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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

Original poster

My kitten is fat...

62 replies

ChatterMonkey · 21/07/2022 07:35

We have two kittens, had them a few weeks now and they have settled in amazingly and now rule the house...!

Issue we have is that the boy kitten, peanut, is a gannet and steals all of the girl kitten, pistachio's food. And he is now getting fat, as confirmed by vet. At around 13 weeks old hes nearly 2.5kg so well above the expected weight.

Pistachio is more of a grazer eater and think would enjoy having dry food available all day to pick at. However as soon as any good goes down, in either of their dishes, peanut eats it all...! Its not causing arguments with them, she doesnt seem overly bothered when he's eating from her dish, but the weight difference between them is getting really noticeable so worried she isn't eating enough.

How do we stop him eating her food? We have limited space for feeding etc, the food dishes are in the same room as the litter tray so i dont want to restrict the access to rhe room.

Other than standing over the dishes and moving him whenever he goes to hers, what can we do to stop this?? They have their own dishes and known which is which, i dont put the food dishes down until they are waiting at the right spots, so they know whos is who's. Hes just greedy and wants hers when his is empty 🤣

OP posts:
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BrownHairedQuirk · 21/07/2022 07:44

Microchip bowls? They are fantastic. Pricey but long lasting, hygienic as the food is always covered. I had them to stop my kitten eating my older cats food constantly!

coffeecupsandfairylights · 21/07/2022 08:18

You need microchip feeding bowls.

Trixiefirecracker · 21/07/2022 08:21

We have a cat like this and feed him in a separate room with the door closed until both are finished.

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 21/07/2022 08:29

I don't think it's possible to advise without photos. 😊
However 2.5 kilos at 13 weeks does sound as if he's a fatty. Are they mogs or a large breed (Maine Coon etc.)?

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 21/07/2022 08:32

And I've now found your other thread including the photos. 👍

GigantosaurusRex · 21/07/2022 08:46

Slight hijack here but we have huge issues with next doors cats stealing our boys food - despite having a microchip cat flap (they hook a claw under and pull the flap towards them). I quickly googled microchip cat bowls but the reviews were all talking about a timer. We can't justify the cost of replacing the catflap with a new model that locks both ways, would one of these bowls open for our cats and then close again?

Original poster
ChatterMonkey · 21/07/2022 09:10

Had a look at the microchip bowls, they are £130 each?? Don't think I can justify that much money on a food dish. And we would need two so would be £260...

Issue with separating them while eating is pistachio will eat a bit and then go back for more in a little while. So either she would end up locked in a room on her own for ages, which would mean she would stop eating and try to get out of the room, or peanut is locked in a room well after having finished his meal and licked the bowl clean while she isn't even eating, but isn't finished yet.

The are generally together most of the time, so no real opportunity to feed her without him seeing, and they don't like being separated from each other so would stop eating if they realised they couldn't get to their sibling.

Its unfortunate that one seems to be a grazer, but we can't leave food out around the other as he doesn't seem to be able to regulate....!

OP posts:
BarbaraofSeville · 21/07/2022 09:19

I don't know the answer but that's a common boy cat problem. We've currently got one boy and 4 girls and at the worst, the boy was eating his food, all the girls leftovers and whatever he caught while hunting.

We now put a bit less food out so there's no leftovers and a couple of the girls are grazers anyway, so eat the dry food as and when, which fortunately for us, Fat Boy seems less keen on.

Maybe you could just buy one microchip bowl for Pistachio so she can graze at her dry food whenever she wants and Peanut can't get at it? I know it's still a lot of money, but it could save you a lot of stress and potential vet bills due to obesity related conditions?

BarbaraofSeville · 21/07/2022 09:27

The bowl is £90, not £130. You were probably looking at the Connect version where you can get a hub, cat flaps and an app to monitor your cats comings and goings. Fascinating and very useful if you have cats that wander, come in at night for food as you know they're still OK if you haven't seen them for a couple of days. But £££s all the same.

For this sort of thing I tend to look online for somewhere doing a special deal, which is sometimes available and then see if there are any £10 off for new customer type deals, to try and reduce the cost a little.

BarbaraofSeville · 21/07/2022 09:29

Reason I suggest just buying one bowl for Pistachio is that it doesn't sound like she needs to be stopped from eating Peanut's food so his can safely sit there in a normal bowl and she can eat hers from her own personal Peanut safe bowl as and when she wants to.

BoxOfCats · 21/07/2022 10:41

The cost of the bowl is potentially a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of health issues for an overweight cat in its lifetime. Vet bills are not cheap!

coffeecupsandfairylights · 21/07/2022 11:23

Had a look at the microchip bowls, they are £130 each?? Don't think I can justify that much money on a food dish. And we would need two so would be £260...

That's nothing compared to a lifetime of health issues for an obese cat, though. Diabetes medication could easily cost you that in a month!

If they can't be separated for meals then that's the only way you're going to stop the behaviour. It's also not fair on your smaller cat if they don't get enough food and end up stressed around mealtimes.

LurpakAspirations · 21/07/2022 11:34

Um. We need a picture of your chubby kitten or we can't possibly give reliable advice !!

I had this issue with previous cats though. One was so food obsessed we had him checked over, while his foster brother was a grazer and light eater.

In the end, we adopted a protected meal time for the grazer. He was given smaller portions that matched the amount he'd eat and once he finished and walked off the bowl was lifted away to stop Greedy Guts getting to it. Used a combination of standing over them and offering the grazer small portions of food whenever he appeared.

Also helped that he preferred to graze on dry food which Greedy Guts didn't eat much of so we could leave it out for him to eat freely when he felt like it.

Feeding at opposite ends of the kitchen helped give him time to eat in peace too.

LurpakAspirations · 21/07/2022 11:34

P.s. you can probably get away with one microchip feeder if you can afford it, as you only need it for the slim kittens food bowl.

Original poster
ChatterMonkey · 21/07/2022 14:27

Good point about only needing one bowl.

Skinny cat doesnt seem too bothered and doesnt appear to be going hungry and is in normal weight range for her age. But need to tackle fat cat's eating.

Everything i read online says that its almost impossible to overfeed a kitten but somehow ive managed it 🙈

Do you think it'll level out a bit once they start going outside? Maybe burn off calories...?

OP posts:
coffeecupsandfairylights · 21/07/2022 14:47

Do you think it'll level out a bit once they start going outside? Maybe burn off calories...?

It depends on the cat. An increase in activity could well just lead to an increase in appetite Grin

BarbaraofSeville · 21/07/2022 14:54

An increase in activity/going outside could also lead to an increase in the amount of food available to them.....

In my experience cats rarely over-eat, but if anyone is going to, it will be a young male, especially if he's been neutered.

Some of them are just greedy fuckers. I foster rescue kittens and they generally eat from the same bowl by choice when starting on solid food, but you have to watch because the biggest boy will inevitably sit right in the middle of the bowl, so he doesn't have to share the food with his litter mates.

Supersimkin2 · 21/07/2022 14:57

Where pic fat kitten? Urgent. 😛

Fluffycloudland77 · 21/07/2022 15:22

They go Chonky to gangly sometimes though. He’s growing really fast so I’d carry on just separating them at food times. We always had to stand over our male Persian during meal times whereas asbo kitty was ok as an adult but a rapacious kitten whose bowl empty miaow could wake the dead. I got really fast at dispensing kitten food.

Toddlerteaplease · 21/07/2022 15:34

I think the microchip feeder was £70 when I bought them. Sold them on eBay so try there.

jalapenita · 21/07/2022 15:50

Don't know if it's much help but I have two male kittens both 1 year old now. We have one who's a real slow eater eater due to an overbite and the other who could eat us out of house and home in minutes. He was eating his bowl and shoving the other out the way to eat the rest of that one. What worked for us was watching them eat at meal time and a stern 'No!' And placing them back to their correct bowls. After a few weeks it worked and now he doesn't bother!

caringcarer · 21/07/2022 16:27

We have a greedy main coon boy Magic who could eat for England and a tiny 1/2 Bengal girl Maggie who barely eats but seems healthy. We keep Magic in lounge and feed Maggie a all amount of wet food in kitchen. After 15 mins we feed Magic in kitchen. He gobbles down his food 2 pouches and then sniffs around any of Maggie's half pouch. Magic gets fed twice a day plus kibble for lunch but Maggie eats 3 or 4 times a day but at most half a pouch at once. It works because I am at home all day to supervise but if I worked outside home it would be awkward.

Original poster
ChatterMonkey · 21/07/2022 18:41

Here's the cat tax!

Fat cat Peanut is the one at the back, skinny girl Pistachio is the one with the white.

Tbh hes not excessively fat, he is bigger than her but that's normal for a male. And she isn't under her recommended weight, just not as heavy as her brother. But want to catch it before it becomes a big issue with either her being underweight or him being overweight.

My kitten is fat...
OP posts:
Toddlerteaplease · 21/07/2022 18:52

He says he's not fat. He's a lithe house panther. It's muscle.

Fluffycloudland77 · 21/07/2022 19:02

I was on the toddler scales way before I was a toddler and the hv said I’d be a fat adult, my bmi is 17-18 now. Baby animals need calories. I wouldn’t be comfy dieting a kitten. If he’s a gannet for life you’ll find a way to manage that but to restrict a baby of calories is just cruel.