Overweight from catching his own food!

[Jellyjellyonaplate]

Has anyone else's cat ever got overweight from catching his own dinner? Ours regularly catches mice and voles eats them. And barely touches the food we give him. The vet just told us he's getting too fat....! Dunno what we can do about that!

Put a bell on his collar?

There’s not much you can do, really - it’s one of the risks of having an outdoor cat.

Ozempic is currently being trialed for cats and may be coming in 2027. Failing that what about a bell on his collar? Although even safety collars aren’t fully safe so maybe not the best idea… so not a lot you can do really.

He's got a bell already... It's not doing much though. I think he looks fluffy and healthy!

🤣Ozempic for cats is the only answer then!

Are you sure he’s not a Six Dinner Sid being fed by multiple households?

Give him less food. Dont let him out during dawn and dusk.

Brilliant way of putting it I was just going to ask the same.

He did used to eat our neighbours food but they've stopped leaving it out now. He is pretty friendly so wouldn't be surprised if that's why

He must be fit if he is out and about hunting so successfully so I don't think you should be too concerned. You could change the food you give him at home to a low-calorie food designed for overweight cats. He might lose some weight naturally over winter as all the small rodents will be keeping warm in their nests.

This. We had to get messages out on the neighbour group to stop this happening. Fortunately the neighbours do seem to have 'complied'.

Are you sure? My DCs are still bringing them in 😔

Same - we've had three mice and a rat in the last week!

It's not technically winter yet, though it feels like it. Winter starts at the winter solstice.

It's the rain. It's disturbed the nests. Arthur always brings in multiple mice after heavy rain.

Yeah. Your cat is definitely a six dinner Sid. Arthur is an outdoor cat, eats lots of mice and has three meals a day here. He's not overweight at all. He's 5 kg of muscle!!

One of my cats is a big porkster. Both cats are terrific hunters. Bells not made much difference.

I think it's far more likely he's eating elsewhere. Not much you can do unfortunately, unless you find where it is! Try a tracking device?

You need to get him a bigger bell, something like this.

1. It will be louder
2. The weight will slow him down

My cat is fat because she goes to all the old people's retirement bungalows for God knows what. She only has 2 pouches at home a day. Can't do much about it other than keep them in and I'm 100% sure she'd prefer to die fat and happy than skinny and enclosed 🤣

I agree with pps saying he’s a Six dinner Sid. If he’s catching and eating small animals that wouldn’t make him overweight but bad cat food will. The neighbours might assume he’s a stray and put food out or they might be putting food out for foxes and hedgehogs which he finds and eats. I don’t want to assume that you don’t feed him properly but all the vets I’ve known have told me that cheaper cat foods are the equivalent of eating fast food burgers every day, full of sugars and barely any protein. Ask your vet what food they recommend and try that. You don’t say if he’s neutered or not, but toms do tend to wander more and the exercise would make him muscley not fat. It sounds to me as though someone is letting him in, feeding him and he’s not getting a lot of exercise. The rodent killing is probably because he’s not getting what he needs from his diet. Make sure he is wormed and flea’d (sorry, don’t want to state the obvious but this is important if he’s killing and eating prey).

edit: one of my previous cats was overweight and died of a heart attack because someone else was feeding him as well. He and his brother had the right quantities of food at home but little brother never roamed from the garden so I could see straight away that someone was feeding the other.