Introduction
According to Matt Davies Harmony Communities, similar to humans, calorie requirements for cats vary quite a lot depending on many factors including age, metabolism, respiration, digestion, and more. Let’s check out how you can calculate your cat’s daily caloric intake.
The Details
- Weigh your cat – Cats aren’t like obedient dogs and often tend to do what you don’t want them to. So, if you place your cat on a weighing machine and want to make it sit still, it will move around or away from the machine which would result in an inaccurate reading. That’s why it’s best to weigh yourself while holding your cat and then weigh yourself without your pet. After that, you can subtract the second figure from the first one to come up with an accurate reading.
- Figure out the RER – Resting Energy Requirement (RER) represents the energy used by your cat while it is awake and lies still between meals. It varies with the cat’s weight. For instance, the RER for a 1.4-pound kitten is around 88 kcal/day while the RER for a 10-pound cat is around 218 kcal/day. You can consult your vet for these figures or use the figures provided by Hill’s Pet Nutrition.
- Choose an applicable factor and multiply it by RER – RER represents the cat’s basic needs. However, it doesn’t account for weight gain, age, activity level, and other factors. To figure out the daily caloric intake for your cat, RER needs to be multiplied by the applicable factors. Some cats may need less than their RER while others may need twice the calories of their RER. Here are the factors you can choose from:
- Weight loss for cat – 0.8.
- Weight gain for cat – 1.8.
- Neutered adult cat – 1.2.
- Intact adult cat – 1.4.
- Kitten 0 to 4 months – 2.5.
- Kitten within the age of 4 to 12 months – 2.
- Inactive or obese cat – 1.
- Crunch the numbers – Now, you need to crunch the numbers and figure out your cat’s caloric intake. For instance, if you have a neutered adult cat who weighs around 10 pounds with an RER of 218 kcal/day, its daily caloric intake would be 261 kcal/day (218 x 1.2). It’s always important to remember that this figure isn’t a solid one. It’s just a rough estimate. Your cat may need anywhere between 200 to 320 kcal/day.
When you have the daily caloric intake for your cat, you need to figure out how you’re going to divide the calories in the meals. To do that, you need to check the labels on the cat food packaging and weigh the portions accordingly.
Conclusion
Matt Davies Harmony Communities suggests that you use the above-mentioned steps to calculate your cat’s daily calorie intake. It’s also necessary to treat that figure as an estimate and a starting point. Feed your cat according to the calculated figure and monitor changes in its overall well-being and weight. Make changes as necessary.
