Please help me read the feeding guide

[Meaile]

I went to the Wellness and Chicken Soup websites to read their feeding charts. This is what I got.

Wellness Chicken - 5.5 oz can - 181 calories per can (1,333 kcal/kg)
8-10 lb cat = 6 oz per day

Chicken Soup - 5.5 oz can - 187 calories per can (1,200 kcal/kg)
9-12 lb cat - 2 1/4-3 1/4 can per day

I'm so confused! Seeing that they have close to the same amount of calories.....why would I need to feed twice as much of the Chicken Soup for a 9 lb cat?

Can anyone tell me what exactly kcal means?

[coaster]

kcal = kilocalorie

Obviously Chicken Soup wants to sell you more cat food!!

[Meaile]

So I would be safe going by the Wellness guidelines for the Chicken Soup? Of cource I would adjust for calorie difference....

How many calories does a medium/low activity, indoor cat need a day?

Is there any articles or sites where I can find this info?

[Meowmie]

Feeding instructions from the label on a can of Wellness:

An average 8 to 10 lb adult cat will eat approximately 6 ozs. per day.

That's approximately right. Depending on different things a cat might want to have a little more or a little less and that's still okay.

The important thing is to feed the amount of food that will keep their weight at the same level year after year with only the most minor fluctuations.

If a cat gains one pound, no big deal. But if a cat loses one pound, we need to start looking for a health problem. Actually, 1/2 pound is already a warning to be taken seriously.

[roseeden]

My Sunshine eats about 1 1/2 can a day.

[Meaile]

Wellness Chicken - 5.5 oz can - 181 calories per can (1,333 kcal/kg)
8-10 lb cat = 6 oz per day

Chicken Soup - 5.5 oz can - 187 calories per can (1,200 kcal/kg)
9-12 lb cat - 2 1/4-3 1/4 can per day

The part I don't understand is why, according to product guidelines, I would need to feed twice the amount of food according to the Chicken Soup can? Thats twice the calories!

Based on a 9 lb cat;

12.3 oz (2 1/4 can) of Chicken soup = 420 calories

6 oz 1 1/11th can) of Wellness = 197 calories

I know the guidelines are approximate but 197 compared to 420 is a BIG difference.

Are they just trying to sell more product?

[Meowmie]

Are they just trying to sell more product?

I really don't know. There is an awful lot of misleading information on bags and cans, if we followed it, we would all end up with 20-25 pound cats.

Maybe they are trying to sell more food, but if they are, they don't realize we will start buying much less when our cats start to gain weight big time. So this is pretty foolish, no matter how we look at it.

If you weigh your kitties once a month, you find out very soon how well they are doing on a certain food and whether you need to make any changes.

Usually cats just eat the amount of food they need and there are no problems. If they fall in love with a food they can start overeating and that can lead to weight gain if they are allowed to eat all they want.
I don't think you'll have this problem with Wellness though. Most likely not even with the other brand.

[cal4ever0407]

Our cat, Brutus, weighs about 14 lbs. and is 20 months old. He's not fat, he's just a long, big kitty. We switched him to an all canned-diet about 2 weeks ago. We feed him 3 times a day on brands such as Wellness and Nutro Natural Choice, and he eats at most half of a 5.5 ounce can a day. He just doesn't eat that much at one sitting, although he has gotten better at that since we first switched him from free-feeding dry food.

Any cause for concern here? How many calories a day should a cat like Brutus get? He clearly prefers dry food as he gets extremely excited at the mere sound of our kitten's bag of dry food crinckling. He'll come running across our apartment, even if he was asleep! He doesn't do anything remotely like that at the sound of us opening up a can, or the microwave ringing, etc. I would hope that by now he's not holding out for dry food as we haven't given him a single meal of dry in over 2 weeks.

Thankfully Kit (our 4 month old kitten) has a much heartier appetite. She gets through most of the wet food that we give her (about every 4 hours when we're home), and finishes most of her dry when we're gone at work and overnight (about 1/2 cup of Nutro Natural Choice Kitten, beginning to transition to Wellness all-stages dry).

[Meowmie]

We feed him 3 times a day on brands such as Wellness and Nutro Natural Choice, and he eats at most half of a 5.5 ounce can a day. He just doesn't eat that much at one sitting,

Are you saying his total food intake per day is at most half of a 5.5 ounce can a day?

[Meaile]

Pinky, the one on the chicken soup, will really only eat 1/2 a can each feeding (twice a day).

Theres no way she could eat 2 or more cans a day

I guess I won't worry about it because she's getting the same amount of calories (approx) as the other two that are on Wellness.

Since I am giving a tiny bit of dry still, they are getting more calories than that.

Is there any basic-ish guidelines on how many calories cats are supposto have?

No matter they will only eat as much as they want but I am just curious.