I have a big angry scratch down my right arm where Tigger got me.
We took out the luggage scale yesterday, because I keep wanting to weigh the cats.
Since switching to raw food we’ve been trying to find the right amount of food per feline. They should be eating a ball (~25 grams) of food per live weight kilo.
Littan was recently weighed at the vet in connection with her surgery and clocked in at 4,5 kilos. She’s been on four balls per day and seems to be doing well, isn’t too hungry between meals, and finishes what she’s given.
Tigger’s the one that’s been a bigger question mark.
He’s big but he’s slender. He’s lost a lot of fat in his time with us; his primordial pooch was down to his heels when he came, it’s now snug around his abdomen. That and he’s practically all muscle now (as much as as sedentary indoor cat can be all muscle), so his weight has been a question mark is he four kilos? Four and a half? Five?
I had him on four balls per day, but he kept vomiting bile in the early hours of the morning. I moved him up to five and he stopped the early morning vomiting, but seemed hungry and kept muscling in on Littan’s food.
So, I thought I’ll move him up to six balls which he’s now been on for almost 2 weeks.
But now I’m noticing that both cats are not hungry at meal time, they’re leaving food in the bowl and just generally wasting more food than before.
Maybe weighing wasn’t strictly necessary, but now that it’s done I have peace of mind and Tigger is going back to five balls a day.
The problem with the weighing came when we tried to get Tigger in the crate. That was an emphatic nope from him.
Unlike Littan, a docile granny with her occasional zoomies, he seems to be nothing but muscle. He’s like a long sausage made of nothing but raw power.
And he brought all that power down on us when he became incensed at the thought that he was being put in a carry box.
Neither I or Mr Starsheep were able to wrestle him into the box, because as soon as we grabbed him, he began an indignant shriek at the gods for being treated like that, and turned into a spring-loaded set of claws.
It was actually his hind leg that managed to claw my arm in one of his displays of acrobatic power.
The lady who had him before us mentioned that he doesn’t like being loaded into a box. But I didn’t think it was this bad. But then I also believed her about the teeth being in great condition, yet both cats ended up with expensive dental surgery, both needing several rotting teeth removed, after they arrived.
Now Littan is, as usual, using me as her personal chair, while Tigger is curled into a small ball on the back of the sofa behind me. He’s resting his butt on my shoulder and he’s taking a nap from his exhausting day.
At first opportunity, Tigger ran and hid in his cat barrel. Mr Starsheep suggested we hang the whole bloody thing on the hook and weigh him in it, and then weigh the barrel sans feline.
Highly profesh? Nah. Easy? Not by a long mile.
But we got his weight in the end.
Want to get more out of reading books?
Grab this FREE guide on how to start a reading journal, complete with review templates, reading trackers and bingo sheets.
Understand yourself better as a reader, engage more with the books you read & make space for creative self-expression. Get it now!
“When Sasha Barrett gets bitten by a snake on a mission, her squad captain’s quick actions not only save her life, but also make her realise something she may have known all along…“
