Clicky

How To Fatten Up A Cat: Keep Your Cat Healthier

how to fatten up a cat
(Last Updated On: December 15, 2022)

Like humans, the diet of your pet is also important as our daily meals. In case you don’t know how to build up a healthy diet routine, it’s very easy to lead to some behavioral problems like biting your hair, or developing scabs even a thin cat.

If you are the owner of a pet, keep in mind your responsibility to keep it healthy. With cats, when it comes to weight, this is more important to know when you need to limit their food and when you have to look for effective ways on how to fatten up a cat.

That’s because the cat is one of the pickiest pets. Sometimes, they have the tendency to decline what foods come with a bad smell.

Related Topic:Why does my cat bite my hair?

First of all, you, however, must determine whether or not your cat is at a healthy weight or overweight/ underweight. Don’t know how to do that, right? Let you ask the help of your veterinarian freely.

Your cat may be suggested to get a check of weight. In case the result of diagnosis is overweight, you will get some advice such as making its new diet, doing exercise more even checking its blood to be sure your cat doesn’t have any underlying complication.

Conversely, it is underweight, keep on the rest of this post.

What you will need to fatten up your cat

Foods, of course, are the most important and essential things for this task. But, what foods can give your cat the best effect depend on the matters of each that we will discuss in the next section. Below are a few options of food you should put on the top list of considerations:

  • Kitten food
  • Canned cat food
  • Human food

Step-by-step instruction

Make an appointment with your vet:

cat visits the vet

As I mentioned above, before deciding on fattening up your cat or not, meeting your vet to have a check of its weight is a must. Likelihood of obesity in cats is higher than dogs. So if you fatten up a cat with obesity, that’s the fastest way to shorten the lifespan of your cat.

Moreover, your veterinarian can not only check its weight and overall health to let you know the gravity of its health and how much weight your cat is needing to get back its health but also give you some effective advice on changing the new diet to your pet.

Care and pay attention to the daily activities of your cat:

What do you need to care about specifically? There are 2 most important you must pay attention inclusive of how much exercise your cat gets and what foods it consumes every day. Make sure feeding it at least 2 times a day but not allow having too much of foods. Unlike humans, the ways of the exercise of cat are different from our forms of walking or running.

In general, playing with it is the best choice. You can’t, however, do that regularly so just try to find out any ways to make it move more. Simply, put its bowl of food or its little boxes far away from the initial points where they usually stay, for example.

Drink Plenty of Water:

cat eating

Your lazy friend isn’t usually interested in this, so your task is to remind it to drink plenty of water. If you know the importance of water with the body humans, cats are also in need of being provided a certain amount of water every day. Another form of water is highly recommended that is wet cat food.

Know what and how much foods your cat need to consume:

To ensure your cat gain weight safely, you can let it try with calories first. It’s enough to add 25% of calories to the daily diet. If your cat is in hunger for a long time, never force it to consume foods as normal immediately. Everything needs to get a step-by-step process gradually.

Just ask your vet all essential information: the condition of your cat now, how much calories it should consume, what foods are the best and most effective to fatten up a cat. As I said easier, at least two but dividing the daily need of caloric into six small meals is still the best treatment. But, if your free time is limited, it is properly to raise the portion of each meal and lessen the number of meals per day.

Because of picky cats, to fatten them, you have to feed the healthy foods which they like. Below are some choices of food I mentioned in the section “what you will need to fatten up your cat”:

Kitten food can fatten up thin cats of all ages safely and healthily:

To make your cat fatter, the easiest way is to provide it foods with high contents of fat and protein. You can easily find out these in kitten food compared to foods for adult cats. Even, it contains a high level of protein and fat without grain fillers. Best of all, it should be grain-free kitten foods. You are able to consider the following options: Fromm and Orijen, Blue Buffalo, and EVO.

Canned food may be more enticing:

Canned food may be a great consideration for more calories to the diet of your cat. Although their amount of calories is not higher than dry foods, your cat is mesmerized by their smell and flavor to consume more. The options of canned liver, sardine, and duck are high in protein and fat while the canned corn, soy, and wheat products just contain junk ingredients which make your pet full in feeling without gaining weight.

tins of cat food

Human foods can be helpful:

Around your house, there will be available a few ideal additions to the diet of your cat. The source of protein and fat is high in scrambled eggs which don’t contain butter and seasonings. Good probiotics in plain yogurt are a helpful addition to the digestion of your cat.

Mackerel and canned sardines are the good sources of healthy protein and fat. It is only apparent if they are packed in water without salt in place of oil and other flavorings. Make some research online to be sure the diet of your cat balanced before feeding it completely human foods.

Pro Tips:

To deal your stubborn cat with foods, you can refer to the 2 following tips:

Play with your cat before feeding it:

Playing is also a form of exercise. So they may feel hungry after doing exercise with its lovely tassel toy or just a little bouncy ball.

Many of cats aren’t interest in canned foods, though, compared to dry cat foods, supermarket or lower-end canned foods are much better. The solution is to put a few pieces of dry food around to make stimulation for their hunger and activity. Then serve the portion of canned food one more time.

kitten playing with yarn

Use parmesan cheese or FortiFlora to stimulate the taste of your cat:

Sprinkling a bit parmesan cheese or FortiFlora on the top of the cat’s meal is an intensely enticing way to stimulate the taste of your cat. Adding 1/4 even less of a package is more than enough.

Conclusion:

Just like humans, cats have a lot of problems about health easily due to foods. Some are overweight while others are underweight. Thus, it’s extremely important to know their weight, the causes which harm their health and solutions: how to limit their foods and how to fatten up a cat. If your cat is underweight, your task is even harder because the cat is one of the pickiest pets.

Is my post what you are looking for your thin cat? Is it useful to your case? Let me know putting your ideas and questions in the comment box below.

Liz

I'm a self-employed blogger, life-long pet parent, and lover of dogs. I have always loved animals, especially puppies. So when my family got our first dog 15 years ago, it was love at first sight. We named her Sassy because she was so small, cute, and had a sassy personality! Once we got her home, I wanted to know everything about caring for her, so I researched online. Eventually, this led me to create the PUPPYFAQS website, where I write about nutrition, health, and care of puppies and the latest news in the world of puppies. In my spare time, I volunteer at my local shelter, which is run by volunteers who are passionate about helping homeless dogs find their forever homes. If I'm not working or volunteering for dogs, you can find me spending time with my family, friends, and my puppy. I have been writing professionally online since 2009. In addition to PUPPYFAQS, I also write for several other pet-related publications.

Recent Posts