How to Determine Portions When Feeding a Mixed Diet

Welcome to Friday’s Cats.com Newsletter.

• The Best Cat Food
• The Best Cat Litter
• The Best Cat Litter Boxes
• The Best Cat Insurance

Offering a mix of different cat foods can help you stretch your budget and optimize your cat’s diet.

Keep reading to learn how to calculate portion sizes when feeding your cat multiple food products (especially different types of food). You’ll also learn more about one of our partner brands and the sponsor of this week’s mailer: Dave’s Pet Food.

And read to the end to learn about Peachy, the Cats.com Cause of the Month. She needs your help to recover from a debilitating spinal injury.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT OF THE WEEK

Dave’s Pet Food Naturally Healthy Grain-Free Chicken Formula Wet Cat Food Pate

Featuring fresh chicken and turkey with nutrient-rich chicken liver, this canned cat food is one of my cat Munchkin’s favorites from Dave’s Pet Food. It’s packed with protein, and the soft, moist formula is easy to mix with other foods. Sometimes I even mix it with water and use it as a wet food topper.

Find out what other recipes my cats love in this in-depth review on Cats.com.

This section is sponsored by Dave’s Pet Food.

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• Things Are Looking Up for Toto, the Adorable Kitten Born Without Eyelids

3 Benefits Of Feeding a Mixed Diet.

I might catch some criticism for saying so, but I don’t think it’s usually necessary to pick a single product to feed your cat for the rest of their life. The exception, of course, is for cats that require a prescription diet or who have severe food allergies.

When you incorporate multiple products instead of building your cat’s diet around a single recipe, it’s referred to as a rotational diet. Head over to Cats.com to learn more about it.

Here’s How To Calculate Portions.

The feeding recommendations on a cat food label aren’t intended to be exact—they’re just guidelines to get you started. If you follow them too closely, your cat might not get the number of calories that’s right for their needs. And if you’re feeding a rotational diet, things can get pretty confusing.

1. Plug your cat’s information into an online calorie calculator to determine how many calories they need each day.
   
   
2. Check the cat food label to find the product’s calories per ounce. Hint: I find it’s easiest to use the kcal/kg and divide by 35 (there are about 35 ounces per kilogram).
   
   
3. Divide your cat’s daily calorie requirement by the number of calories per ounce in the cat food product—this tells you how many ounces to feed per day.
   
   
4. Divide your cat’s daily allotment (the total number of ounces) across the desired number of meals per day.
   
   
5. Use a food scale to measure your cat’s meals precisely. With wet food, you may be able to approximate portions based on the number of ounces per can.

• Dave’s Pet Food Naturally Healthy Gobbilicious Gourmet
  1,295 kcal/kg ➗ 35 = 37 kcal/ounce
  250 calories/day ➗ 37 kcal/ounce = 6.75 oz. per day
  
  
• Dave’s Pet Food Naturally Healthy Adult Dry Cat Food
  3,753 kcal/kg ➗ 35 = 107 kcal/ounce
  250 calories/day ➗107 kcal/ounce = 2.3 oz. per day

Now, what if you want to feed your cat a 50/50 mix of two different products?

Just divide the total daily portion of each individual product in half and feed that amount. Using our example, that would mean about 3.4 ounces of Gobbilicious Gourmet plus about 1.2 ounces of Dave's dry food per day.

Hint: Dry cat food labels usually list the calories per 8-ounce cup. If you don’t have a food scale, you can approximate the measurement. Just divide your cat’s daily calorie requirement (or half of it if you’re mixing two products) by the number of calories per cup. E.g. 250 kcal/day ➗450 kcal/cup = about ½ cup per day (0.55 cups).

INTRODUCING: PEACHY, OUR CAUSE OF THE MONTH

Animal cruelty is an unspeakable crime, but it’s a harsh reality shelters around the country deal with every day. This month, Cats.com seeks to raise $2,000 to support Peachy, a 3-month-old kitten in Tennessee who suffered a debilitating neck injury after being thrown from a car.

Despite her painful condition, Peachy’s foster caregivers describe her as the sweetest kitten who loves kisses and chin scratches. Isn’t she adorable?

Peachy has a strong will to live but she’s fighting an uphill battle. We need your help to get her the care she needs to make a full recovery and find her forever family. 
 
Do you have a few dollars to spare for Peachy’s sake? Make a donation here.

A Sneak Peek At Sunday's Newsletter.

There may be no such thing as the “perfect” cat food, but some products are simply a better fit for your cat’s carnivorous requirements. In fact, the wrong diet could contribute to serious health problems (like diabetes). In Sunday’s mailer, we dish the dirt on feline diabetes.