Am I feeding my cat too much?

[movingforward2016]

My cat is two years old she is an indoor cat because she has an injured leg and has been limping for over a year.

I feed her one / one and a half pouches of wet food per day and one - two small bowls of dry food! Depending on how hungry she is. She looks to be getting quite chubby at the moment and I don't want to make her over weight especially because of her bad leg.

So just wondering how much others feed their cats particularly indoor girl cats?

[Wolfiefan]

The dry food makes ours put on weight. Measure it out?
What have the vets said about the leg? Is she on pain meds?

[movingforward2016]

How many pouches of wet food do you give your cat?

They were going to remove the leg and then said at the last minute as she is bearing weight on it she can keep it and she is no longer on pain meds! They said they can cause other problems like liver issues

[mistermagpie]

Mine are indoor boys (small boys though) and they get 3 sachets of wet food each a day, occasionally (when they are really annoying me) they get three and a half. They won't eat dry food but I think this is about equivalent, if not a bit more, to what yours is having.

One of mine is very active and a really skinny thing but the other also has an injured leg, which is held together by pins, so is quite lazy and therefore is a bit fatter but they were both recorded as underweight at their check up in the summer.

How much does she actually weigh?

[Wolfiefan]

If she's limping then she needs to see the vet again. That suggests pain surely?

[movingforward2016]

I'm not sure how much she weighs anytime I have taken her to the vets she was within the ideal weight section!

I think the best thing would be to take her back to the vets to check the leg and the weight.

The vets last said the fracture hadn't fully healed but as she was bearing weight we would keep the leg and keep an eye on her! She doesn't seem to be in pain that I can tell as she plays with the bad leg and puts weight on it! But I think it's time for another check up

[Lunde]

It is probably because the cat is eating the same but less active because of the leg injury. I would ask the vet if you need to restrict the food or not.

My cats always gain weight in winter now that they are older and hate going out in the snow - but in the summer they are much more active

[bruffin]

Mine gets a handful of dry food that just covers the bottom of the bowl in morning and a sachet at night.

[Jonsnowsghost]

It's worth knowing that dry cat food has many more calories than wet, it's where a lot of people go wrong when trying to get cats to lose weight! Dry food is around 350kcal/100g and wet around 70kcal/100g.
A 4kg cat needs about 200 kcal a day so one pouch plus about 40g dry would be about right. Too lose weight if you think she is getting chunky I'd drop the dry to about 15-20g and give her two wet pouches a day.

If she's limping then you can't really exercise her but when her leg is healed you can get her to play more with toys and the should help

[Soubriquet]

Might be a bit too much

Mine has dry food down all day. She can graze when she wants. She then gets a small tin a day too and that's it

[Wolfiefan]

If she limps that does indicate pain. I really would go back.

[mistermagpie]

Limping suggests pain to me too. My cat with the pinned leg has a bit of a funny walk and his movement (jumping mainly) is a little bit restricted but no limp, his injury was years go though.