19 ms·
> The researchers found that most cats preferred and ate more of the foods sprayed with their attractants, particularly the sprays with proteins that were furth
by bell-cot 2y ago
> The researchers found that most cats preferred and ate more of the foods sprayed with their attractants, particularly the sprays with proteins that were further broken-down by the enzymes and contained more free amino acids.
Even-yummier premium cat food would probably sell quite well.
OTOH: Of the cat owners I've known, quite a few have described their cats as overweight - to degrees which were of concern for their cats' health. But unless some major health problem was the root cause, I can't recall a single cat being described an unhealthily underweight.
- ajb 2y agoSome cats will self regulate intake to maintain a healthy weight, but a large fraction will not. If your cat is one of these then you need to regulate it's intake. But I think it's also a bad idea to reduce abruptly.
- kortilla 2y ago> But I think it's also a bad idea to reduce abruptly. Why? That’s usually the advice from vets. Immediately take away free feeding and switch to portions that result in a calorie deficit until they get to a healthy weight.
- userid1303 2y agoReducing a cat's caloric intake too quickly will result in hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver). This only takes days and is very likely to result in death without immediate veterinary intervention.
- doublepg23 2y agoDo you have a source for this, even Wikipedia doesn’t seem to name a cause for this disease.
- jprete 2y agoNot the GP but https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/liver-disease-fatty-liver-syndrome-in-cats https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/liver-disease-fatty-l... I have never personally heard that a cat could get fatty liver disease from undereating, but I have heard it's a risk if they don't eat anything all for 24 hours.
- b112 2y agoIn greater than 90% of cats, an underlying disease has caused the inappetence. These may include inflammatory bowel disease, other types of liver disease, cancer, pancreatitis, anxiety, respiratory disease and diabetes mellitus. So in 90% of these cases, cats were very ill with some other dosease, causing them to forgo food, and this additional symptom sets in. It should be noted: * the other 10% could be due to unidentified other issues * this has nothing to do with withholding food, but with cats purposefully not eating food
- b112 2y agoSo cats die in the wild, if they cannot catch mice for a few days? No mammal I know of dies due to food interruptions of a mere few days. This sounds wildly inaccurate.
- jaggederest 2y agoCats hunt 20-50 times a day, with approximately a 50% success rate. No cat in an environment with any available prey goes more than a few hours without eating something. They're not like lions or other climax predators, who eat much less regularly.
- b112 2y agoThere are droughts, there are dry seasons and yes for wild cats, and cat ancestors too. Cats can go weeks without food and manage to survive, and going days during tough times is a certainty.
- jaggederest 2y agoThey'd almost never go from a full diet back to zero instantly though. If you reduce their intake over time, even a few days, they don't develop liver issues.
- ajb 2y agoThey usually won't be starting from obese though.
- jprete 2y agoI agree with the sibling comment about small cats hunting very very frequently, and I'd also add that animals cache food for exactly the reason of avoiding starvation. Small mammals also have quicker metabolisms, and their surface-to-volume ratio is worse than a large mammal so they need a steadier supply of food just to maintain their body temperature. Plenty of mammals also hibernate, and they have to fatten up ahead of time to survive it.
- 2y ago
- kortilla 2y agoDeficit doesn’t mean 0 calories. Don’t be dramatic
- ajb 2y agoThat's not the advice I've got. I've heard a vet advise reducing only 10% a week for a very overweight cat. For my (not very overweight) cats, the advice was not to go to deficit, but to switch to an amount that would be a maintenance amount for the correct weight. Which was presumably not very different to their previous intake. I don't have strong evidence here (hence "I think" above). I'm not a vet and I'm definitely not YOUR vet .
- kortilla 2y agoA maintenance amount for their correct weight is a deficit.
- hanniabu 2y agoIndoor cats are often under-stimulated and depressed and have nothing to do to pass the time except to eat and sleep
- jbaber 2y agoI agree inside a house is more boring than an alley, but have you seen how much time big cats spend sleeping?
- kennyadam 2y agoI have had a few cats that had cat flaps, so they could come and go as they pleased. They slept indoors, often on the warmest lap they could find, a lot. However, they also disappeared into the trees and bushes in the neighborhood for hours at a time and often came back grubby and spent ages cleaning themselves. Pretty obviously a sign they had been doing something engaging. When I visited my friends who had indoor cats, they always seemed either timid or bored, spending hours just sitting looking out windows or sleeping. I always found it hard to watch a cat staring out at the world, with their only stimulation/interaction happening in the small amount of time each day when people were at home and not busy with something else or sleeping.
- kccqzy 2y agoIt's that choice between a short but fulfilling life, or a long and mediocre one. A lot of humans disagree on which they prefer too.
- sonofhans 2y agoNo cats would disagree, though, except those already conditioned to captivity. Any cat, given a free choice from birth and treated well, will choose to spend time both indoors and outdoors. I’d argue the same about humans, frankly. The only ones content to stay indoors all day are those conditioned to, and damaged by, the captivity.
- kennyadam 2y agoTwo of our cats died in their mid-teens of old cat illness, and we chose to have them put to sleep at home, purring on someone's lap. The other medical options the vet suggested in each case would have given the cats a bit more time, but it would have been a poor quality of life for them and nothing we wanted to see them put through. The only cat that lived a short life had nothing to do with being allowed outside. He was the most unique cat I've ever encountered. He'd could use door handles, play fetch, come and get you if he wanted to go out and the cat flap had been locked for whatever reason, would wait for me at the end of my road when I walked home from work and would then wait for my to start running and race me to the front door. Sadly he was born with a condition that meant he passed away before he turned 5, but he was happy and playful every day. Losing him impacted me more than I would have believed possible. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it's not such a binary choice. As long as you don't live right next to a road with lots of traffic, cats that can come and go as they please don't necessarily live short lives. It's just idiots who think all cats can learn to live alongside fast cars that end up with young dead cats.
- wl 2y agoAnecdote: I’ve got an otherwise healthy cat who requires an appetite stimulant to stay at a healthy weight.