ROYAL CANIN® Feline Urinary S/O Moderate Calorie Adult Cat Food

Some cats can have large appetites and will eat beyond what they should. If your cat is gaining weight and enjoys food then it is unlikely there is anything medically wrong. I recommend following the feeding guidelines on the packaging to ensure they maintain a good weight. I have pasted these below:

Dry Feeding

Mixed Feeding

If you are feeding 1 scoop of dry and 1 can of wet then you are actually feeding for a 17.6lb (8kg) cat, I would advise aiming to give 3/4 of a cup of dry and 1 can of wet. You may need to transition this slowly over a few weeks though as a cats do not respond to sudden diet changes very well.

If you need any more information please email [email protected] and we would be happy to advise further.

Weight loss in cats is an involved topic. essentially you simply need to be less generous and not allow them to eat so much. Fat does not appear from mid air, it is merely an energy store built up from eating excess food. The correct amount of food to eat is always and very simply, the amount of food which results in the correct body weight. Eat more and you get fat, eat less and you get thin. There is no mystery to it. The complication is that cats do not like being kept short of food and most people let them "graze" to their hearts content. If the food is nice, they over-eat. It is more comlicated than that because some foods encourage over-eating whereas others produce a feeling of "fullness" (satiety) sooner. But then habits and learned behaviour and many other things affect it. The principle remains the same though - if you feed less your cats will lose weight. I would be tempted to put all your cats on a high protein, low carbohydrate, wet diet with extra water added to it. This would be a different tack from what your vet has suggested, so it would be best to check with your vet before changing. I would say however that dried diets are very much associated with bladder problems and obesity in cats. Wet diets (especially if you add extra water to them to make the fluid intake high) are better.. This results in producing more dilute urine which often cures bladder problems if you can achieve it.

High moisture, low carbohydrate, high protein diets tend to produce thinner cats without bladder problems. (Prior to the 1970s when dried diets came in, cats were much thinner and did not get the same bladder problems. They were fed on tinned and fresh foods which were less convenient but did have some advantages. I would stay with your current Royal Canin diet but would only use only the pouches or canned varieties. I would also add extra water to make them a bit sloppy. You might find this puts them off their food a bit and they eat less. That could be a perfect result and make them lose a bit of weight. However you need to monitor and adjust things as you go on, which I cannot help with like this. My only other initial comment would be that it is bad for an obese cat to rapidly lose weight. It needs to be gradual and continued. Less food results in weight loss and ideally you measure out the daily allowance to control this, but with a group of cats it is difficult unless you feed them all separately.