Mowgli is still SO HUNGRY!

Hi All!

Mowgli has been a ravenous little beast since his diagnosis. I didn't realize just how hungry he was until I watched him literally lick 52g of frozen solid friskies pate until it was gone!! It was supposed to be his midnight snack that held him until the morning .

What I'm wondering is this: Is it clear that I should just be giving him more food that I have been? (~260g / 24hr or 1 and 2/3 cans of friskies pate) or is he just a little piggy? I get that he is more hungry than he typically would be because he's so horrible at making his own insulin... but hammering frozen food like that? can you say frost bite?!

 

How much does he weigh? What is his ideal weight? Diabetic cats that are unregulated often need extra food because their bodies can not properly utilize the nutrients so they need more. If he's that hungry give the full two cans.

 

I feel this struggle. I think we'll need to reevaluate how much we feed. I got home today, about 2 hrs after Dad gave dinner, to find a bag of purebites decimated and a bag or orijen treats punctured to heck and back.

 

He is 11lbs and should probably weigh 13/14lbs because of his frame. He is older though so I could be over estimating what he should weigh.

I wonder if I should even give him more than 2 cans if he’s hungry enough to have a patecicle

While I did already know that he needs extra food because of his diabetes I also wonder if he’s just kind of like a dog... eat whatever is out

I’ll give Mowgli a full Fancy feast for bed lunch and hopefully it will fill him until the morning

 

OMG!! Speaking of kitty piggies!!!

Mowgli does this too! He also just plain loves chewing plastic bags for some reason. Weirdo.

 

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/feed-kitty-as-much-as-they-want.205170/

I found this helpful.

My Alice is severely emaciated at this point. She can go through more than two 5.5oz cans of friskies in a day very easily and she barely weighs 2kg/~4lbs.

 

Unregulated FD cats are often starving as the food is not utilised properly and they are not getting all the nutrients in the food. If your kitty is underweight, let him eat all he wants. Once the BSLs get more under control, so will his appetite decrease.

 

If he's underweight feed him what he wants. Have you had his thyroid tested

 

Thanks for the advice guys... I'll up his food intake, gave him a full 5.5oz can for bfast and I will give him another for supper ... probably half for bedlunch

@JanetNJ Mowgli had a blood panel done in the beginning of march which said that he had no other issues than diabetes... I'm not sure if that included Thyroid data because I don't know what the tests are called. I did put all of his lab results in his spreadsheet though if you wanted to have a look.

I have already noticed him gaining weight so that is positive, I also feel like he is gaining some muscle mass in his back legs which is encouraging (sometimes I feel like it could be in my own head though) I will have to weigh him to see what his actual gains were this month

 

Such a sin, I hope that Alice puts some weight on soon! SO many cans of food for such a small kitty-baby.

 

I know. She was always petite, but she once weighed as much as almost 8lbs, healthy. Up until around age 9 maybe (almost 4 years ago). Then closer to 7lbs, then it shot down to 5.5lbs quickly in the fall of 2018.

 

I've creeped through a few of your posts over my time here so far, and I really get the impression that Alice is a total fighter with a heavy weight spirit! I love her cute little face! I'm thinking of her and hope she gets better soon

 

Thank you. I hope so. Her bio mom was too.
We suspect an additional underlying condition, but I don't have the means for diagnostics yet. She needs an internist.

And btw, I never would have thought of freezing some pate for overnight. That's pretty brilliant! I'm not sure Alice would go for it though. My chonky ginger boys could use something to slow them down though. Haha.

Oh and those packages @MamaMug posted. They remind me of a civvie cat I had that would destroy all my dry seaweed products (which are a little expensive!) just because he liked the smell. But he wouldn't eat it. That cat used to also love breaking into bags of treats like that, and even dried legumes. Oh cats. <3

 

I got the idea on the forum! I also thought it was a great idea... until my ravenous little man just licked it until it was gone... animal. I basically just have to get to the point of ordering a timed feeder I'd say.

 

I have never looked into a timed feeder. I can't imagine how they would work with wet food! It weirds me out having to leave wet food out at all.

They make these little rolly and puzzle balls for dry, but I couldn't use those anyway for the civvies because then the bunny would get to it.

I've been so stressed lately with Alice's health I forget a little bit how much I love the circus.
And hey he may have worked quickly through that frozen chunk, but it DID still slow him down and give him a little challenge, yeah? Keeps life interesting? Or something. Lol.

 

SUCH a circus!

for the wet food / timed feeder... you freeze the food! then it isn't a gross crusty mess by the time that the timer goes off

 

Ok @AmandaE really stupid incoming question about freezing food. I'm looking at getting an auto feeder and freezing food so that our boys can get meals while we're at work. I've read multiple times to freeze the food and it seems ideal but HOW do you do it? Do you just put the unopened cans in the freezer? Does it make them hard to open? I already struggle opening cans as a nervous nailbiter.

 

If it's a stupid question, consider me stupid because I posted it on another corner of this forum! The advice that I got from my post was to spoon some cat food into the silicone ice cube trays and then you can just pop a few out into your timed feeder for your cats later! I don't have a set of silicone ice cube trays yet, so what I have done in the mean time is to cut the wet food into smaller portions and then wrap them in plastic wrap. I take the plastic wrapped portions and put them all in a freezer bag.

I think there are a lot of ideas out there that you may be able to use so that you don't have to use your poor nails to open frozen can lids

 

There's no nails to use! I generally resort to chopsticks, plastic forks, the household man who is sane enough to keep his nails unlike me.

 

Maybe line a tray with wax paper or whatever, drop the food in little balls, cover in plastic wrap...? I'm imaging this like a tiny tiny tiny cookie dough tray. I don't know. Lol. What size does it have to be to work? The larger the frozen chunks are, the longer they take to fully thaw...

 

Good idea!

 

I have been using this timed feeder for years. It comes with an ice pack to keep food fresh. No need to freeze food.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002YHUPC/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Ooo la la!