Dangerously Hungry Cat!

[07Jan]

I have a rescue cat (she was picked up as a stray) approximately 1.9 years old, I've had her about 9 months
She is neutered, great health, normal weight no worms etc.
When she arrived to me she was seriously small and underweight - I thought she was 4- 5 months old as she was so small.
Within a few weeks of eating well she gained weight and doubled in size.
Her weight is now stable as I have been very consistent with her food as the vet told me she was getting too fat.

The problem is she is ravenously hungry all the time.
She will break into the bins, fridge, food cupboards which now all have toddler locks on them.
She will steal food from your plates, hands while eating, the stove while cooking, etc.

She will eat anything of food origin, eg even raw broccoli ends from the bin etc.

She is fearless, I've tried spraying her with a water spray bottle when she goes on the table or kitchen worktops etc. it only works when you physically remove her - I currently lock her out of the kitchen-diner while cooking/eating (outside) using the cat flap, if I try and shut her out internally she digs at the door continuously.
When it's her food time, she will aggressively hassle you for her breakfast/dinner - including scratching and trying to bite for attention (needless to say whoever is up earliest feeds her immediately - which is standard - but it's the actual aggression which is worrying.

She has free access to outside/the garden - she does go out, but mostly like to stay home. She doesn't seem to hunt, only brought back one 'present' she's not particularly bored, she plays with her toys, hangs around with the humans of the house or the dog.

Is there anything I can do?

I hate having to lock her out of the house while cooking and eating etc - especially when it's cold, but it's so dangerous when you're cooking and she tries to knock the hot pans on the floor etc, or when you are chopping and she's trying to grab things.
I'm 99% vegetarian, so I'm not even cooking meat/fish!
I'm worried she will poison herself one day.

@07Jan natures menu is good, my own cat is on it

I would get her wet food without sugar and grains as those „fillers“ greatly reduce the meat content and can leave a cat hungry.The wet food I feed my cat (probably not available in the UK as it is from a small manufacturer in Germany) has the following ingredients for their turkey variety: Turkey meat, liver, heart, gizzard (70 %); Meat broth (28.8 %); Egg shells, dried (0.5 %); Minerals (0.5 %); Salmon oil (0.2 %). My cat eats 2 pouches per day, weighs a normal 4.8kg and isn‘t hungry.

You need to feed her food that keeps her full and takes a long time to eat.

At the moment she is eating food she can hoover up in seconds and is the cat equivalent of McDonalds.

Grain free kibble or satiety kibble fed in a slow feeder will take her a lot longer to eat and keep her fuller for longer.

If you want wet food again going for something very smelly (not appealing to you but appealing to cats!) and grain free may keep her stomach fuller for longer than the Felix.

Some cats can self regulate with food and some can't and need restricting - I always seem to have one of each!

At the moment I have one cat on weighed quantities of kibble via slow feeder + wet food or she turns into a balloon, and one who can self regulate but needs desirable wet food to distract him from nextdoor's Whiskas.

You need to give her a good quality food. I give my very hungry cat Classic cat food as its got a higher meat content than Felix/Whiskas etc, think its 42% compared to 14%. It satisfies them more, I only give wet at the moment as she's a bit rotund! I buy it from PAH or Iceland. If I give dry she piles even more weight on.

Haribo is a chubster, weighs a stone and always nagging for food. When I put his biscuits down he looks around as if to say "is that it?" My partner gives him yum yums (fresh cooked tuna and chicken bits) so no wonder he's tubby.

He eats Hills normal cat biscuits but I've given him Hills Perfect Weight recently. The biscuits are lighter and smaller than the original ones so to him it looks as if he is getting more. Over the last few weeks being on it he does look a bit sleeker.

He has his boosters on Monday so will ask the vet how to continue.

One of ours was emaciated when we got her and for the first few years the vets were commenting that she was getting too fat and to restrict her food, but they were looking at the growth chart and could see that her weight had increased substantially despite being an adult cat when first registered, but I had to keep pointing out how thin she was when we got her. Over the past few years her weight has been stable at just over 4kg. She and her brother has free access to dry food and some wet food at set times. If we don't feed her enough then she will steal anything she finds from us - bread, crisps etc, which is what she was doing when we first met her. She does get stressed if there is none of her dry food available. Certainly she is more food oriented than her brother (who was never starving) who doesn't usually give a second glance to human food. I would try to see the nurse and get some more specialist advice but certainly for ours having dry food available and set times for pouch seems to work well.

Today the Vet confirmed Haribo is fat. He weighs 6.4kg and should be 5kg. No more yum yums for Haribo.

Some of her behaviour will be down to her experience of starvation before she came to you, with time it should improve but you're looking at years not months.

A little extra padding also never hurt a cat, there's a difference between cuddly chub and dangerously obese so I wouldn't fret and allow her a bit more food and a few extra lbs!

Also switch to a better quality cat food. Have tried a few, including appleaws, but most success with Katkins which really seems to fill them up for much longer.

2 pouches of Felix is obviously not enough for her. Make it 3 a day. Try something with a higher meat content, like SCRUMBLES or PURINA dry food, which you should leave down all day. Ensure there is always fresh water as well.

Had several cats over the past 41 years.
My cat was feral when I took him in, years ago. He has 3 or 4 pouches a day plus the dry stuff available all day

I think a cat that has been very hungry might have trouble regulating unlimited food.
My cats have access to dry food all the time and wet on demand, but that's all they have ever known and don't over eat as a consequence.
If your cat is at a good weight now OP, I would check the packaging of the food you're giving your cat and offer those quantities.
The rescue would have advised you to stay on the food that the cat was used to this would avoid upset tummies. It can be changed though over a few days, rather than just a sudden switch.
Food higher in protein is good for cats. Mine like fresh cooked chicken and fish, a little ham, tuna in spring water occasionally. Dry food they have James Wellbeloved. Wet food is a mix of Encore, Gourmet Perle, Sheba and a few pouches of Felix. I have 3 cats and probably feed each of them the equivalent of 2 or 3 pouches, some fresh meat or fish and unlimited dry food.
In your situation I would measure the dry food as I suspect your cat will gorge herself. With regular meals of a decent quality wet food - twice a day at least.

She doesn't look too big to me!

I also have a cat who has never eaten before, we leave him senior biscuits to graze on all day - slightly less calories (and he has a bad elbow so good stuff for his joints too).

@fairylightsandwaxmelts

I would be cutting the wet food right down and swapping it with a good quality dry food.

My three are fed on Felix but they only get a pouch each per day (half in the morning, half at night) and unlimited access to dry food the rest of the time.

Only one is overweight - but that's because he's a lazy bugger and only really moves to get to his food or his litter tray the vet describes him as "a lot of cat" the other two are far more active and playful and neither are overweight at all.

I don't agree with all the posts bashing Felix - yes, they're right that it's not a great food but cats are fussy and you're far better giving a high quality dry than trying to get them to eat a fancy wet food that they hate!

This is how we feed our 2 cats.1 is a scavenger and is always trying to lick plates etc.

The dry is half Nature's Variety and half Hills Prescription Tooth Diet - because the vet said 1 cat had bad tarter build up.

The Felix is the AGAIL variety. (Because the marketing has me believe this is posher than regular Felix!!)

Get a high meat content wet food with no grains. Felix is not a great quality food.

Look at zooplus there are loads of high quality foods such as Rosies farm or Bozita. Bozita actually works out cheaper than felix! And as its such a high meat content they don't need as much.

I know a lot of people on here feed dry food but I'm not an advocate of dry food. It can cause a lot of issues for cats.

Get a high meat content wet food with no grains. Felix is not a great quality food.

You're correct, but as you can see by numerous threads on here, many cats won't eat the fancy high quality foods. I've tried my cats on the posh foods, the high meat content foods, the grain-free foods - the only one they'll all eat, without fail, is Felix.

One of my cats has urinary issues and won't touch any urinary wet food - we've tried about four brands and he just spits it out. Our vet told us that any wet food is better than no wet food in his case, so he gets his Felix and we just feed a urinary dry food instead of a regular one.

Yes, Felix isn't the best quality BUT it's also important to remember that millions of cats survive just fine on Felix, Whiskas and other cheap supermarket brands, so there's no need for people to stress themselves out if that's all their cats will eat.

Mine are super fussy.
We buy from zooplus.

Purizon or applaws dry - unlimited down all day
Miamor, almo nature fillets type as wet food x2 per day. They will occasionally each a mousse type also.

Update:::::

I have put down unlimited dry food and still feeding felix twice a day until I run out - then I'll switch to higher quality wet food.

Cat has scoffed up the quality dry food and now seems to have reached saturation point in the last day or so.

I never see her because she is happily snoozing on the back of the sofa instead of demanding food from me constantly (I WFH a lot) - she seems to be cured!

I'm hoping she will lose weight or at least not get too much bigger otherwise I'm going to be nagged at by the vet for the rest of her days, but already she seems much happier and so am I!

Thanks to the advice on this thread - absolutely contradictory as is the way! But I'm very thankful for everyone's help!

My previously stray cat always wanted food too but we have very set times with enough food which he now arrives for and is then fairly content.

Fingers crossed, OP! :)

Indeed fingers crossed! Nice that she's happy and settled. For the record my cats eat Felix with considerably more enthusiasm than Encore which is probably 4x more expensive 😁