Primal - Feeding Instructions

Good day everyone,

Looking for advice regarding feeding portions for a cat purely on a Primal diet.

I have a 4 yr old bengal (Bailey) who was on a wellness wet food diet before the switch. Our routine used to be a 5.5 oz can in the morning and a 3 oz can in the evening. Based on the nutritional guidelines, that amounts to roughy 253 calories daily. That seemed to work for us and she maintained a healthy weight 9.5 to 10 pounds. She does rest as other cats do when I am not there but does not run around and jump around quite a bit when I am around.

After reading a few articles about carrageenan etc, I decided to try a carrageenan free diet. After numerous attempts and trying new food, landed on trying Primal (FD Chicken/Salmon) and she loves the stuff. Rather than nurse her food as she used to do... she wolfed it down in minutes. I read that 3.5 nuggets amount to 161 calories, so I was thinking that 5 to 6 nuggets daily would do the trick in terms of maintaining the same caloric intake she had while on wellness. That said, she keeps meowing for more and I am not sure whether it's hunger or if she loves the stuff. I don't want to overfeed her but, at the same time, I don't want her to be hungry for no reason. Perhaps the food is digesting faster and she just feels hungry faster... I am not an expert and am not sure.

I upped her to 7 nuggets and she still wants more. Should I up her intake to 8 nuggets daily or is that too much?

I have reached out to my vet and am waiting for a response. While waiting figure that I would ask the forum.

Any thoughts/experience/advice on the matter would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi, and welcome to TCS

According to Primal's feeding calculator, you should be feeding around 4.3 nuggets a day for maintenance (feeding at 2.5% of bodyweight, based on her weighing 10lbs). This would be 200 calories a day.

Feeding at 3% of bodyweight (i.e. for slight weight gain), you should be aiming for 5.1 nuggets a day. This would work out at 240 calories a day.

You generally feed less raw food than you would canned, as the cat is able to utilise more of the nutrients in the food. If your girl is constantly begging for more, I'd get her checked by a vet - just to be certain there was nothing going on that might affect her appetite. However, it's perfectly possible that she's just totally in love with this new food, and is begging for more simply because it's so yummy

I certainly wouldn't recommend feeding 7 or 8 nuggets a day - that would be a sure way to make her gain!

Primal Pet Food's feeding calculator [article="31116"][/article]

I was feeding my active 1 year old 6 nuggets but he was getting a little chubby at 11 pounds so i downed it to 5. He has a small frame so it seemed appropriate. I think 8 nuggets are overkill! If her weight doesnt fluxuate at 7 nuggets then you can keep it that way. Every kitty's different.

Thanks. I think she just loves the stuff and I am too much of a sucker to give in when she meows and gives me that look

My vet seemed to think that 7/8 was too much as well and we did look up the primal website and we played with the food calculator as well coming up with the

4 nuggets per day that you had suggested. That said, he thought that given that that was an approximate calculator I should try 5.5 and then adjust accordingly

I am planning on 5.5 nuggets today and plan on weighing her every other day and adjust accordingly if I noticed a marked change.

Appreciate the input and help