How much to feed a cat

(April 13, 2010)

Cats are great pets and it is important that you take utmost care of feeding a cat the right food so that they stay healthy and fit. Following this, most cat owners might be posed with the question as too just how much is enough to feed your cat? You need to understand here that every cat differs in the amount of food it needs for its body including cats of the same age too. It, therefore, becomes difficult to determine the same. Most cat owners would go by the quantities or the cat feeding guidelines that are given on the labels stating how much you should feed your cat but this barely holds true. If it says, serve ½ a cup, your cat might eat only ¼ of a cup. How much food your cat needs depends upon certain factors like the weight of the cat, the level of activity of the cat and quality of cat food that you serve them. A cat that weighs a lot and has a heavy bone structure is bound to eat more food. Similarly two cats bearing the same weight might need different amounts of food as one might be very active and the other might be relatively sedentary. Also, if you are feeding your cats a high quality cat food, they will eat less than usual if fed with foods of a lower quality normally, whether cat foods or home prepared foods.

The best thing you can do to know exactly how much food your cat needs is by experimenting with the quantities and keeping a close watch on how much your cat is eating. For this, you need a book, measuring cups and a digital scale. Serve your cat food a little more than what you normally serve making sure that you measure the quantity carefully in the measuring cup. Follow this for a few days and after 24 hours check how much food you served your cat and how much she has eaten and write it in your book. At the end of a week, calculate the average and that is how much food your cat will need on a daily basis. While doing this weigh your cat to check if they are putting on weight, losing weight or are consistent. However, if you are feeding your cat high quality food then there is not much to worry about and if your cat is healthy and active with the food that is given, then you are probably giving the right amount.