My cat is always hungry!!!

Lauragoesmad

My two year old cat, Jess is constantly hungry even though we feed her regularly. She even steals things out of the bin and eats tomatoes, potato skins, red pepper, anything thats edible. She even ate some of the chocolate Christmas decorations off the tree at Christmas. Whats up with her?
She plays in the garden most of the day and comes in every hour or so for a nosey. If we gave her food whenever she wanted it, she'd be about 6 stone!!!
Help!!

MargeS

worms?

Lauragoesmad

She got her last worming treatment about 4 weeks ago.
I found her in a bush when she was 4 weeks and she was really malnourished. I'm starting to think shes just greedy. Its getting rediculous. She even tries to eat my dogs food, not that my dog will let her.

lubie76

Don't worry Laura, I have had cats like that and I think they are just hungry because they are so active. Indoor cats tend not to be as big eaters because they aren't using up as much energy. Give him plenty of dry food and water in the hope he will stay away from the bin.

vegas elvis

I reckon it comes from having to live rough for any lenght of time as kittens Laura - We've had a few that we took in after living rough who will always be complete savages when it comes to food including a kitten now who was only a couple of weeks when we found her freezing in a bush........ We have a big teddy bear as well, who we know lived rough for a few months but wasn't reared that way, who only eats his food quickly to avoid having to protect it from the kitten.

Lauragoesmad

Thanks for the advice. She is out playing about 10 or 12 hours a day with my neighbour's cat so maybe she does need all the food I give her. I feel mad guilty now!

florindo1973

i think, i got my answer too, my one year old cat is absolutely greedy for food, and doesnt let me do anything till he gets fed, sometimes make me kill him( not really), but hes all time hungry

planetX

It's youth! my cats were like this till around 3 years of age. then you have to start watching how much you feed them as they start to put on weight.

Dardania

vegas elvis wrote: »

I reckon it comes from having to live rough for any lenght of time as kittens Laura - We've had a few that we took in after living rough who will always be complete savages when it comes to food including a kitten now who was only a couple of weeks when we found her freezing in a bush........ We have a big teddy bear as well, who we know lived rough for a few months but wasn't reared that way, who only eats his food quickly to avoid having to protect it from the kitten.

love to hear that kind of rescue :-)

Our kitten is 4 months old, was from a feral mother/upbringing, and will also rob food at any opportunity - we have to put her in the other room when having breakfast / dinner - sounds pretty normal

gossipgal08

Perhaps Worm meds are not strong enought. Also if outdoor could have picked them up again. Trip to vets perhaps, the vet will also suggest the best food to give them to fill them. Cant do anything bout the robbing from bins

The Sweeper

What does she eat? (And I don't mean 'everything' - e.g. is she a dry food eater?) If she eats a supermarket brand of kibble, it could be the following.

Some cats don't do well on supermarket brand kibbles. The amount of carbohydrate in the kibble, and the spray coating that the manufacturers put on kibble, combines to do a number of things. First, the cat hoovers their food. They become kibble maniacs, food obsessed and seriously craving kibble. They'll howl and carry on for kibble.

When they get a bowl, they hoover it. Nomnomnomnomnomnom aaaaaaand, gone. They swallow pieces without chewing. The bowl's finished and the cat's howling for more food virtually before the kibble they've eaten has even hit their stomach.

And they get fat. Practically nobody can stick to the precise measurements on the kibble packet - it's like breakfast cereal. When's the last time you measured out an actual adult serving of breakfast cereal? With milk it usually comes about one-third of the way up the cereal bowl - you know, the one you usually FILL TO THE TOP.

It's the same with kibble. You feed your cat too much, the carbohydrate does odd things to their blood sugar level, and they get FAT.

If you don't feed her supermarket kibble, there are a number of things to look out for.

First, chocolate and the 'nightshade vegetables' e.g. onions, garlic and capsicum (red pepper) are bad for cats. Too much can actually poison the cat, so there's a serious health reason for you to have to sort out this food theft.

Worms or another parasitic infection - don't use supermarket wormers, they're not strong enough. I cannot recommend Milbemax highly enough as a broad-spectrum wormer that is easy to administer to a cat (the tablets are the size of an antihistamine for a person and easily halved and hidden in food for even the most difficult cats to pill). You should be able to get Milbemax from your vet or online at online pet stores.

Cats don't have the taste receptors that people do, so they're not so driven by certain flavours. Their sense of smell affects their eating a lot - hence sick cats go off their food, and cheap-ass food manufacturers have started making everything with fish in it, because it smells strong and the buyer's cat is virtually guaranteed to eat it. Research into cats and what drives them to eat certain things has shown that cats can detect the most peculiar things in food - amino acids, minerals, so on. A cat's system is more finely balanced than other animals. They're obligate carnivores - they will actually sicken and die without the vitamins, minerals and amino acids in meat. (Cats have to have taurine - taurine is added to all AAFCO-approved catfoods - everything on the shelves in the supermarket is AAFCO-approved. Cats cannot synthesise vitamin E themselves from a source of it, they have to get it from their food - so they have to get it from liver. There are other examples like that.)

The point of this is that the cat may be driven to odd foods as a sign of a deficiency. It's unlikely in a young cat, yes, but have a look at what you're feeding her and figure out if it's likely to be an 'approved' cat diet - the afters of your daily dinner plus a cup of supermarket kibble a day isn't a greatly balanced diet for a cat.

The other thing to watch for is pica - the eating of non-food items as food. If you see her go for cloth or cardboard of any kind, she needs to go to the vet.

If she is a kibble fed cat, consider feeding her twice a day, not free-feeding her, and cutting the kibble down to one meal a day, or one meal every second day. For the other meals, switch to a canned catfood. Buy the best quality you can afford, with meat as the first ingredient and preferably the first two ingredients. Canned catfood isn't great for keeping her teeth clean, so consider switching to raw meat for other meals. A raw chicken neck is an excellent cat meal, it provides protein, calcium (raw necks have a line of tiny vertebrae from the neck - it's bone that won't splinter and the cat can digest it) and the act of chewing it cleans the teeth. Also look at strips of cheap cuts of meat - strips or chunks of casserole or stewing beef or beef shin, for instance. Something large enough that the cat HAS to chew it.

I find cats who eat a measure of raw food for at least one meal a day, and have commercial tinned food for their other meal, then maybe raw again for breakfast day two, and kibble for dinner day two, tend to be more satisfied with their food; the kibble craving reduces, they're more hydrated, pester you less for food during the day, and their weight is better - sleek without the exaggerated paunchy fat-pad they can get from eating kibble. This feeding regime - kibble once a day, once every second day, or gone completely and only as a treat - also allows you to upgrade to a better quality kibble than the supermarket brands, one with meat products as the first ingredients, and far fewer cereal fillers.

I have a 6kg tabby who would contentedly eat three times the recommended serving of kibble in a day. When he gets too much of it, he starts to refuse other food and howl for kibble and he turns into, to use a technical term, a fat bastard. I had to do a bit of a fix on the cats' feeding the other day and I changed them to all raw for two or three days. Frank won't starve himself and by the end of day two he was tucking into his raw meal.

mymo

I have a cat that is always hungry too, I mix the food up as sweeper said, and it seems to help.
Mine was a rescue and I'm pretty sure me was fed bread and milk before he came to us, 'cos he goes mad trying to get both.
He is quite slim and very active(spends a lot of time stalking and chasing the dogs) so I'm not worried at the moment that he'll get fat, maybe as he ages (he's between 3 and 5 the vet thinks) this will change.
I know he eats so much because he's so active because he has a fractured hip at the moment and is on cage rest and pain meds, he's not eating much at all but he's the same shape as always.
Also most of the supermarket foods are just crap, if I fed that he'd cost me a fortune, so I have a good brand dry food, some wet food from zooplus(you can see the ingredients so you know what you're getting) and some raw.
Mince and stewing beef chunks are his fav. I also give chicken wings and while I can't get full chicken necks, I do get bits of them from the butcher. I don't buy the meat just for the cats, I just get a little extra.
The raw seems to fill him up for longer.
I have an older cat who seems to live on love alone, he'll eat a small bit of dry, and wet and mince when he gets it, but seems to survive on cuddles mostly.:D He sleeps much more than the other cat too, less active less food.

MsFifers

Does your cat have access to grass? My cats used to steal scraps when they were indoor only, but when I got a pot of grass for them to chew on they stopped that. I think they need the roughage to help with the hair they swallow when grooming.