Why Do Cats Need Fewer Calories On Homemade Raw?

Azazel

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It seems that the rule of 20 calories per pound of weight doesn’t apply with homemade raw. Is it because homemade food is usually more nutrient dense so they need fewer calories to get all of their nutrients? For example, my 9.5 pound cat would need 180-190 kcal per day if she were on commercial food, but she eats about 4.7 ounces of raw which comes out to about 150kcal per day.

Why??? :headscratch:
 

mschauer

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In my experience it isn't true that cats need fewer kcal/lb BW with raw food than with processed foods.

When I was fostering a very overweight kitty, I had to monitor his calorie intake very closely for a year to be sure he consistently lost weight. When I first got him I put him on processed foods, then switched him to raw, then back to processed to prepare him for adoption since his new family almost certainly wouldn't feed raw. I kept him on the same number of calories per day regardless of whether what type of food he was on and his weight loss remained consistent.

Now I did have problems with the calorie density published for some processed foods. For the most part they seemed to be accurate but I did run across some that could not possibly have been accurate. That, obviously, could lead to inaccurate calorie calculations.

A lot of raw feeders report they can feed their cats a lessor quantity of raw than what they fed of processed but I don't know if any of them actually did the calorie intake calculations. Most of the time I think we can feed less raw because the raw formulations tend to be higher in fat. But, :dunno:

Oh, and the 20 kcal/lb BW isn't a rule but more of a rule of thumb. It is just a place for someone to start if they don't know how much to feed their cat to be adjusted up or down as needed. How many calories per day a cat needs will depend on it's lifestyle and metabolism.
 
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Azazel

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Interesting. I’ve just been basing it on the recommendation usually given to homemade raw feeders vs. the recommendations for commercial food.

Homemade raw feeders are told to feed about 3% of body weight and commercial food is typically recommended at 20kcal per pound. When I compare these calculations, I always end up with fewer calories with the homemade food. I get that they are both just rough values and should be adjusted accordingly, but I still get fewer calories on homemade as a baseline either way.
 
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Azazel

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Oh, and about raw being higher in fat - I always thought wet food was higher in fat. Homemade raw usually tends to be higher in protein and most of the canned foods I’ve seen on the market are around 50% fat.
 

mschauer

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It all depends on the specific foods being used and how accurate the information you have is. At one time it was frequently posted here at TCS that people found if they fed their cats a "high quality" food the cat would require less of it. The speculation was that the nutrients in the "high quality" foods were more bioavailable and that was why cats ate less of it. I accidentally found, while working on something else, that those supposed high quality foods were actually significantly higher in fat than foods considered lower in quality.

And, how can we really know how much fat there is in our homemade diets? You can't really tell by looking especially when it comes to intramuscular fat.

Honestly I really don't think there is any way to answer your question given that I don't think it has been established that cats need fewer calories if fed a homemade raw diet than if fed a processed diet. They may eat less quantity wise but do we really know they eat fewer calories??? Maybe we do but I'm not aware of anything other than anecdotal evidence of it.
 
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Azazel

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I guess the recommendations are based on assumptions then. Maybe they're good starting points, but it's up to the human to monitor and adjust accordingly.
 

lisahe

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This is an interesting question! I always wondered about this, too, A Azazel , in large part because our cats could go for hours (four or five) after a small Rad Cat (RIP) snack. I don't remember how small "small" was but it wasn't more than 2-3 tablespoons. It always really puzzled me that so little Rad Cat lasted so long for them. The cats do pretty well on Stella & Chewy's Selects, too, though it doesn't quite match up to Rad Cat for them. (Or for me, either!)
 

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I just started my Krista on Tiki Cat Raw Turkey with Bone Broth because it’s the only egg-less—but not boneless— commercial raw in a protein she can have. I haven’t yet figured out whether it’s the bone or what. But she will eat maybe half an ounce and sleep for hours! She doesn’t look distressed. She just sleeps the sleep of princesses. I need her to eat a larger portion if she’s going to sleep that long. Still looking for a boneless and now possibly eggless recipe she might like and will eat enough of.
 

mschauer

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I guess the recommendations are based on assumptions then. Maybe they're good starting points, but it's up to the human to monitor and adjust accordingly.
I guess. People are just reporting their experiences. The assumptions only come in when we speculate on why that has been their experience. My experience has also been that I need to feed my cats a lessor quantity of my home made raw food than what I need to feed of a processed food. But to say that that is so because cats need to consume fewer calories when eating a home made raw food than when eating a processed food is just speculation that, as far as I know, isn't supported by known facts.
 

darg

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My cat was a bit underweight at about 9.7 lbs 6 months ago. I switched him from dry kibble to quality canned ... rawz and stella and chewy's. He stopped throwing up and quickly gained weight. I added in some homemade turkey shortly afterwards. Vet figured 10.5 - 11.5 lbs would be an ok weight for him. He got there quickly, then surpassed it and was looking real good right at just a hair over 12 lbs. I thought I had him stabilized there but he crept up to 12.8 lbs and the vet said he still looked ok but not to go any higher. I cut his calories back by 5-10 calories per day and just weighed him again this morning. He's gained another .2 lbs in the past couple of weeks, right at 13 lbs. now. The only difference is that he has been eating more of the raw / homemade over those past couple of weeks.

I'm going to cut him back another 5-10 calories (estimated calories) now but that said, I really don't think it's raw food in and off itself. I agree with mschauer mschauer in that I think it's simply that the raw, homemade food I'm feeding is more calorie dense than what's estimated/stated.
 

nwc

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I have noticed that some of the homemade recipes published recommend grass fed/organic meats which are probably a bit leaner than the standard cuts. This could be one source of error in calculating calories for homemade cat food.
 

darg

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I have noticed that some of the homemade recipes published recommend grass fed/organic meats which are probably a bit leaner than the standard cuts. This could be one source of error in calculating calories for homemade cat food.
I've tried looking up the calories for turkey thigh. The numbers vary from 160 or so calories to 200+ calories per a 4 oz serving. I really don't think there is any way to know for sure as each cut can have a different fat content.
 
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