Make my cat fat

[gemma4d]

Britain is full of overweight pets. My cat is not one of them! She is getting almost embarrassingly thin.

Only seen one vet, and he agreed she was thin - but not enough that he was worried or thought it was medical. But she is even thinner now because we went on holiday and she only ate 1 pouch a day while in the cattery.

She is a Maine Coon, but not totally typical of the breed. She gets fed unlimited Maine Coon dry food, plus 2 pouches of wet food a day. She won't eat a 3rd pouch. There are only a few pouches she will eat, and they must be strictly rotated or she won't eat at all. Mainly Gourmet Perle gravy, plus a few others (always gravy). She eats some cat-snacks; I just found a liquid cat snack (like cat-yogurt) that she likes. She has never eaten human food on the few occasions we have offered. She can't hunt (she was an indoor cat before we got her from rescue).

She comes and goes as she pleases, and the cat flaps make sure no other cats can get her food (magnetic cat flaps).

Does anyone have any ideas? I thought of a Feliway diffuser - do they ever result in weight gain? Any other random ideas or ways to get her to eat more?
Do I need to rotate her dry food with another?

[AdventuresWithVoles]

worms?

[gemma4d]

She gets wormed as regularly as she should, either at the vets when she gets her boosters, or at home the rest of the time.

She is my PFC (precious first cat except tbh she isn't that precious as I have kids) so I don't know how much cats normally eat - but just to mention that Maine Coons are not small cats (although mine is relatively small for a main coon and nothing like this www.booksoncats.co.uk/articles/maine_coon.php

[Phwooooar]

I have a thin Maine Coon too - in fact I think she's the smallest Maine Coon in the world! She is just a very fussy eater unfortunately and if I don't give her something she really likes (prawns) she will go out and catch a couple of mice to eat... Had her go through all sorts of tests a couple of years ago - vet thought might be food intolerances and tried her on all sorts of expensive posh food which she wouldn't eat so all it did was cost lots of vets fees! She seems perfectly happy though. If she's wormed and healthy I wouldn't worry.

[YouveCatToBeKittenMe]

My Persian lost weight recently and the vet commented on it. She does give up her food if one of the others muscles in but if I notice I just give her another pouch. She seems to have gained weight again although she needs a damn good brush which will make her look thin

Could you try feeding her 3 times a day rather than 1 or 2?
Mine have a pouch in the morning, another in the evening and then sometimes biscuits before bed if they are indoors, but only if I need to get them out of the lounge!

Does she have food down all the time? I read that this can make them more fussy if they get used to grazing.
I think feeding more often is the answer.

[Pigglesworth]

Thyroid issues? Blood tests can check for that.

How old is your cat? Has she always been thin? How much does she weigh now, and how much did she used to weigh?

[kitsonkittykat]

How about tuna in oil? Kitten food? My cat lost weight transitioning to adult food and we put him back on royal canin kitten kibble, and he put weight back on nicely.

Also adding olive oil to their food it meant to help with weight gain, but I have never tried that.

We also had some success with a high protein kibble.

[SparkyTGD]

Have been told by my DSis that their vet said the easiest way to get cats to gain weight is to feed them dry food & wet food for weight loss.

My cats have always been slim (fed mostly wet food) and her cats overweight (mostly dry food).

But my new cat is very very hungry, rescue cat, (possible Maine Coon too ) and eats so much more than my previous cats, so am giving lots of dry food to supplement the pouches.

[DailyMailSpy]

Is she sick a lot? We had a female Maine coon who was painfully thin too, vet couldn't find out the problem even after extensive tests and the vet getting an animal psychologist involved, until we realised she was allergic to James wellbeloved and we changed her food (I know, how did we not figure it out sooner ). She put weight on much easier after that.

I have a male Maine coon who recently ran out the front door and got lost, he was lost for a week until the sspca picked him up, but now he's very skinny too so I'm feeding him on pouches of wet kitten food as it's higher in fat to try and put some more weight on him.

[DailyMailSpy]

sparky, we've found the opposite here, fat cats on wet food and skinny cats on dry food.

[gemma4d]

Sorry for the delay, had to find her record book...
she is 6 years old, always thin (or since we had her at 4)

From her book:
At 4 months old, 1.65kg, vet note "keep inside and feed up, still too small for age."
age 1: 3.39kg
age 2: 3.40kg
age 4: 3.58kg
age 5: 3.69kg (this was November 2011)
(she is just 6, not due her vaccines yet)

Size wise / length wise I would say she was a bit longer than your average cat but not massively. She stretches further than most cats can though, and her tail is almost another body length again.

Wiki says "females weighing from 10 to 15 lb (4.5 to 6.8 kg), The height of adults can vary between 10 and 16 in (25 and 41 cm) and they can reach a length of up to 40 in (100 cm), including the tail, which can reach a length of 14 in (36 cm)"

Ok, so how the heck do you measure a cat? Excluding the tail, she is about 22" long in normal standing position (nose to base of tail), and 13" tall (ground to the top of her back). She is very stretchy, so those numbers could go up a lot!

So according to Wiki she should weigh more :(

[gemma4d]

She won't eat tinned tuna (I thought cats should love that?)

Kitten food sounds like it might be worth ago, or high protein kibble (if I can find one she will eat, fussy monster), I'm afraid I am a little sceptical that a splash of olive oil will achieve anything.

Never sick, DailyMail, but thanks for posting :)

I'm off to google kitten food...

[MyLittleFluffball]

Reassuring to know she has always been small. Some cats just are small, my new cat is around 3.5 kg but she's also quite small-framed and "squat"/ compact... a vet told me not to let her gain any more weight which I found quite surprising as I think she's tiny! My cat's not a Maine Coon though.

If you are worried I would get a blood test done in an effort to rule out thyroid problems (though the blood tests are not 100% accurate) - if she has thyroid problems, trying to give her more food/ more calorie-rich food will have a limited effect, or no effect.