Thread: First vet visit

Yeah I thought the same Roy, but maybe messyhearts meant if the hernia was left unoperated on ?

I'm not intending to show so not worried. I can still feel the hernia but it's not very big. Does anyone know though if they ever just close up on their own or do they always get bigger?

Harrymc - you said earlier that Harry was eating 4 to 5 pouches of wet food a day - I could barely get Simba to eat one so now I have taken the breeders advice and cutting it out. Do you know how much dry food Harry is eating? I weigh out the amount I put down in the morning so I know how much and he seems to be eating about 80g a day. He is such a lazy eater - I often have to entice him to eat - the other day he was lying down near his bowl looking at it and I started giving him a biscuit from the bowl - he took it so I did it again - he ended up eating loads from my hand but wouldn't eat it out of the bowl - is that being lazy?!

yeh I think that could be classed as lazy.... maybe he doesn't like the bowl?

I'm not really sure Karena as having Poppy who is definately a grazer and eats when she feels like it, little and often it would be difficult to monitor it. I just weighed out 80gm of dry just to see what that quantity looked like and would say he probably eats about 50gm per day ? I weighed him at the weekend but only on house scales which tells you to the nearest pound and he was 7llb. Like I said before he is growing by the day but in length more than anything but is still lean.

I would prefer to give him mostly dry food with the occasional treat of wet, but he cries for it as soon as I walk into the kitchen and knows the cupboard where it is kept. I think the feeding from the bowl is more of an attention thing. He's putting on weight at a steady pace so I wouldn't worry about it too much. As you said before you can never tell how they turn out. When Poppy had her kittens a couple of years ago we kept Benson as he was the largest of the four kittens, when they were all fully grown he was half the size of the others.

Hi - I was an RN in a previous life ( many years ago) and as far as I remember they do not fix themselves. There is a tear and something is poking thu - hence the lump and so they do not close again. Hope my memory is intact!!!! I would recommend you keep an eye on it and if it gets bigger go to vet.

I work at a vets & up until my friend who is a breeder started bringing her cats in we had never seen a maine coon,its only now a few years down the line that you realise they do come in all shapes & sizes....
My oldest boy Bruce 8yrs is very tall & long & sounds like your boy never did & still doesn't eat hardly anything whatever you try,he has never weighed any more than 7kg but a very happy playful boy,the two babies [now 2yrs old] Welly eats everything he can,has his own & then cleans out everyone elses dish if he can looks quite small in stature & weighs in at 7.10kg at the moment & yet his brother who just grazes at his food & has to really be encouraged to eat looks huge alongside,he is the tallest & longest of all my mc's & weighed in at just under 9kg at booster last week.So proof that the amount that goes in doesn't always contribute to size !
Your baby looks great & there is a lot of growing time yet.

Thanks for your comments - I'm probably being a paranoid mum - bit like watching your kids eat when every mouthful counts)lol But my two sons are eager for Simba to be a giant I think - they keep telling their friends how big he is going to be so I guess I'm a bit worried he won't disappointment them, though they love him so much now - I have never seen two teenage lads go so gooey over an animal. I think I should tape them when the are talking to Simba, I could threaten to show their friends next time I want something done

They certainly do put on weight in spurts, and yours is not yet at what I would consider the peak growth period based on our last two males. The peak seems to be from like 5-7/8 months. During that period, our males ate like every hour (except when asleep). We had never seen cats "wolf down" food like they did. Our 7+mos. old just exploded between 6 and 7 months--put on 2.5lbs--and much length. Interestingly, we have noticed a dramatic drop in his appetite over the last couple of weeks now, so apparently the really fast growth is over. He actually now turns down food unless it is the right flavor--i.e., he is a normal cat. Seems so bizarre after a couple of months of eating anything and everything (wet food wise). Feeding was so simple--except for its frequency.