# kitten food to "bulk up" 1 year old?



## Deedee (Jul 15, 2005)

If you had a very skinny 1 year old cat with the ribs and hips and all bones really just sticking out so far and hard and sharp against your hand if you pet her sides... that it's almost frightening... would you feed kitten food to try to get more nutrients in? She is a very light eater so I want to get the "most bang for my buck" so to speak.

How about as well as kitten food, some raw egg yokes stirred in? Or??? I never had such a skinny cat so I am GUESSING here, would appreciate any and all ideas for my skinny girl.

I purposefully post pics of her where she looks robust but trust me for every one pic where she looks nice I have 10 or 15 where she has the sadly lacking look of an underfed horse and I think it added to her getting a cold from her shots last week. She just needs to be a bit more robust I think.


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

> If you had a very skinny 1 year old cat with the ribs and hips and all bones really just sticking out so far and hard and sharp against your hand if you pet her sides...


I would make every effort to find out why this cat is so skinny. 
Cats (even very young cats including few week old kittens) that are extremely thin usually have an underlying health problem.
It can be a digestive problem, it can be malabsorption caused by intestinal inflammation, kidney disease, liver disease, or something else. 
I would also ask myself whether this kitty is really eating enough. 

What are you feeding and when did this kitty have a complete health check including detailed bloodwork (complete chemistry profile and CBC)?
Also, can you be absolutely sure that she doesn't have an infectious disease? The safe thing would be to retest for FeLV and FIV while you are doing all the other bloodwork.

I really feel you should take her in for a very thorough exam to find out what her health status is.
You should also take a very close look at the stools. There may be an overlooked clue in them.

If I were in your situation I would wait with feeding egg yolks and other items until after the vet visit. (You need to find out whether high-fat food is really safe for this kitty.)


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

Let me ask you one more question. How does her breath smell?


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

I love kitten food! I love kitten food! I love kitten food!

I always think kitten food is a "better bang for the buck" because it is nutrient dense and it is usually only slightly more expensive than adult food.


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## SLICK (Apr 2, 2005)

Meowmie, why do you ask the breath smell, would that indicate something? just curious for future diagnosis.


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## Ashdyre (Oct 4, 2004)

Yeah, i'm curious abou the breath thing too. my cats breath always smell..

Dee Dee... i'm with you. Mioux is a year old and only 8 pounds... she looks about 5 pounds though. she is SO tiny, not as tiny as you are describing yours though. I agree to go see you vet about the problem, but i'd think that kitten food would be ok for now.

And shengmei... is it ok to feed adult cats kitten food all the time? Isn't that a good way to make your cat too fat? Just curious...


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## Deedee (Jul 15, 2005)

Thanks shengmei. I was thinking I should just try a little and make sure her stools don't go loose or anything due to any extra richness, yeah?

Meowmie (and anyone else who recognizes themselves in this - not picking on Meowmie at all here) a nicer way to get your point across would be something like "IF you haven't already ruled out a medical reason you might want to bring to your vets attention her breath because (state reason) or this, that or the other but otherwise my personal experience has been... yada yada."

There was absolutely no reason to assume medical reasons weren't already ruled out. A friendly and growing forum is fostered by people sharing their personal anecdotal experiences with each other. If you've never fed a skinny cat kitten food, then the question really wasn't directed at you and the question wasn't seeking advice on whether she should see a vet, if I'd wanted advice on that, I would have asked that. Your response was probably meant to be helpful but it wasn't particularly informative and the negative assumption just made it come across as unfriendly to be honest.

I can understand feelings of frustration with people who ask advice and then refuse to follow any of it, including taking their cats to a vet, but let's not let this frustration take over to the point of making negative assumptions and running newbies off. That would be a sad thing to happen to such a nice forum. What is the point of community forums afterall? I think sharing personal stories and experiences works best.

Tashi is 3.3kg and she looks lighter than she is but she's been in her short life abandoned, put in a shelter where she was very unhappy, operated on and then had a cold from her vaccine while adjusting to a new home, so if her appetite suffered a little during all of that, I wouldn't be too surprised!


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## emma_pen (Nov 2, 2004)

I would probably just stick with adult food, regularly and routinely, and you'll find she'll gradually put on weight. You don't want her to put on weight too quickly, or start to get overweight. Or hyper. :lol:


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

Slick asked


> Meowmie, why do you ask the breath smell, would that indicate something? just curious for future diagnosis


.

Okay. Young cats including kittens can have bad breath for two reasons. The most common reason is a digestive problem. The food may simply not agree with the cat and the cat's digestive system is struggling while it is trying to digest and move the food through the cat's body. 
Lack of certain digestive enzymes and lack of friendly bacteria can be involved in this type of bad breath. 

The other reason, and thank God the less common one, can be a systemic illness such as feline leukemia or FIV.
Strong bad breath and/or gingivitis in a very young cat is always a serious warning sign that must be followed up on. 

In older cats bad breath can be caused by a digestive problem, neglected teeth and gums, and sometimes liver or kidney disease. 

Gum disease and other dental problems including oral cancer can also cause drooling in cats.

One more note on the subject. In older cats neglected oral health can lead to liver, kidney and heart disease. What happens is that toxins released by bacteria under the gumline are absorbed by the bloodstream and carried to vital organs. 
So keeping the teeth clean and the gums healthy is very, very important.


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## Deedee (Jul 15, 2005)

Thanks for all the additional info Meowmie.

My overly descriptive wording might have contributed to the reactionary reply... and I realize I shouldn't preach about how to run a forum. If people wanted preaching, they'd go to church right? I just wanted this forum to be nice so I could stay a while but maybe it's not about nice cuz it's too busy crusading to save lives. I can understand that. Being new, maybe I misunderstood the focus or something but I doubt I have a right to be calling any kettles black either way. It was just food for thought but if it's not welcome then I'm sorry I said anything.


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

Deedee, 



> Meowmie (and anyone else who recognizes themselves in this - not picking on Meowmie at all here) a nicer way to get your point across would be something like "IF you haven't already ruled out a medical reason you might want to bring to your vets attention her breath because (state reason) or this, that or the other but otherwise my personal experience has been... yada yada."
> 
> There was absolutely no reason to assume medical reasons weren't already ruled out


Okay, number one. You gave absolutely NO information whatsoever about your cat's health status, diagnostic work in connection with the condition and diet. So a response to a statement such as 



> If you had a very skinny 1 year old cat with the ribs and hips and all bones really just sticking out so far and hard and sharp against your hand if you pet her sides...


has to start with a back to square one basic questions/information approach if one is really trying to help someone.

We don't know the health history of your cat. 
Also, based on the experiences of many other owners, if this is a new home for your cat, you need to know that young cats can go to a new home with very serious, even fatal undiagnosed health problems. 

Another thing. Digestive problems normally don't show up in bloodwork results, so even if bloodwork results look perfectly all right, a cat can still have very serious, even potentially fatal digestive problems. 

In my first response I didn't even mention parasites. I should have.

I stand by every word I posted for you. There is no nicer way to write what I did, which was:



> I would make every effort to find out why this cat is so skinny.
> Cats (even very young cats including few week old kittens) that are extremely thin usually have an underlying health problem.
> It can be a digestive problem, it can be malabsorption caused by intestinal inflammation, kidney disease, liver disease, or something else.
> I would also ask myself whether this kitty is really eating enough.
> ...


And:



> Let me ask you one more question. How does her breath smell?


Trust me when I tell you that the questions I asked you and the brief explanations I added come from much, much more than personal experience. However, personal experience makes me want to be even more cautious when it comes to 


> a very skinny 1 year old cat with the ribs and hips and all bones really just sticking out so far and hard and sharp against your hand


It is beyond me why you would find a thorough response from another poster offensive. 



> There was absolutely no reason to assume medical reasons weren't already ruled out


On the other hand, there was absolutely no reason to assume medical reasons WERE ruled out. You gave NO information about anything.



> I think sharing personal stories and experiences works best.


Okay, if that's what you want. Last year just before Christmas a young mother with very young children (and a husband) lost the family cat to a devastating sudden illness. The whole family was heartbroken. Being the holiday season and all, everyone she talked to advised her to go out and get a kitten from a shelter. It would brighten up their holiday.
So she and the children visited a few shelters and eventually took home an adorable kitten. During the next few days everything seemed okay, the kids were thrilled, except for one thing. The breath of this kitten was bad enough to knock a person off his feet. So she started wondering about this terrible, terrible breath. I told her it might just be a digestive problem, but a vet visit was definitely in order. They went to the vet and the news was devastating. Feline leukemia. It turned out that the shelter the kitten came from didn't test for infectious diseases and so this family took home an untested, sick cat. According to the vet the kitten was very, very sick, so sick in fact that it had to be put to sleep immediately. The holiday season wasn't even over yet and this family had to go through the heartbreak of losing another cat.

You notice I didn't bring up this story when I first responded to your question. I just asked you how your cat's breath smells in general (because it can be a clue to a health problem.) And from personal experience I know it can just be the indication of a digestive problem that may not be too difficult to remedy. 
In the case of a very skinny cat, addressing the digestive problem can be enough to make it possible for the cat to start gaining weight.
However, the need for ruling out all possible underlying health problems cannot be stressed strongly enough.


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

Something that I have to add.
I had about ten interruptions and very little time when I wrote the above post to you. So it's not a well-organized post. But put together with my first post to you it should give you an idea what I was trying to say.
Also, in the story of the kitten, bad breath was not the point. The possibility of undiagnosed illness was what I was trying to illustrate.


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

Ashdyre said:


> And shengmei... is it ok to feed adult cats kitten food all the time? Isn't that a good way to make your cat too fat? Just curious...


I like to error on the side of excess rather than sparse. In my opinion (and my opinion only, I am pretty sure many people would disagree) it is better to give cats too much nutrients rather than too little nutrients.

Cats rarely get hurt by too much nutrients. It would not hurt them. I use Nutro food to bulk up my two boys. It works very, very well. Once she get to a normal weight range you can switch her back to adult food.

I also like kitten food very much because the extra fat make my boys shiny. Shiny is good. Even grocery store kitten food is reasonably decent.

You are free feeding her, right ?


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## micp879 (Mar 22, 2005)

DeeDee,
Meowmie is actually one of the more knowledgeable people on this forum. She can also often come up with web addresses of articles addressing certain problems. I agree her postings can come across over bearing and condescending on some occasions, but I encourage you to look past that and use her knowledge to your cats advantage. Please keep us updated on how your little one does. Take care.


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

She had cats for more than three decades.

I have experience bulking up one year old with kitten food (my boys are both one year old). I can say with confidence that it works well.


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## AddFran (Jul 10, 2004)

I have to agree with Meowmie's suggestions and questioning. My first reaction would have been to ask if a thorough work up has been done by your vet to rule out any health problems. If the little kitty checked out well, I'd just chalk it up to having a kitty on the smaller side. Also, at 1 year old, this one has plenty of time to bulk up. My Franny was 5lbs until she was almost 2 right before her 2nd birthday she started to gain and by the time she was about 2 1/2 she hit about 8 lbs. Still not a huge cat but a significant increase in size between years 1 and 2.

DeeDee, pardon my ignorance here, but....what does 3.3k convert to in lbs??

In regards to the kitten food at this stage....it's been a while since i've dabbled in my research but i believe that feeding kitten food consistently COULD result in an abundance of unneeded vitamins, etc. and that may not necessarily be a good thing. I think Dr. Jean used to recommend the switch after about 6 months if I am not mistaken. Gosh it's been a while and I have kinda lost my niche after being out of the loop for so long, so correct me if i am wrong here guys. 

I would suggest a high quality food for all life stages and just keep an eye on your cats weight...no one knows your cat better than you do.


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## Meowmie (Jun 4, 2005)

AddFran, 

hi, so nice to see you!

Conversion:

1 kg = 2.20 lbs (exactly 2.2046226)

3.3 kg = 7.27 lbs (exactly 7.2752546) 



> If you had a very skinny 1 year old cat with the *ribs and hips and all bones really just sticking out so far and hard and sharp *against your hand if you pet her sides


_Based on this description_ this cat is seriously underweight, beyond what we could call naturally skinny. I'm wondering whether - based on bone structure - normal, healthy weight would be somewhere around 10 or 11 lbs (or around 5 kg) for this kitty.


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## vanillasugar (Nov 11, 2004)

Deedee said:


> Thanks for all the additional info Meowmie.
> 
> My overly descriptive wording might have contributed to the reactionary reply... and I realize I shouldn't preach about how to run a forum. If people wanted preaching, they'd go to church right? I just wanted this forum to be nice so I could stay a while but maybe it's not about nice cuz it's too busy crusading to save lives. I can understand that. Being new, maybe I misunderstood the focus or something but I doubt I have a right to be calling any kettles black either way. It was just food for thought but if it's not welcome then I'm sorry I said anything.


DeeDee I'm sorry you've been given the impression that this forum is not nice  Meowmie may have come across rather strong, but please dont take that as an impression of the forum as a whole. Dont let one member turn you away. 

I also took in a VERY skinny cat last September. She was grossly underweight due to a stint on the streets that didn't treat her kindly. Under advice of the vet, I did feed her kitten food for a few months, which seemed to help round her edges a bit. She's about 5 years old and slightly under a perfect weight. (I think she should be at least 8 lbs, she's only 7.5 but it could be that I come from a past where my parents cats are overweight and i'm not used to having a healthy cat! lol)

If you've seen a vet already, they would know her history. I would phone them and ask if kitten food would be beneficial to her. But I can't see how it could be bad. 

Good luck!


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## roseeden (May 18, 2005)

AddFran said:


> In regards to the kitten food at this stage....it's been a while since i've dabbled in my research but i believe that feeding kitten food consistently COULD result in an abundance of unneeded vitamins, etc. and that may not necessarily be a good thing.


Cats, being carnivores, possess very strong ability for the body to flush out unwanted nutrients. I would not worry about it. It is entirely possible to overdose on vitamins but usually it is triggered by kidney problems.


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## AddFran (Jul 10, 2004)

Meowmie said:


> AddFran,
> 
> hi, so nice to see you!
> 
> ...


Agreed! If this cat is about 7lbs and is that bonely, I'd assume healthy weight would be 10lbs or so as well. I missed the description somewhere in the post that talked about this kitty being so boney. I'm skimming a lot of these posts since i'm playing catch up at the moment from a few months off the forum....sorry about that!


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## Ianthe (Jun 7, 2004)

shengmei said:


> AddFran said:
> 
> 
> > In regards to the kitten food at this stage....it's been a while since i've dabbled in my research but i believe that feeding kitten food consistently COULD result in an abundance of unneeded vitamins, etc. and that may not necessarily be a good thing.
> ...


It may be entirely possible for them to flush out extra vitamins, etc., bt they cannot flush out excess fat. The extra nutrients that are in kitten food are great, but the extra fat is not. It may be great for bulkng up an underweight cat (actually I think its a great idea), but it is likely to cause obesity in a normal-weight cat.


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## nanook (Jun 12, 2005)

Hi Deedee, One thing that I don't think has been asked is what are you feeding your cat now? I also would't add kitten food for a long period of time unless you just use it as a short term bribe to get them more interested in food. Baby food can also help for that. But again only for a short time. As far egg yolks they can be a good supplement but not all the time and I doubt they'd help put on mich weight. As long as any underlying health issues are rules out the only thing I can think is to make sue they are on high quality diet and they're absorbing it well. i.e. no food allergies.
As far as Meowmie goes, I have to say I had the same reaction reading your post. Maybe it would have helped if you had given more backgrownd. I don't think it came across unfriendly at all. Based on the info given I think she asked perfectly appropriate questions. I haven't been here long either but I know there are people who wouldn't have ruled out health problems first and the questions she asked would have been extremely helpful I think it's important to remember that we're all here for the same reason and if someone comes accross more blunt than you might like they're only trying to help and have the best intentions. So maybe listen to what they say and not the way they say it. 
Anyway, I hope you can get some weight on your kitty. I wish I had some better suggestions but I've always had the opposite problem with my guys!


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