What to feed a 9 month old cat
Cat Food 101: What, When, & How Much to Feed Your Cat
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hello it's Mallory here with all about
cats and this is my cat wessie he's
currently very hungry which is very
appropriate for today's topic which is
how to feed your cat so we're going to
be going over the basics of what you
should be feeding your cat how often you
should be feeding your cat and how much
they should be eating on a daily basis
so let's get on into it
[Music]
first off I have to explain that this
video is not going to give any specific
product recommendations I've done a lot
of videos recommending the best cat food
on the market so I'll put links in the
cards in the description if you'd like
to check that out instead I'm going to
be giving general advice to help you
choose food regardless of what's on the
market and and to decide how exactly
your cat is going to get that food so I
hope this gives you a good foundation
additionally I have to mention that this
video is sponsored by tuft and PAW so
you may have heard me mention this brand
before on the channel it is a brand
offering stylish cat furniture that
makes your house look better not worse
like a lot of other cat items do so if
you would like to get 10 off your order
you can enter the coupon code All About
Cats 10 at checkout so thanks again tuft
and PAW for sponsoring this video so
first off we need to talk about what
your cat should be eating so I know it's
kind of a meme in the cat world that
cats domesticated us cats train uh so
we're cats pets they're not really our
pets but there's more truths to this
than you might assume so cats first
entered human settlements about ten
thousand to twelve thousand years ago or
so it's thought and at that time they
came opportunistically to Feast on the
mice they gathered around green stores
at that time or so the current
historical understanding says so there
were these Wildcats they came into human
settlements and
additional domestication or breeding in
order to become valuable parts of human
society so you look at dogs for instance
and they've been selectively bred for
thousands of years not so with cats cats
remain essentially the same as their
wild ancestors one of the first ways in
which we can see how little our cats
have changed from their wild ancestors
is in their nature as obligate
carnivores so unlike some other
carnivores that are able to synthesize
certain nutrients that are naturally
found in raw meat and their prey cats
require the nutrients that come from
prey and there's no other natural source
for these so a few examples are the
amino acid taurine which is probably one
of the most famous ones that is only
found in animal sources with the
exception of some plant sources like
from algae that's that's very minimal
and your cat's not getting it that way
so they have to get taurine from animal
sources there are also some fatty acids
the cats need to get from animals
sources and the only way that we're able
to get these to our cats without feeding
them raw fresh animals is by making fake
versions of them so synthetic
supplements every single food on the
market that has met AFCO guidelines for
nutritional completeness is modeling
whole prey it's modeling the nutrients
that would naturally be found in your
cat's whole prey and generally when you
talk to a veterinarian about what your
cat should be eating this is kind of
where the conversation stops they'll
tell you that your cat's food needs to
be formulated and it needs to meet AFCO
guidelines for nutritional completeness
for the cat's life stage they'll
recommend that the food is undergone
feeding trials to ensure that it's
nutritionally adequate but that's about
it as always I am not a veterinarian nor
a Veterinary nutritionist feel free to
ask your vet about this I just want to
present some information that might be
more satisfying to curious minds there
are two really big things that I would
think about when uh looking at cat food
there's a lot more to consider but these
are the two that I think are the most
important the first is moisture and I
had a realization a few years ago that
all dry food is nutrient deficient yes
it's able to meet those guidelines but
because cats have very low thirst drives
and it has been documented that cats who
consume a dry diet consume about half as
much moisture as those on a wet diet
even considering the water they drink in
addition to their food considering that
a dry food is deficient in the most
important nutrient which is water okay
cats need water to survive and perhaps
most obviously cats need water to flush
out their urinary tracts and many many
many cats especially younger male cats
will struggle with your urethral
blockage or cystitis or other urinary
tract issues and probably the best way
to combat that is simply feeding a wet
diet so I would never advise feeding a
dry food sometimes it's more convenient
sometimes cats are addicted to it but if
you have the opportunity to feed your
cat wet please feed your cat wet the
second thing I think about when choosing
a cat food is carbohydrate content so
it's a little bit of a contentious area
because it's been shown that cats can
metabolize carbohydrates so they can
utilize
um
sugars for energy however this is not a
part of the evolutionary diet of a cat
so cats again they live off of whole
prey and these do not contain sources of
carbohydrates and so cats are able to
meet all of their energy and nutrient
needs through
non-carbohydrate nutrients so protein
and fat and macronutrients additionally
it's been shown that both glucose and
protein metabolism in cats affect serum
glucose and insulin levels in ways
similar to that of a diabetic human so
we're seeing some similarity between a
normal healthy cat and diabetes
pathology in people again there's not
been any conclusive link between a high
carbohydrate diet and developing
diabetes in cats just considering that
it's not a part of the natural feline
diet it's not what the cats bodies
evolves to utilize I would consider
carbohydrates to be both unnecessary and
sub-optimal as a part of a cat's diet it
gets a lot easier to avoid High
carbohydrate Foods once you start
rolling out dry Foods because most wet
Foods tend to be free of those
ingredients that boost those
carbohydrate levels and then once you've
gotten a great Baseline with high
moisture content low carbohydrate
content
ility company reputation and price and
all those things are going to be kind of
subtle and depend on your preferences so
once you've chosen the food that you
want to give your cat how much of that
food should you be giving them
and that depends on your cat so kittens
are going to need about twice as much
food as an adult cat so they need about
60 to 65 calories per pound of body
weight an adult cat is going to need
about half that amount so about 20 to 33
calories per pound of body weight and
that number is going to be higher or
lower depending on the number of factors
I would recommend using the cat weight
calculator on all about cats.com to
figure out uh
what your cat should weigh and how much
they should eat to either maintain that
weight or reach that ideal weight it was
developed with the help of Veterinary
and Dr Chris Vanderhoof thank you so
much
and it's a really helpful tool that I
think you'll find really useful in
getting a good handle on how much you
should be feeding your cat every day and
then our last section is when you should
be feeding your cat this is a really
interesting question so some researchers
looked at how frequently cats feral cats
would have meals so they would catch on
average
7.2 prey animals each day in the study
and then they would eat about five of
them each day there have also been some
lab studies where they saw how many
times they went to have a meal and those
guys were eating about 16 meals a day so
regardless we're seeing that cats are
eating multiple meals a day often many
meals a day the number of meals a day
goes up when the cat is really bored but
cats don't seem to want to just eat one
or two meals a day it seems to cats want
multiple small meals throughout their
day now this isn't going to be feasible
for everyone but I would recommend at
least breaking your cat's food up into
two meals at least every day and
positioning them at the normal hunting
times for a cat so cats are crepuscular
creatures they hunt at dawn and dusk
it's when they're most active and it's
nice for them to have a meal around the
time that they would naturally hunt so
if you can feed your cat around on feed
your cat around dusk maybe break it up
into a few little meals during that
period or hide little meals around the
house during those periods that would be
ideal so that's about it I hope that
this helped you and maybe left you
feeling a bit better equipped to go
forth than feed your cat properly
remember that I'll put links to all of
my cat food reviews and guides in the
description so you can refer to those
and perhaps choose use a food that you
think will work for your cat I'll also
put a link to sign up to get the
complete guide to feline nutrition which
is a veterinarian written veterinarian
reviewed
extensive PDF that goes into far more
detail on the basics of feline nutrition
as well as some top recommendations so
you can see the link to that in the
description as well so thank you so much
for being here I know it's been a while
since I've put something up I've been
working on trying to get ahead on
scripting and preparing videos for the
next year so again I really really
appreciate that you're here and I'm very
thankful for your support so
uh yeah thanks again and I will see you
very soon
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