Just Not Getting It-bone Percentages

[NelsonGatto]

If you’re supposed to feed 10% bone and a chicken wing is 46% bone.. How do I calculate how much of the wing to actually feed?


If my cat is 15 pounds From a calculator I used he should be getting 0.72 ounces of bone day.. would I just weigh out 0.72 ounces of chicken wing?


Help?


Thank you!

 

[pogo16]

The 10% bone is based on what the cat eats so if your cat eats 5 oz/day, the amount of bone that he needs to eat is .5oz/day.
Let's pretend a chicken wing weighs 1oz. The amount of bone in it is .46oz. So, with one chicken wing, you pretty much fulfilled the cat's daily requirement. The rest of the day's food would be meat and organ. By the way, 10% bone is not set in stone, I've seen the range vary from 5% to 15%. Some cats, like mine, get constipated on 10 percent.

 

[orange&white]

To expand on pogo's answer, .46 ounces of bone will make 4.6 ounces of food mix (times 10x multiplier).

So if you have 1 ounce of wings (.46 bone, .54 oz "meat" - mainly fat in wings)
You'll want 5% liver = .23 oz liver (half the bone)
You'll want 5% other secreting organ = .23 oz other

Now you have 1.46 ounces out of 4.6 ounce. Subtract: 4.6-1.46 = 3.14

You'll want to add 3.14 ounces of boneless meat and you end up with 4.6 ounces of 80/10/5/5 balanced mix.

By the way, you calculated feeding your 15 pound cat 3% of his body weight. Raw-fed cats normally eat between 2-3%. If your cat is a large-breed, young and very active, 3% may work. If he's overweight, he might be better off at 2%. A lot of people start in the middle at 2.5% of the cat's ideal body weight and adjust according to whether the cat is gaining or losing weight (or maintaining). My fat 15.5 pound cat is currently eating less than 2% to lose some weight.