according to friskies..I'm starving my cats

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christine + scoop

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So I have some questions about this whole wet food diet thing. I read on here that cats need 15 calories/lb/day. So for my cats that averages out to 180 calories/day for each cat. The side of a friskies can says 1 oz/lb/day. So by their standards that's 2 cans per day. There are on average 180 calories/can of low carb wet food. Something doesn't add up. Today I tested them to see how much they ate until they walked away and it ranged from half a can to almost a full can. Keep in mind until now they hardly ever got wet food - so they are still in "eat as much as I can before it's gone" mode.

Here's my plan please tell me if it's not enough food.

Kenzie - 9lbs = 3/4 can (120 cal) per day
Scoop - 12 lbs = 1 can (180 cal) per day
Spike - 12lbs = 1 can (180 cal) per day
Vinny - 15 lbs = 1 1/4 can (225 cal) per day

this was assuming 15 calories/lb/day.

thoughts? I feel like it's a ploy by cat food companies to feed more to our cats than needed...or am I starving my cats?
 
I have three cats and they free feed. They are grazers and don't chow down as a meal. I put out food on average twice a day and give them:

1 can of Friskies
1/2 can of Nature's Logic
2 tbs home made raw

If they eat all of this before the next meal, I will put out more food.

They also get treats - freeze dried chicken, homemade cooked chicken, rotisserie chicken, etc.

My girls aren't starving. Half the time they never lick the bowls clean.

The cat that I am cat sitting, Blue - he is accustomed to getting 2 cans of friskies a day. So, I'm giving him 4 cans of FF a day - he doesn't finish his bowls either.

Nobody gets dry food - it's banished from them. And nobody is starving.

I suggest you put out as much food for your 4 cats, basically, 1 can per cat and see how that works. You can always add or reduce accordingly.

Hope this helps.
 
i use 20-22 or so cans of Friskies per day depending on if either of the two strays i feed show up or not :-D considering i'm feeding 18 of my own plus 2 strays most days, it comes out to roughly a 5.5oz can of friskies per cat a day. several of them get treats too every day and i dole out some raw gizzards & hearts nearly every day too as a snack 'cause it's so cute to watch them enjoy those.

personally, i think if you feed per package recommendations on most foods, you'll end up with a bunch of obese kitties developing diabetes. :)

dr. lisa pierson has some info on her website too about how much to feed if i remember correctly. http://www.catinfo.org
 
I'm feeding 8 kitties here and we are averaging about 1 can per cat per day. Nobody is starving if you want proof go look at the photo I posted on the community part of this board under "Where do the Humans Sleep" And most days they don't finish all of that.

Mel & Muse (GA)
 
Since Tuesday, I've been feeding Blackie 3 cans of FF a day along with the others. Although, this new diet is having some affect on her little system (she has diahhrea right now), she's eating it all, and even tries to lick the bowl clean. LOL :)
 
I have a 12lb and an 11lb cat. I feed a total of 2 and 2/3's cans of Friskies per day. If I give 3 full cans, they gain weight. They're holding steady with their weights on the 2 a 2/3's cans. I put out 1 and 1/3 cans twice daily, they wolf it down, and all is well. They definitely remind me when it is feeding time tho!

I think if you follow manufacturer guidelines, you'll overfeed. They just want to sell you more food, so of course they'll tell you to feed more. Also, with the cans, I think they assume you'll feed some dry, so the numbers are a little skewed. I know when we had to temporarily give only canned to our drooler we were overfeeding him with it based on the manufacturer guidelines--the volume was nearly twice what he'd get in dry.
 
It's really simple actually. First irgnore what the can says, I do belive they want you to buy more food so they overestimate the amounts!

Generally speaking a normal adult cat needs 70 kcal per Kilogram of IDEAL weight (divide pounds by 2.2=Kilograms) , that means If your cat is overweight and needs to loose you should be feeding not based on his actual weight but according to the weight he should be.

So If Kitty weights 23 lbs (23/2.2= 10.45Kg) he is overweight and should have an ideal weight of 13.2 lbs (6 Kg) so 6Kg *70kcal=420 kcal per day

So If I take a food from Janet's chart as an example

% kcal from per 100 kcal
Protein Fat Carbs Fiber (g) Phosph (mg) Calories per can
Friskies Kitten Turkey Formula 36 61 3 0.1 317 172 (3 oz)

My 6 Kg (IDEAL WEIGHT) cat would need about 2 1/2 cans (7.5 oz) of this food per day.

Same goes for an underweight cat you feed based upon the ideal weight. Nursing mothers and very active cats need more (80 kcal per Kg) and older or very inactive cats need a little less (60 kcal/kg).

My Spooky weighs 4Kg (a good weight for him) and he eats about half of what the label on the can recommends he maintains his weight very well. My other cat Socks has always been slightly pudgy and I feed him the same amount (about 280 Kcal/day) so far he hasn't lost much weight (he's about 5.5 Kg) so he defineatly is getting enough to eat!
 
Can we please stop using "can" as a measurement? There are 3 oz cans, 5.5 oz cans, 16 oz cans. Feeding 3 cans of 3oz food is very different from 3 cans of 5.5oz food.
 
Can we please stop using "can" as a measurement? There are 3 oz cans, 5.5 oz cans, 16 oz cans. Feeding 3 cans of 3oz food is very different from 3 cans of 5.5oz food.
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That's why I said you feed by ' of kilocalories per Kilogram of CAT. The Friskies example I used from Janet's chart says it has 172 kcal per (can) which is 3oz.

If the cat needs 420 kcal per day then he needs 7.5oz of that food (which is about 2 and a half cans each being 3 oz.)

Personally I would preffer if everyone stopped using pounds and ounces. I feed my cats 250 grams of food per day! :-D I have no idea what an ounce looks like!
 
My apologies, I thought I put the can size in my post. I use the 5.5oz cans of Friskies, and feed 2 and 2/3's cans per day total between my two cats. That's about 14.6oz of food per day to feed 23lbs of indoor-only cats. :smile:

And don't forget that the cat's activity level will also influence how much food they need. My cats are somewhat active, but they're indoor only, so their activity is somewhat limited.
 
And I believe kcals are different from calories? The kcal calculations given would mean my cats need to eat nearly twice as much per day as they are...and I know that's too much food.

Here's the feeding guidelines from Janet & Binky's page:

Q. How many calories a day should my cat eat?
A. Short answer: Enough to maintain him or her at a healthy weight and activity level over long periods of time. Longer answer: The common wisdom is that a cat should eat 20-30 calories per pound of cat per day, depending on its activity level, need to gain or lose weight, and personal metabolism. However, some guardians of elderly diabetic cats have found that 20 calories per pound will cause their cat to gain weight. If the diet contains enough protein and essential nutrients, such a cat can do well on 15-20 calories per pound. Note that, according to the Merck veterinary manual, "healthy adult cats need ~5 g of protein of high biologic value per kg body wt/day." This translates to 8-9 calories from protein per pound body weight per day. From the same document, one can infer that AAFCO recommends that at least 7 calories per pound body weight should come from fat.
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The two flavors of Friskies I feed, Liver & Chicken Dinner and the Turkey & Giblets Dinner have 172 and 187 calories per can as given on Binky's chart. For easier math, I just average the two at 180 calories per can. This means I feed, on average, 420 calories per day for 23lbs of cat (12lb and 11lb cats), which is roughly 18 calories per pound per day. More than this and my cats gain weight.
 
We have two cats and they share three 5.5 oz cans between them a day. (If we feed Fancy Feast, they each get their own 3 oz can instead of sharing one of the bigger Friskies cans).

It might be too much food but Sebastian is kind of large (not fat) and just needs more food!
 
And I believe kcals are different from calories? The kcal calculations given would mean my cats need to eat nearly twice as much per day as they are...and I know that's too much food.
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No they are not different. If we truly want to be sceintific we shouldn't even discuss Calorie or Kilocalorie because they are pre-SI (International System of Units) metric unit of energy. It has been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule.

The gram calorie, approximately 4.2 joules (J), is based on one gram of water. The kilogram calorie (kcal), equal to one thousand gram calories, is based on one kilogram of water. In the context of nutrition, and especially food labeling, this larger unit is used and referred to interchangeably by the terms calorie (C) or Calorie) and kilocalorie (kcal).

The problem you are having is that you are using pounds instead of kilograms. I wrote an adult cat needs approximately 70 kcal per kilogram of ideal body weight. 1 kilogram=2.2 pounds so If you change Janet's recommendation The common wisdom is that a cat should eat 20-30 calories per pound of cat per day then multiply that by 2.2 (2.2 * 30= 66) which is close to the 70 kcal per kilogram I suggested.

To convert to joules: 1 thermochemical calorie = 4.184 J (70 kcal * 4.184J=292.88 J) per kilogram of ideal weight.

A cat weighing 4 kilograms needs 1168 kj of energy per day.

Have a look at some human food labels, they will often give the values for calories per 100 grams and kilojoules.

The energy density of the following food components:
kJ per gram
Fat 37
Proteins 17
Carbohydrates 17
Fibre 8

Note that, according to the Merck veterinary manual, "healthy adult cats need ~5 g of protein of high biologic value per kg body wt/day." This translates to 8-9 calories from protein per pound body weight per day.
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1g of protein contains 4 kcal of energy (17 kJ) 5g of protein would contain 20 kcal (85 kJ) multiplied by the ideal weight of the cat in kilograms.

Your labels give amounts for protein, fat ....in grams then the number of calories per 100 grams then you try to compare everything on a per pound basis :roll: LEARN THE METRIC SYSTEM!!!!!!
 
Thanks for all the math Monique--that's more than my sleep-deprived brain can handle at the moment. I'm pretty much running on fumes right now. Once upon a time, in high school, before I went to college to study art, I could do that math in my sleep and probably knew all the conversions by heart. The years (and babies) have made it all a bit fuzzy... :-D
 
Check out this link from Think Tank: Nutritional Requirements of Cats and Dogs

Janet posted it awhile back. It has a table that shows how many calories a normal weight cat needs by weight and how many an overweight cat needs by weight. Just remember that cats' metabolisms, like humans', vary a lot so the calories given are just a recommended starting point.
 
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