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How long will it take for my emaciated foster cat to reach a normal weight? Any one with experience?
We foster extensively for a local cat rescue, and we received a barn cat "Barney" that has a nasty URI (probably pneumonia), and is the most emaciated cat we have seen in 4 1/2 yrs of fostering. His URI is about 50% better than when we got him last week, but we have seen no noticible difference in his weight. He is eating 2 cans of food a day, and didn't even have a bowel movement until 4 days later. We will be testing him for Felv/FIV soon just to rule that out as a cause of his sickness. We were just wondering if anyone has experience with fattening up an emaciated cat?? How long with it take?? A month or two?? The owner of the barn is suppose to take him back after he is recovered and neutered.(If we let her and don't get attached).
Not having a bowel movement for so long juts confirms that he'd been starving and had had no food for a long time. I agree with the others and wouldn't let him go back to the owner of the barn as they let him get in such bad shape.
When I got Jester and Strangelove they were like skeletons and had been starved and had kittens. They were both around 4 1/2 pounds at approx 10 months old which was less than half their ideal weight. My vet told me to feed them no more than double the recommended amount so that they'd gain weight gradually and wouldn't have GI issues. This was 20 years ago so make sure with your vet that this sounds OK. They took about 3 months to get back to a healthy weight and the gradual gain gave them good muscle tone.
Hopefully he won't have FIV/FeLV as just having a URI would have stopped him eating and made him get super skinny. I adopted Freckles last year who'd had chronic untreated sinus infections and she was 3-4lb underweight but FIV/FelV negative
Boy, oh, Boy. I sure wouldn't want to be you after you've fallen in love with this kitty and then have to give him back to someone who almost let him starve. That's why I couldn't foster. Assuming that Barney does not have Felv/FIV, it could take more than a few months if he is truly that emaciated. The slower he puts on weight, the better. You might even want to supplement his diet with some KMR (kitten milk replacement) for the extra calories/nutrition. You can even ask your vet about things like Boost and Ensure. I gave those to my dog when she was losing weight due to illness. If you believe in feeding dry food, I might even free feed him. Weight gain is a slow process unless you're me who gains weight just by looking at food ;-) but with a quality diet and good vet care, Barney should be just fine. Please keep us updated on his progress!!
My Howie was lost for almost 2 months, and when I found him he was skin and bones. I kept feeding him on his previous schedule, and it took almost 6 months to get him back up to full weight, and about a month for his weight and look to noticeably change. The vet said that was a good thing, otherwise he could have made himself sick gorging himself. Oh, when he was found it took him several days to get a BM too, so I think that's normal.
BTW, if you can, please don't let him go back to the situation that almost killed him. Try your best to find him a good home or make him part of your family. :-)
We found a stray a few years back who was very very skinny/ malnourished. We used a baby formula, a gental one for sensitive stomaches and purina one kitten food. He put on weighed noticably in a few weeks and about a month and a half later he was able to go to another home. Only use a small amount of formula though, especially if it is milk based. Milk (dairy kind) really isn't good for male cats. We just used the formula for an extra boost of vitamins.
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