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We will discuss the feeding of adult cats in this article. Feeding kittens is discussed elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Any recommendations on serving sizes we can make can only be a good guess – a starting point to use in your play with your cat\u2019s portion sizes and mealtime frequency Determining your cat\u2019s ideal daily portion size is unfortunately not as easy as a chart which tells you: if your cat weighs this much, feed her that amount.<\/p>\n
Cats are individuals.<\/strong> Some are big, but thin. Others are small, but fat. They are young and old, male and female, active or sedate, and more. Some have fast metabolism and others don\u2019t.<\/p>\n Any chance of providing you with a simple chart is made more difficult by the fact, that a homemade diet will turn out differently with the meat you use and with how precisely you follow instructions. Some customers use lean poultry, other use fatty beef. A fatty beef diet will be more filling and calorie dense than the same volume of a lean turkey diet. Some customers add more water, giving the food more volume but not more calories, while others omit water and wonder why their cats gain weight on so little food. Caregivers are often distressed about their cat\u2019s behavior of finishing their plate in less than a minute, asking for more food, pestering them at the fridge, or taking food stuff off counters or out of the trash, prompting them to think that their cat is starving or lacking something! Some cats don\u2019t do this, but most will not miss an opportunity to eat. It is natural for an animal to be opportunistic, and this is part of their instinct to survive. However, much of this is conditioning: how your cat was raised and how your cat has trained you!<\/p>\n It is especially difficult to monitor food intake and its effects on a cat allowed outdoors. <\/strong>Outdoors, your cat can regurgitate food without you knowing, and all you notice is that he or she is loosing weight. The eating of mice and other prey will add calories, but also predispose your cat to intestinal parasites. Outdoor, cats will often travel long distances, which takes extra calories. Outdoor, cats may scavenge food from neighbors, which puts them at a great risk not only from weight gain.<\/p>\n Our suggestions is to feed a daily portion of 130 g \u2013 175 g as two or three meals every day.<\/strong><\/p>\n * If you have a dainty female cat, start by feeding 60 g in the morning and the same in the evening Unless you have a very large cat, like a young, active, outdoor, male Main Coon cat, or a crazy Siamese, 99% of cats will fall into this portion range. Some older, more sedate cats will actually gain weight on that amount of food a day.<\/p>\n Here are some more factors to consider:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you find a begging cat intolerable, start conditioning your cat early and consistently by feeding him or her at a quite, designated place \u2013 preferably not in your kitchen or dining room, so your cat does not form a strong food association with these areas. If you feed your adult cat three times daily (like morning, evening, Cats of the genus Felis, including the domestic cat, are adapted to prey on rodents, small birds, and the occasional reptile and amphibian as the main staple of their natural diet. A single mouse weighs no more then 30 gram, providing approximately 60 kcal. In order to meet their daily caloric requirement, cats must eat an average of five prey animals every day. This amount of food is not consumed all as one meal, but as separate meals throughout the day as the cats succeed in catching that prey. Field observations have concluded that most small cat species are adapted to and prefer to be active during dusk and dawn – the time when they will hunt most of their prey – resulting in an intake of several smaller \u201cmeals\u201d during these hours. Naturally, cats will rest, groom, doze, or sleep during daytime hours.<\/p>\n While we can draw some practical insight from the natural model, feeding five meals of 30 gram each to our cats during the morning and evening hours is hardy a possible solution for most of us. Our personal experience has been that cats do very well eating two meals every day of 50 g \u2013 70 g each.<\/p>\n Weighing your cat’s serving is a good tool, because we have a natural tendency to over-feed Regurgitation of food can be almost entirely abolished by feeding meal sizes not exceeding 35 g, and to feed the daily requirement as 3-4 meals. Young, large, active cats who require more than 140 g of food every day should be given an extra meal rather then increasing the size of their meal.<\/p>\n The stomach of a cat is about the size of a walnut when empty. It can stretch, but trying to fit a 115 g of food into it as one meal, is \u201cover-stretching\u201d it a bit. Saliva and digestive juices will add additional volume. If the cat does not bring the food back up, proper digestion will be difficult. A cat will not always select instinctively what he or she needs and how much. We have conducted experiments with our cats, offering them as much food as they want, and most of them will eat until overcome with an urge to purge. Only some \u2013 those raised without siblings and competition for food \u2013 will eat until full and leave the rest behind.<\/p>\n We hope this information is helpful, although we can not give you a precise formula or chart to follow. One lesson, which keeps repeating itself to us, is: cats are individuals. While we can give you guidelines, none of our suggestions will work for everyone.<\/p>\n Cats are a joy and a challenge all in one. They are a challenge especially when feeding them. So specialized in what they would naturally eat, caregivers have a very narrow margin of error of what cats thrive on or die from. One thing is certain, though: if you invite a carnivore into your life that eats meat, it is not going to be cheap! Unfortunately, you don\u2019t get the deal of good AND cheap when feeding cats.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We will discuss the feeding of adult cats in this article. Feeding kittens is discussed elsewhere. Any recommendations on serving sizes we can make can only be a good guess – a starting point to use in your play with your cat\u2019s portion sizes and mealtime frequency Determining your cat\u2019s ideal daily portion size […]\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1823"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1829,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions\/1829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/Schaelchen-Putenwuerfel.jpg\")
Food requirement should be based entirely on body condition, and not on behavior. If your cat suddenly looses weight without changes in the diet, consult with your Veterinarian about possible illness or internal parasites.<\/p>\n
\n* If you have a robust male cat, feed 75 g in the morning and the same in the evening<\/p>\n\n
\nwill also pester you less for food, if you divide their daily portion into more frequent meals<\/li>\n
\nindigestion. Many cats will actually regurgitate food if you feed a portion larger than 60 g. Ability to
\neat a large meal in one sitting decreases with age. Occurrence of regurgitation is more frequently
\nobserved in middle aged to older cats<\/li>\n
\nwhile you are preparing or serving their food, climb right into the fridge when it is being opened,
\nand come running at any sound of activity in the kitchen. Young cats, but not exclusively so,
\nmay steal food left out on counter tops, sometimes even take off with a loaf of bread<\/li>\n
\nOthers are largely uninterested in eating, and need coaxing to eat even as kittens. Most cats do
\nwell eating three meals every day, but some are not interested in eating more often than twice
\nevery day; sometimes they only show enthusiasm for one meal per day. Other cats will eat anything,
\nany time, for no reason. Cats\u2019 personality and emotional state is very much expressed by how
\nthey eat!<\/li>\n
\nalso on early kittenhood conditioning. Competition from other kittens, type of food fed, and frequency
\nof food fed will all affect what kind of relationship cats will have with food later in life<\/li>\n
\nyou respond to their begging by feeding them something when you have a meal yourself, work in
\nthe kitchen, or open the fridge? A rewarded behavior will be repeated. Although your intention may
\nnot have been to reward your cats for that behavior, you did nonetheless yield to their pressure<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.tatzenladen.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/strich_grau_lang.jpg\")
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\nand just before bed) as much as he or she needs to maintain body weight, and refrain from giving food out of the fridge or from the table, your cat should settle into a routine that is comfortable and predictable for both of you. Feed treats away from areas where you prepare and eat your own food, and keep groceries and the trash out of your cat\u2019s reach. If your cat is allowed into the kitchen and on counter tops, this means you must keep food stored away and inaccessible. If your cat is successful in snatching food off the counters, he or she will continue to check these areas out for food. After all, they are not stupid and will not resist instinct simply to be a good kitty for you.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n