1 Yr Old Cat Eats Like A Fiend

[karrotlover]

Hi. My cat eats cooked pork balanced with EZ Complete. Is it normal for a 14-month-old cat to eat almost double the "recommended amount" for his weight? He is 8.5 pounds and gobbles up 9 oz of meat (raw weight) a day. He is skinny and very active. He has great bowel movements since switching to homemade food. He has been tested for hyperthyroidism and it came out negative. I wonder if anyone else's cat has ever been like this and if so when they finally grew out of it and started to eat a more normal amount. Thanks in advance!

 

[2ketzels]

hahaha! i just had to laugh. since i adopted 'Boy' almost 10 years ago, no matter what type of food i feed him, he, too "eats like a fiend" -- and -- as soon as he finishes, he's off to try to eat his sister's food (so i must put him on the leash in the kitchen whilst she feeds). my theory is that he is a great hunter; it shows in the way he plays too - he jumps and grabs the toy whilst she sits and watches her toy on the ground. so....i never give 'Boy' open feeding or the kibble (which, i understand, leads to prostate problems). if your kitty "grows out of this behaviour please let my know; maybe i'll be able to do it for 'Boy'. p.s. he's also an assiduous groomer; she isn't.
good luck!

 

[valentine319]

What breed? I ask because a breed like ragdoll takes 4 years to completely mature. Some bigger breeds do. Wondering if he's Maine coon or something causing the still growing cat hunger.

 

[karrotlover]

He's a mutt, a short haired, lanky, sleek black cat. As far as we can tell he stopped growing bigger around/before reaching 12 months.

 

[lisahe]

What breed? I ask because a breed like ragdoll takes 4 years to completely mature. Some bigger breeds do. Wondering if he's Maine coon or something causing the still growing cat hunger.

Our two fairly small (about eight pounds each, full-grown) Siamese mixes also took about two years to completely mature... they just kept filling out in healthy ways and they ate a ton as they did! They're now about four and a half and don't quite eat as much as they did then, though they still eat quite a bit for their size: they're active indoor cats and still have voracious metabolisms. They eat a lot of different foods so I'm not sure how many (equivalent) ounces of food they get a day but it has to be somewhere between six and nine, with varying calories. All of which is to day that I don't think nine ounces a day sounds too outrageous for a fourteen-month-old cat.

If you're feeding very low-fat cuts of pork with EZ Complete, karrotlover , you might want to try including a bit more fat for extra calories. I also feed quite a bit of cooked pork (usually whatever boneless pork chops are on sale) with EZ Complete and always use the fat that melts off during cooking. Depending on what cut I bought, I use all or some of the fat that's still on the meat, too, using more when the weather cools or the cats seem especially hungry.

 

[orange&white]

If you're feeding very low-fat cuts of pork with EZ Complete, karrotlover , you might want to try including a bit more fat for extra calories. I also feed quite a bit of cooked pork (usually whatever boneless pork chops are on sale) with EZ Complete and always use the fat that melts off during cooking. Depending on what cut I bought, I use all or some of the fat that's still on the meat, too, using more when the weather cools or the cats seem especially hungry.

You do want to look at what cuts of pork you're buying and whether or not you're draining the fat.

Here are a few of the pork possibilities per ounce:
Description, kcals, cals from fat, % cals from fat,
Pork blade roast, lean and fat 52, 31, 59.62%
Pork blade roast, lean only 44, 20.8, 47.00%
Pork sirloin chop 43, 18, 41.86%

(All these numbers are for 1 ounce of raw meat.)

So let's say you're using untrimmed blade roast and including all the fat versus blade roast completely trimmed of fat. Also say you pour all the fat back into the food. Your cat eats 9 ounces. The fattier cut gives him 468 kcals and the lean cut gives him 396 kcals. That's a big difference.

Now lets say you cut all the fat off (that you can) and also drain off all the fat after cooking, leaving mostly only lean protein. Most any cut of pork would end up around 20 kcals per ounce x 9 ounces, or 180 kcals per day.

That's just for example. I used raw nutrition numbers because I feed raw. The numbers are different for cooked meats because cooking does concentrate protein.

I think Lisahe hit the nail on the head about why your kitty eats so many ounces. We are incorrect of course, if you are using fatty cuts and pouring all the fat back into the final food mix.

 

[lisahe]

orange&white , that's an excellent -- and very telling -- analysis of the various options! I'm not a numbers person (at least not for much other than checking sodium and weighing meat carefully so I use the proper amount of supplement) so had never paid much attention to the fat/calorie numbers. I just tend to mix things up, feeding various types of meat with varying amounts of fat...

Anyway, thank you for this, it's good to know there are some solid data that back up my suppositions! And to consider when I buy meat to feed our cats.

 

[orange&white]

Thank you. I'll iterate that those numbers are not correct because I didn't look up the nutrition data for cooked meats, which have a different protein/fat ratio depending on the cut and the cooking method. That example is only to show how drastically the calorie count can vary based on your suggestion that karrotlover's cat is probably eating a lot of lean meat and not much fat.

karrotlover ...does that that theory sound like a possibility?

 

[karrotlover]

Oh that is very insightful everyone! I don't trim off any fat, and I poach my meat with just enough water to cover and keep all the cooking liquid. But, apparently I have been using lean cuts (pork loin, etc.). So that probably has something to do with the amount he eats! We will try using more fatty cuts and see how it goes. Thank you!!