diets, all kibble, not comparing wet and dry. In those studies the ones designed to reduce plaque and calculus do a better job than regular kibble. Another thing to consider when trying to figure out if kibble will help clean their teeth--some cats hardly chew. they Mine gulp whole kibbles if they aren't the huge T/D ones. With regular food, whether you feed wet or dry, though, you'll still need to be doing regular brushing or other dental maintenance (chews, treats) if you want to prevent dental disease, because plaque will build up either way. The benefits of dry are mostly convenience--you can leave it out, the cat can eat 20 times per day if it wants to (and many want to snack through the day), the cat hopefully won't wake you at 5:30am to fill the bowl. The benefits of wet are that it increase water intake, which can be important in managing certain diseases, though I don't think it's been shown to be preventative necessarily, you can more easily monitor appetite, and if you're a fan of higher protein foods wet foods will more commonly meet that criteria. Personally I feed wet because one of the cats needs it for medical reasons and both were obese at one point so they need meal-feeding anyway. I also brush their teeth regularly, and am having to train one of them not to howl for food at 5:30am.
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| # ¿ May 15, 2011 05:02 |
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Personally, I would find a food that did not require fiber supplementation to keep my cat's feces a normal consistency. However, it may be related to the food if you've only had him a couple weeks, and could very well improve over the next couple weeks. As for switching, if you're feeding an AAFCO approved food, there's no reason to think it might be deficient in anything and that rotating would be beneficial. It won't hurt though, and if you want to be sure to have an option for a novel protein in the event that one becomes medically necessary, you can always steer clear of the weirder ones. Fish flavors, chicken, turkey, beef, pork, and lamb are all pretty common, so the limited ingredient diets don't have those and you could get a pretty good variety of flavors switching among those. What I would avoid if you do want to rotate protein sources are rabbit, duck, and venison, which are available in some premium foods such as EVO, but are also the main proteins used in limited ingredient and novel protein diets.
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| # ¿ May 16, 2011 01:39 |
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For non-prescription options for urinary health, the easiest factor to control will be the concentration of the urine, since non-prescription foods are generally not formulated for limited minerals or specific pH the way a urinary health food will be. You can feed wet food, dry food "soup" if they'll eat it, and encourage drinking in other ways. If there is a specific problem the food is supposed to be treating, like prevention of urinary stones, then prescription food is your best bet.
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| # ¿ May 18, 2011 17:48 |
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Nope. If the cat is not thought to be at risk for forming stones, there's little reason to keep them on the prescription stone-preventing food forever. Blockages can be from other things besides stones, so maybe this cat was deemed to have blocked from something else.
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| # ¿ May 18, 2011 22:49 |
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Actually, crystals are microscopic mineralizations seen on a microscope exam of urine sediment. Stones (calculi) are larger. Crystals in the urine is sometimes indicative that stones are present, as they are the same minerals, and sometimes they are simply evidence of very concentrated urine. Crystals can be present in normal, healthy animals, whereas stones are generally a problem.
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| # ¿ May 19, 2011 02:33 |
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Serella posted:In any case, I guess I learned something new. I thought once a cat had crystal problems leading to blockage, it would continue to potentially be an issue for the rest of their lives. I wrote a post a bit a go that compiled some of the more recent research on feline urethral blockage in this post, if you're interested: http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...=#post391034030 It's an evolving area of veterinary medicine at the moment, and I believe the theories and recommendations have changed even over the last couple of years. As with any new ideas, there's still a lot of debate about it and every practitioner will have their own experiences to consider as well.
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| # ¿ May 19, 2011 03:29 |
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| # ¿ May 19, 2013 03:34 |
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I'd wait it out a little more--he's probably still adjusting to his new home, and if he's stealing food he's not starving, so you have a little time to wait for him to settle.
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| # ¿ May 20, 2011 15:53 |
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