How to decide how much food to give your cat?
As experts in natural cat food, we are often asked how much food we recommend a cat should eat. Unsurprisingly, the answer is, it depends! Some of the factors which affect the amount of food a cat needs are obvious. A Maine Coon or Norwegian Forrest Cat will always need to eat more than a Sphynx or Cornish Rex.
A good starting point is a cat’s ideal weight. For most breeds, including the non-pedigree domestic shorthair, the ideal weight is about 4-5 kg. To find out the ideal weight of your cat, speak to your veterinarian next time you visit them. They will also have scales that make it easier to weigh a wiggling cat!
This is a common guideline formula, based on the ideal weight of your cat, which can give you a starting point for how many calories your cat should eat to maintain this ideal weight.
Applying this formula to a standard 4,5kg cat, that works out at 4,5kg x 30 + 70 = 205 kcal per day. If the actual weight of the cat differs from the ideal weight, the amount offered needs to be adjusted. It is best to only offer A cat which needs to lose weight only 70% of that, so +/- 145 kcal per day, an underweight cat should be offered more.
Of course, the activity levels of the cat also contribute to how many calories they need to eat. Two of our cats practically live running on their cat wheel, so they can happily consume more than the calories this formula suggests without gaining any weight.
Our food labels include the metabolizable energy per 100g of food, which allows you to work out how much of each food you should be offering to your cat to help manage their weight.
