New to board - how to feed non-diabetic cat with diabetic ca

My cat, Baxter was diagnosed with diabetes on Tuesday. We spent a long visit with the vet learning the intricacies of having a diabetic cat from food to insulin administration etc. We have an understanding of what we need to do for him, but we're now faced with the issue of trying to keep Baxter from eating the food that his sister eats.
We used to feed our cats dry food and would fill their bowls in the morning and again at night if needed, and they would eat whenever hungry. Unfortunately, Baxter now has to be weened off his old food and onto a new diabetic diet, so leaving Posy's food out for her to eat whenever doesn't work. I should mention that while a schedule would work for Baxter, trying to do the same for Posy wouldn't work as she tends not to be around when you need her around. I could put the food in the basement where she spends a lot of her time, but that is also where the litter boxes are, so Baxter could easily find the food he's not permitted to have. It's a tough situation when it's not good for him to have her food and not good for her to have his food with both on dramatically different eating schedules.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to making food accessible to Posy without Baxter getting to it?

 

First, the two cats don't have to eat different food. A low-carb canned food is good for both of them. If your vet has put Baxter on a prescription diet, please be aware that this is not necessary and also can cost a fortune. There are good canned-food choices from your grocery store or pet store that may be better quality and also are far less expensive.

As far as needing to feed them on different schedules, perhaps does one jump up on tables, etc., easily while the other doesn't? If so, put the jumper's food up on something and the other one's food on the floor. Would that work?

 

There is no reason why you can't feed both cats like a diabetic - low carb, wet foods.

It sounds to me and I'm just inferring here - that you may be using a prescription diabetic food - if you are, may I suggest that you return it as there is nothing special about that food and it costs more than commercial products.

All you need to do (and many of us here have the same issue) is feed everyone the same - the key is low carb food - under 10% carbs. HEre is a nutrition/food link that should help - included is a link to Janet & Binky's food list - where the carb content of foods are listed. viewtopic.php?f=14&t=115

Additionally, transitioning both cats from dry to wet can be done and is really better for them - you can continue to free feed and put food out twice a day - or more if you want - that's what I do. The above link includes information on how to transition from dry to wet.


Oh and one more thing - did the vet talk with you about home testing and learning how to do that? It's a vital part of the process, especially when changing foods like I suggested - that alone can lower the BG's tremendously and you may need to reduce the insulin dose. The three things go hand in hand - insulin, food, home testing.

What insulin are you using?


Hope this helps.

 

just another voice to "you can feed them the same food" camp.

I had one diabetic, two cats who blocked with urinary crystals and two others and was trying to feed them all different food when I started reading up on nutrition and realized the ideal food for a diabetic cat was the ideal food for *all* cats. Had to say, that made my life a LOT easier, and once I got them all on a high protein low carb high moisture content diet they all did extremely well.

Connie

 

Thank you all for your insight and suggestions.

The vet told me that the diabetic food (DM) wouldn't be good for Posy, so I was just going on what he said. Needless to say, Baxter doesn't like the DM dry stuff, so I will be referring to Janet & Binky's list of wet food... Which leads me to wonder about teeth cleaning, but that's a discussion for another day.

Thanks again!

 

Does Posy have some other medical issue in which a high protein/fat, low carb diet would not be good? If the vet was referring to some specific illness that would make the DM not good for Posy, then you want to look at what in the wet food would be a problem to her and search out the canned food that works for both. Otherwise it just sounds like an uninformed vet repeating something he heard somewhere, sometime.

We've switched all of our cats over to soft. Purina DM was the initial food, but switched over to the foods on Janet and Binky's list (FF, Friskies, Wellness Core, Sophisticat Supreme, Purina Proplan) because they started to refuse to eat the DM. At first we tried just switching the civies, but Smokey would get aggressive and knock them out of the way to get to their food.

We do have some of the hard DM in the closet in case of an emergency if we had to leave for longer than the feeders could handle and couldn't get the sitters in. We sneak hard food "treats" to Peanut in her napping spot in the bathroom closet because she doesn't eat as much soft anymore, but for the most part all 3 are on the diabetic eating regimine and are much healthier for it.

 

Come on talk to us about teeth! I just put two of my cats through dentals - Maui the remission diabetic and Sydney, the early renal failure - so, I'm all up on dentals, teeth and brushing their teeth......

 

I never ever thought I could switch my cats to all canned. I always kept their bowls full of dry too. But when Jake was diagnosed, I slowly got them both to eat canned....& Elwood (non diabetic) went from a loving 26 pounds down to 16!! He is much healthier, thanks to Jake's unfortunate health issues.

And can I just say it is all thanks to this board & the wonderful advice given here!! Why oh why do so many vets not know that low carb canned is best?? This was never even suggested to me!!

Michelle

 

I have 5 cats one of whom is diabetic. I was feeding the both wet and dry food when diagnosed. the dry food was left out all day and the wet food I would feed for breakfast and dinner.

when i found this board I changed them to free feeding legal Fancy Feast wet food, which is the wet food I had been feeding them. I spend a lot of money on food but to me it's worth it.

 

Yup, like everyone else here, both my cats (Max the diabetic and Truman the non-diabetic) get the same food. My boys happen to do alright on a twice daily feeding schedule, but I know a lot of people here use timed feeders so they get food throughout the day. It is safe to leave wet food out for up to 12 hours if your cats will free-feed. Mine love the canned food and gobble it up as soon as it's out, but like I said, they're doing alright with the twice daily schedule.

And if you're home testing (which you should be), your Posy will learn that treats are involved with testing, and she'll learn when the food comes out. Her schedule will change along with Baxter's, and it probably won't be as difficult as you think. Even my dog comes running whenever I call Max's name now because they all quickly learned that when Max got poked, everyone got treats. :lol: