the gannets!!

[Gemma]

Was wondering if anyone could give me some advice for feeding the gannets!!!
We've recently adopted 2 beautiful rescue cats maddie and Sam (I'll try to add a photo but not very good with the photo bucket thing)
Maddie is 6 months old and Sam 18 months they've both been fed on kitten food until coming to us but the adoption league said they would be fine on adult food now. They absolutely love their food and if they had their way would be fed so many times a day!! We started on just dry biscuits - daily amount divided into 3 meal times - bit they are so hungry and are eating double the amount recommended on the bag (purina) so started adding some wet food to cut the biscuits down but they still seem so hungry!!I don't want to over feed them and they get in the habit of eating so much - not sure what to do?

[meriad]

Gemma, when was the last time they were wormed? It could be something as simple as that.

But definitely don't overfeed them (much) more than what they should be getting as overweight cats (same as people really) tend to have all sorts of other health issues. I would suspect that they probably aren't used to having this much food available to them so are making the most of it

What are you feeding them? If you can try and find a wet food that has a fairly high meat content (Lily's kitchen, Butchers Classic Tins) and feed them that with less of the biscuits. The biscuits tend to have a fairly high cereal content which will bulk up to start but not keep full for long. Again with the biscuits see if you can find something that has as high a meat content as possible.

And best of all would be a raw food diet - http://www.naturalinstinct.com/categories/Cat-Food" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I tried a few times to switch mine onto it but they sadly aren't interested.

Best of luck

[Gemma]

Hello
Thanks for the reply and information
They were last wormed a month ago so shouldn't be worms???
I'm just about to head into our local town we have a pet store I'm going to ask them about the products you recommended. I'll look for high meat content biscuits and wet foo. Not sure about the raw diet???

Has anyone else tried the raw diet?

Xx

[Kay]

I've tried it on three cats, none of which even seemed to recognise it as food - the local foxes enjoyed it though

it could be it is easier to get cats used to a raw diet when they are really young, and haven't become picky over manufactured cat foods, or cats which are used to hunting and eating wild creatures

[meriad]

I've tried it on three cats, none of which even seemed to recognise it as food

LOL, Kay that's the same problem I had with mine but they just sniffed at it and walked away. Ungrateful critters - good job we love them as much as we do.

[Gemma]

Hehe!! Don't think I'm going to try the raw diet although I would think they'd eat it as they eat anything!! Found one of them locking my defrosting chicken the other day!!

I went to the pet store they asked about their worming status too. The cats protection paperwork for them - they had frontline and worming in September then they've had broadline combination monthly end of October November and December. I was going to frontline combination them this weekend do I need to worm them aswell? Xx

[meriad]

Do they go out and hunt? If not then I wouldn't have thought you'd need to worm them more than two or three times a year. But if they do, then check with the vet and see what they recommend.

[sarie]

Go steady with the dried food as it contains around 4x more fat than wet food generally. The result is that it's much easier for cats to get overweight from being overfed on dried food than it is from being overfed on wet food.

Your 6 month old will likely be super hungry just because she's growing - my 4 month old kitten goes ballistic at meal times and would eat all day long if I let him. I don't worry too much about overfeeding him though as at that age they're growing so quickly it's tough for them to get fat. Your 18 month old Sam is more at risk of starting to gain weight if he/she is overfed though

It might be worth seeing if you can move them over onto a higher protein wet food as this will keep them fuller for longer. Mine are much more satisfied now that I'm feeding them a high quality, high protein wet food. The kitten was on whiskas kitten when I got him and he was permanently hungry. Although still greedy, he's a lot less frantic about food than he was previously as he's now eating Grau wet food which is high protein. Grau, Lily's Kitchen, Bozita, Macs, Butcher's Classic etc - these are all fairly high protein meat foods compared with more standard wet foods that are often very low in protein and not satisfying.

Good luck with your gannets

[Gemma]

Great thanks for all the information
I'm going to start the search for high protein wet food. And maybe give them half wet half dry biscuits?
I'll go back into town today to chat about the worming woth the vets
Thank you x

[Mollysmummy]

We got Molly from an animal rescue place too. When we first got her she would wolf down 4-5 pouches a day!! Plus a few biscuits too. She was underweight so it wasn't a huge issue until she got up to her goal weight.

We found that after a month or 2 she relaxed with her eating; we can only presume that it was because the rescue place was a charity run place so the animals were fed all sorts of food depending on what was donated or they could afford. Also she was in a pen with other cats who were more boisterous than her so she probably only got the leftovers.

I'm sure they will relax once they realise the food is always going to be there!!