How much does your cat weigh?

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I was at my parents this week and we weighed their cat she is 6.1 kilos. I googed that a cat should weigh 3.5 to 4.5 kilos so cat is overweight.

She is an indoor cat and since we installed the stair lift she uses the stairlift to go up stairs! As mum had a couple of falls feeding the cat we have an automatic cat food dispenser with royal canine appetite suppression dry cat. Missy does not like human food or wet cat food. Mum has been giving her a packet of dreamies a day and I looked on the packet and it says up 20 dreamies a day so she is having too many dreamies?

She has a cat scratching post but is scratching her nails on the new carpet on the landing and it made it all bobbly and she has also done the same on the carpet in mum's room in the corner by the door.

I am not sure what if anything we can about the scratching with her claws on the carpet. But told mum dreamies is probably making her fat and to not give her more than an eggcup full of dreames a day. She is not eating much of the appetite suppression cat food and she absolutely is not eating any human food she really doesn't like it at all.

Prior to the appetite suppression cat food she was on carnilove cat food which she did eat a lot of she has been on a diet about 6 months. She appetite suppression cat food is not that tasty as even my sister's dog won't eat it so Missy is not eating masses. She is three years old. When we got her from the cat rescue place they said she would be perfect for old people as she likes sleeping and chilling out. If my parents pass away before Missy my sister and BIL will take her. She is a great companion for my parents and their first indoor cat they plenty of cats before but they went outside. Reason for not going outside is because they now live in a town and although their road is very quiet there is traffic we are going to put some chicken wire up in the garden to try and it make it safe for her to go out in the summer. She went out a bit in the summer but she was so scared of outside she ran back into the house. When it was hot my parents had the kitchen door open and she would lie on the door step half in half out so I don't think she will be outside much unless my parents are sitting in the garden. As my parents are housebound unless one of us takes them out the cat is an important companion as my parents don't get on with each other so we do have to be careful that she doesn't get run over. Not sure how we are going to get some weight off her. She is not that playful she is a perfect old person's cat as she likes to lie in bed and snuggle with either mum or dad.

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Definitely cut the dreamies out, i've only every fed them as an occasional treat and thought it said no more than 5 at a time. Not sure what mine weigh, the boy is a big cat anyway and not overweight but my female cat is a little on the porky side but she is smaller in size than him. Looking at the picture Missy does look a little on the porky side but not horrendous yet. I'll find the picture I took of Bunty's cat last year, now that is a fat cat!
 
Cut out the treats.

Ours is 4.8kg.

Look up body condition scoring for cats and compare yours to the chart
 
I think that’s ok mine range from 5.5kg to 6.5kg tbh I would like more weight on the 5.5kg fella he’s long and thin! Some cats are just big! 4.5kg is a v small cat
 
A pack of Dreamies a day?! That must cost a fortune as well as being very nutritionally poor for the cat. A pack lasts my two about a month.
Yes, she looks a bit overweight, but Google is not exactly a reliable source of info on what she 'should' weight as there are lots of different breeds and basic sizes. Cats are designed to roam quite large distances so she'll need less food than the 'recommended'
 
TheMule said:
A pack of Dreamies a day?! That must cost a fortune as well as being very nutritionally poor for the cat. A pack lasts my two about a month.
Yes, she looks a bit overweight, but Google is not exactly a reliable source of info on what she 'should' weight as there are lots of different breeds and basic sizes. Cats are designed to roam quite large distances so she'll need less food than the 'recommended'
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Yes it does cost a fortune I got managed to get 4 boxes of 12 packets on black Friday in November 40% off and they are all gone got two mega packs from Waitrose last Monday and arrived this weekend to find mum had ordered another 2 boxes of 12 off Amazon.
 
I would say all of mine are over 5kg, even the farm cat who lives out most of the time. They have a constant supply of high meat dry cat food, plus a large tin between three, they do not get treats, unless they catch live ones.
 
It’s also ok to ad lib cat food so don’t worry about the auto feeder. Mine have dry food available all the time and regulate themselves. I wouldn’t worry too much but maybe cut down on the dreamies a bit ☺️
 
I've never had a cat over 4kg until the Weirdo Kitten (male), who is now 4.5kg and chunky, but muscle, not fat. All the others (all female) were around 3.3-3.9. The upper end of that scale was fat, for those cats, but they were all petite. Some cats are larger than others. Does she have a visible waist from above? What does she feel like? It's hard to tell from a photo - what looks like fat could just be a largish primordial pouch.

I'd say more than a couple of dreamies is too much - they are junk food basically. We give freeze-dried chicken treats which aren't as appetising but ours love them now. But if she's overweight then an absolute minimum of extras.
 
Higher protein cat food and less dreamies. My cat was always tending towards chubby and was constantly hungry until we upped the protein. She’s a house cat. Plays with the kids and monitors the house at night but isn’t wildly active.
 
Tilly cat is 3.78kg (recent vet visit) Shadow cat is goodness knows how much but he is a much bigger cat than her. I think we weighed him at about 5.5kg when we wormed him last. He's a greedy so and so but we don't give our cats treats, although I have been trying to reward Tilly for having medication. He gets 2/3 pouches as well as access to dry biscuits.
 
Missy has this adlib as well as dreamies https://www.royalcanin.com/uk/cats/products/retail-products/appetite-control-care-2563

I have told mum to reduce the dreamies from one packet to a small egg cup full. Missy cat has no waist and you can't feel her ribs..

She likes to sleep in the shower sometimes my parents house can be very hot as they have the heating on permanently at 23C.

She is very clever. She sits on the stair lift and then mum or dad will put the stairlift on and then and Missy jumps off the stairlift at the top. Everyone thinks it is funny but it probably better for Missy to use the stairs.
 

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Unless a Maine Coon or similar 99% of cats would be considered overweight at 6kg, especially females who should be smaller. (You get the odd large entire male who would only be mildly overweight at that). Obviously hard to give an exact figure without seeing her in person but the “average” cat is considered to weigh about 4kg so 4.5-5 may be a good figure to aim for if she currently hasn’t got a waist and her ribs are difficult to feel.

In an ideal world she should have her daily food ration weighed out, probably given to her in various different puzzle feeders & no dreamies. In the real world I can completely understand why she has to be fed her dry the way she is as you can’t risk your mum falling over.

I can also understand why telling your mum to stop feeding the dreamies completely would not work but she definitely needs to stop giving an entire bag a day! Perhaps put more acceptable amounts into little pots & label with the days of the week? (If giving an entire bag now then 20 would be a reasonable starting point and maybe taper down further from there if no weight loss?)

Also encourage your mum to (gently and safely ie whilst sat in a chair) throw the dreamies one at a time for her to chase so at least she’s getting some exercise out of it.

If it would be possible for parents to do safely (again probably a sat in chair activity) then it might be worth getting a long wand toy for parents to be able to play with her with (purrs in our hearts do a super long one and loads of different attachments). Again will give her some exercise and is fun to do for both parties.
 
If Missy has no waist and you can’t feel her ribs it’s likely she is overweight. Just like people, overweight pets find it harder to move around and do so less which reduces their calorific need and it becomes a downwards cycle. Like people, overweight cats are more likely to suffer from certain diseases and it’s generally not a pleasant way to live.

Some cats will self regulate on food, although I don’t know many indoors cat that do. Missy is clearly not one of these cats as she is overweight. So she needs to be fed the correct amount for her ideal body weight. As you can see on the link you’ve given, there is a feeding guide. I would aim for the 5kg, overweight amount and see how you get on. This can then be upped to a maintenance amount once she is a healthy weight.

I’m not sure how your automatic feeder works but you’ll need to work out how many feeds it holds vs how much is dispensed. Or with some you can set the grams to be released.

The dreamies ideally need to stop or be greatly reduced. A bag a day is not healthy for a cat and they are not a complete diet.
It is extremely important cats are fed a complete diet. They need a particular protein which without they can become very poorly. I would guess Missy eats less of the appetite control food as most of her calorific need is taken up by dreamies. Yes she can have 20 a day but her main food would need to be adjusted accordingly. By feeding a bag of dreamies a day Missy is potentially not getting enough of her complete diet (her actual food).

If your parents want to continue feeding her dreamies, then make her work for them. No more stair lift. Get them to throw the dreamies one by one off the bed or across the room so Missy has to chase them. This is a win-win as she gets mental and physical stimulation. Alternatively they can use the appetite control food as treats.

The appetite control food is a good diet and works however it works by swelling in the stomach and helping pets feel fuller. Hence the donut kibble shape to “bulk” out the stomach. Again, if her stomach is full of dreamies, then there is less room for the appetite control food to work properly. She may need to go onto a diet food if she is struggling to lose weight after implementing the above.

I understand she is serving a very precious role as a companion to your parents and it’s important her diet is taken seriously so she is around to support them as long as possible.

Happy to advise further if needed!
 
My little old lady is only 3kg. She has always been small. When she was young, she was hyperactive and I used to think she ran all her weight off. Now that she is more sedate in her old age, she is still lean, so i think she's just designed to be like that. Her brothers were huge and double her size in weight and length.
 
Our 4 year ginger neutered male - 4.8kg but quite long and lean
His 5 yr old torty mum is a very petite 3.1kg but they were rescued off a farm as part of of 25 odd cats and I think she had litters of kittens before she was fully grown herself :(
Both fed 2 x pouches per day and a handful of biscuits.
 
Missy sounds like a cat who has her household staff well trained! The stair-lift is genius.
But if she is having a packet of Dreamies every day I am not surprised she isn't eating her diet food.

I have got weight off an indoor cat before now and it really was just a case of reducing her calorie intake.

My two weigh less than 4kg, I would say they are average sized cats.
 
That is far too heavy for a normal female cat, and she does look overweight in the photo's.
Too many Dreamies are killing far too many cats now. It's like junk food, and as such should be controlled
You can buy timed automatic feeders and that would be better than just an automatic one. Missy could then have portions of a different food that she likes, or a mix of normal and low cal.
 
Missy definitely looks overweight and a packet of dreamies a day makes me go 🫣

My boy cat is reasonably tall and weighs in at about 4.5 and is fit and active.

The girl Burmese is smaller in size and quite a solid little thing, just about ok weight wise but erring towards a bit fat. She is around 4kg
 
My male cat was 6kg when he was last weighed. He is a big boy though and does lose weight in the summer when he looks too thin but come autumn he puts it on again.
Mine get ad-lib biscuits but won’t eat the ones at the bottom but they are there if they wanted them.

Could you portion the dreamies up into smaller bags or tubs and explain they can feed the one small bag a day instead?
 
She does look a bit overweight, but my old cat still weighed over 5 Kg when she died aged 18! I have one now who is definitely over 6, but he is a big boy. At the other end of the scale is Little Willy, who is a mere 3.6 Kg. Eternally kitten sized!
 
If it helps, we have a policy that works well on cats that constantly ask for food and people (children for me) who will constantly feed. Ours is: only 5 biscuits in each feeding. So she can ask multiple people multiple times, but she only gets a few biscuits each time. By the end of the day, she still hasn’t had that many. We need this less now ours regulates herself better, but it worked a treat before when she just asked and asked and the children gave and gave.
 
I’ll start this by saying I’m not a cat person. Don’t like cats, cats make me poorly (sorry don’t hate me!). So no real experience other than I do have two feral mousers.

They live in my yard and are fed a Felix pouch morning and night in winter reduced to half a pouch in summer. That is assuming they’re there at whatever time of day I’m out doing the horses, and sometimes I go weeks without seeing one of them at all. There is always a bowl of dry biscuits which they self regulate with, often in summer they barely touch them. And they catch a steady stream of field mice.

As I say I have no experience with cats before having them 11 years ago (from SNIP Charity). When a family member first saw them she was amazed how big they are. I have no idea what they weigh, but I’m told they’re not carrying too much weight, they’re just big cats!
 
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Mines on a diet as he got tubby on cage rest for his broken pelvis (understandable) as much as I find it both hilarious and adorable she uses the stair lift it doesn't sound like she's getting enough activity 😂
M is 9 and between 4.1 and 4.7kg in the middle is his ideal. He gets 7 dreamies max. At least 20 mins of playtime a day. Have you tried a cardboard scratcher M goes mad for his and it was super cheap from pets at home?
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I think this is the chart in my vets I think the images from the top I think are most helpful.
Fat boi himself probably a 7 on the chart. Screenshot_20250224-191516-567.png
 
Our 18 year old ex-feral from Abu Dhabi is just under 4kg - he’s wiry and muscular, eats a huge amount but never puts on weight. Our 1 year old who was dumped in our fields as a tiny scrap at around 5 weeks old is now 6kg but he is huge - not fat, just big - he eats the least and often doesn’t finish his already smaller portion. Then the youngest and tiniest turned up on our yard when she was about 10-ish weeks old - thankfully she got tame enough for us to get her to the vet to be spayed when she was about 5 months old and she was only 1.5 kg - she’s still tiny but has a huge appetite and hurtles around the house playing with the 1 year old - when you see them together it’s hard to recognise them as the same species!
 
My cats are around 3.5 years old and both are house cats. One is about 3.3kg and the other is about 3.6kg. The vet said they should have a target weight of 3.5kg. Mine really enjoy Hills Science Plan 'perfect weight' dry food and self regulate their intake.

Play and exercise is just as important as diet. Finding toys that will encourage them to play is useful. Mine like the foil balls. They can carry them around, but key is that they fly around easily and require significant chasing. Their favourite game is making me stand at the bottom of the stairs and throw the ball up for them to chase, catch and bring back to me to throw again. Every cat is different, find the toy that really interests yours.

Having two cats reduces the demands on me to make them play, they play and chase each other. If you only have the one in the house you'll need to do more to encourage activity. You might want to look at the toys which will encourage play without a person involved, such as the feathers on bendy sticks.

As for the scratching, you can get some mats which you can pop on the floor as an alternative.
 
Mr C our old yard cat was over 6kg but he wasn't neutered and was an absolute tank. He was over 20 when he took his last wander. He would happily have had all the dreamies, 5 packets of Whiskas and an entire rabbit!
 
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