Food issues

I'm so confused. Tiger isnt eating as much as he should. I was reading recently that two cans a day simply isn't enough for cats, Tiger (and my other cat, Discordia) both get two cans of wet food a day- one in the morning and one in the evening, but they very rarely clean their dish.

Tiger acts hungry, he wakes me up every morning between 6 and 630 (breakfast is 7) and politely asks to be fed. He eats. Every time that dish is placed in front of him he goes at it for a few minutes - and I do mean every time. Sometimes he takes a few bites and goes to lay down. If I put his dish back in front of him, he takes a few more bites.

I have fancy feast classic pate, tiki cat mousse, and some fussie cat and tiki cat in shreds. I'm not sure if I just need to keep looking at different flavors. I've been wondering if he misses his kibbles. Previously my cats would free feed on kibbles and get wet food for dinner.

Should I look in to an appetite stimulant? Try more wet food? Look for lowish carb dry?

Both cats are in the 7-8 pound range, which for Tiger is quite a drop. Discordia has always been petite.

 

I have spent more $ & gone to more stores for miss picky (Baby) than I have ever gone for anything else! I just keep trying. She became tired of her friskies, so now I have everything under the sun in my cabinet.
There are a couple dry low carb foods that you could sprinkle on top to see if that helps. Dr. Elzys clean protein & Young Again grain free, low carb. If you call them they will send you samples before buying a big bag. There is 1 more that I’m not familiar with but hopefully someone that knows will chime in. Many have given me advice on which food to purchase because their cat likes it. But ECID! Good luck to you!
The top of the main forum has the food chart with the carb content, Dr. Pierson.

 

Depends on the size of the cans [3 oz.? 5.5 oz.?] and how many kcalories each contains. You could try splitting the meals into 3 or 4 feedings. That is what I have done with Bama. He is a little under 18 lbs. and could probably stand to lose a few pounds but I'm not sure what he should weigh. He was 19 lbs. 4 years ago when he was diagnosed and has been as high as 20. I feed him roughly 260 to 300 kcalories per day. He is like Tiger. Acts hungry. Eats a few bites. Goes to lay down. Will eat more if I bring it to him. When he was on mostly dry food, it seemed like he was hungry all the time. Now that he is on all canned, his appetite does not appear as ravenous. Maybe that is a good sign but as a kitty mom, I worry.

 

Some cats are grazers and free feeding them some times works better, you serve the food and just leave what ever they didn't eat on the first round out usually they will come back and eat a little after a while, and repeat it several times utill they clean the plate (that's what my very picky grazer eaters do ) what has worked best for me is to give them 2 big meals, one mid day snack and actually just leave whatever food they didn't eat out and they will actually finish it during the morning or night

 

when we switched to low carb wet food only for a few months, after first week we ended up leaving it out all day and swapped the food with new every six hours and the cats free fed on it. they were use to grazing/free feeding on dry food and just did not eat enough wet food in one sitting and were losing weight, free feeding on wet stopped the weight loss and they seemed more happy. since both of your cats aren't gobbling it down, i would just leave it out for them to eat whenever they want. when we did so, i didn't notice FF or friskies pates raising tux's BG much at all, if anything i think the grazing regulated his BG much better than now that he is on a feeding schedule..

2 FF pate cans is enough calories for your 7-8lb cat, 180 calories is what we feed our two 8lb cats based on feeding calculation result..
your tiger calories should be based on his ideal weight if he is suppose to be more than 8lbs.
feeding calculation is: 13.76 times 'ideal weight' plus 70 = daily calories needed.