Food Requirements in Life Stages

Like other animals, cats have different nutritional requirements at different stages of their lives.

Infancy (1st month) – Infant cats, or kittens, usually need to stay with their mother cats for at least one month. This is a typical lactation period, and their normal food includes mother’s milk or milk powder for cats.

Delactation (2nd month) – After the infancy stage, it may take two to four weeks for kittens to grow milk teeth (also known as deciduous teeth, baby teeth, temporary teeth, or primary teeth). Once the milk teeth are fully grown, the kittens may keep drinking milk. In the meantime, they can start trying some dry food, such as supplementary canned food for kittens, cooked fish, or cooked and sliced chicken chest meat. After another month or two, we can reduce the amount of kitten food and start to feed more solid cat food.

Diet Change (3rd to 4th month) – On the third month, kittens can start eating solid food in addition to the kitten food. Initially, the solid food can be soaked in warm water or unsalted soap that is mixed with bone powder. The solid food can be adult canned food.

Youth (4th month – 1st year) – gradually replace wet food with dry food.

Adulthood (1st year and afterwards) – one-year old cats enter adulthood, and can be fed with dry good, canned food as main diet. The point is that the diet is balanced in nutrition, and that the meals are administered regularly and with regular amount.

Seniorhood – Cats’ live expectancy is 12 years on average, but some cats can live up to 17 to 18 years. Cats are regarded as entering seniorhood when they live up to 10 years old, which is equivalent to 65 years old for humans.

At this stage, cats’ diet is supposed to be easily digestible. Also, food that is rich in high level of fats and carbohydrates would be ideal for them. If their teeth are still healthy and strong, with little signs of losing teeth or diseases, then soft food is good enough for them.

Pregnancy – It is obvious that pregnant female cats need increased amount of food, usually doubled. They need to take in large amount of proteins and calcium for the fetus’ growth. Food should be easily digestible not only for the pregnant cats and the fetus to absorb the nutrients, but also to avoid ailment in pregnant cats’ stomach or abdomen which may induce miscarriage in serious case.

After delivery, the pregnant cats would be very weak, and soft food with easily digestible ingredients would be suitable for them. Cat milk powder can also be added to the food in order to increase the amount of lactation for the pregnant cats to feed their babies.

Meals on Daily Basis

The daily food intake frequency for cats varies in different stages of their lives, and the frequency would gradually decrease when they grow older.

1-2 month – Daily food intake is the most frequent in the first two months of their infancy and delectation stages. They would need five to seven meals a day.

3-6 month – In the third to the sixth month of their diet change and early youth stages, they would need four meals a day.

7-12 month – In the seventh to the twelfth month when they grow from youth to adulthood, they would need three meals a day.

Adulthood to Seniorhood – Throughout adulthood, feed them twice a day, and when they grow old, feed them once or twice, dependent on situation.

Pregnant cats usually need two to three meals a day, dependent on needs.

Quantity-wise, there are some principles we can follow in the amount of food given at each meal. One principle is small and regular amount in each meal.

Another principle is that the size of cats’ stomachs is similar to that of their heads. This can be a good standard to estimate the amount of food we should give at each meal.

We may decide whether to adjust the amount of each meal and/or frequency by estimating if the cats start to show the sign of obesity or overweight using the handy methods mentioned in “The Conditions and Regularity of Cat Physical Exercise”.

In terms of calories, the daily requirement of adult cats can be calculated by multiplying the net weight of the cats by 80 calories. We may then decide if we need to adjust the balance of nutrition and energy intake as well as daily amount and frequency.