# not a big eater



## Mar (Jun 22, 2013)

my kitten is just not a big eater. food does not entice her. for the first week i let her free-feed to get a gage of how into food she is, but she just eats about 4 times a day, and that's little bits. about 20-25 pieces can do her good all day.

i am starting to regulate her food to just twice or three times a day in hopes that it encourages her to eat all her food. i am feeding her a high protein diet which fills her up faster, but i would imagine kittens eat more than an average of 6 pieces a meal!

is there something wrong? should i be worried or is it just her kitten-sized stomach? is there any way i can get her interested in food?

she eats wet and dry, but because of her finicky habits she won't even eat the entire bit of dry food i am giving her, so i am forced to give her dry because she just doesn't eat all of it! ((

any help you could give me would be great.


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## Mar (Jun 22, 2013)

she won't eat all the WET food i give her. sorry. and i just realized she really, really REALLY likes the nature's variety instinct raw medallions.


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## molldee (May 19, 2013)

Keep track of her weight, so you can see if she's losing weight or not. If she is, I would be worried, but if she isn't maybe she's just a small eater.


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## Mar (Jun 22, 2013)

we just came back from the vets and she is a very healthy weight. she's 3.2 pounds at 11 weeks, which is right on. maybe she is a small eater...


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## wallycat (Nov 10, 2012)

Cats naturally do not eat huge amounts of food in one sitting. People are used to seeing cats gorge themselves when they give them dry because the high carbs forces them to eat more than they normally do.
A good quality canned food with no gunk in it is what you should strive for and as someone said, monitor the weight. Kittens will have growth spurts and eat a bit more, then kind of level out, then eat more again---like people.
I have a female cat that never ate a lot, but she is one long, lean kitty! She manages to regulate the dry intake. I wish I had known and never started them on it, but they are 6 and 8 and I didn't know better.


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## Mar (Jun 22, 2013)

thanks so much, wally!

my vet also did not recommend a raw diet, saying that in the wild cats would get grains and carbs from their kill anyway. i was a bit confused by this, since so many here religiously feed their cats raw.

also, why are so many against science diet? they gave me a sample bag and all the reviews i have written say it's great. sure, the ingredients are not awesome but...?


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## Wannabe Catlady (Aug 6, 2012)

Just my tidbit here, in the wild, cats get almost no veggies/grains. They rarely eat the stomach contents of their prey, and if they do, it's what they eat last. And, the amount is minuscule compared to the meat content. 

Cats need meat. Period. Everything else is a gimmick by large pet food companies who market it by indoctrinating vets by teaching their only courses on nutrition. 

And holy crap I sound like a crazy conspiracy nutcase. But please feel free to do your own research. 

I reccomend starting on catinfo.org. 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Justteri1000 (May 27, 2013)

*Skinny Pooter and "big boned" Max*

Pooter had been poisoned when I found him as a kitten. As a result he suffered a little injury to his entire gastrointestinal tract (throat, stomach, intestines). He has always been a light eater and the vets surmised that his taste buds may have also been affected. He is very tall, long and thin. I have invested a lot of worry about his disinterest in food and am constantly trying to entice him to eat. 

Max has always been a voracious eater and his myriad of health problems have had a strong relationship to his diet (both in the cause and in the solution). He is stocky (an improvement over portly), diet controlled diabetic and he is never fully satisfied with the amount of food, but I have to be careful with him. About 90% of the veterinary care over the last 13 years has been on behalf of Max.

So, it was a bit of a surprise when after seeing only Max for so long, I finally brought Pooter in to see my (Max's) vet that he said, "Now THAT cat is a perfect weight!". The attached picture is a really good side-by-side comparison.

I think it is probably the same as it is for humans, that a little on the lighter size as opposed to heavier is preferable.


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## Mar (Jun 22, 2013)

that's good info!

and as far as the raw diet, i totally hear you. i'd much rather feed her the nature's variety. i just found it odd that a vet with nutrition skill advised me away from it...


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## wallycat (Nov 10, 2012)

LOL, vets probably know about as much about pet nutrition as MDs do for humans (I'm a dietitian). 
MOST are clueless.


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## Merlin_Guinevere (Sep 2, 2012)

Sometimes my smallest cat (Emmy--3 pounds smaller than the other but almost exactly the same age and is 1 1/2 years old) hardly eats anything. She goes to her bowl, but literally seems to eat 2 bites of food before she is off again. She is really healthy though. She is not bony (she is skinny, but you can see her muscles, not her bones), she is very active (not lethargic), and is an overall energetic and happy kitty. I don't think you need to worry too much if your cat is clearly healthy. So many people overfeed their cats, and perhaps your kitty is just really good at regulating its own intake.


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