Measuring your cats food

[mrw5641]

Hi all! How do you measure your cat food?

Do you use a typical measuring spoon or cup that you use for baking?

What I am trying to do is measure out my cats wet food, so if a full can has 146 k/cal per can, I want to figure out how much per TBSP

 

[LTS3]

If accuracy is important, then use a kitchen dry measuring cup or spoon.

 

[klunick]

Wet food, I buy 3 oz or 5 oz cans and try to split it evenly down the middle twice a day and give each cat half. For dry food, I use a 1/2 cup measuring cup and give them one scoop per day.

 

[mrw5641]

Thanks! LTS3 klunick I am trying to reduce the amount of dry food I am giving him which is currently from the automatic feeder,, here is my little chart I am working on. He is on prescription diet h/p so its hard for him to eat the wet food sometimes, but I am looking to replace 2 dry feedings with a wet

10/22/2020 TEST
6:15:00 AM	2 FEEDS	2 TBSP and 1 TSP	50​		8 TBSP	167​
10:30:00 AM	1 FEEDS	1.5 TBSP	30​		2 TSP	20​
2:45:00 PM	1 FEEDS	1.5 TBSP	30​		APPROX	187​
2:000 AM	1 FEEDS	1.5 TBSP	30​
		FEEDER	140​
	MANUAL	1.5 TBSP	30​
	MANUAL	1 TBSP	20​
		BY HAND	50​
		TOTAL	190​
		ESTIMATE	180-200 K/CAL DRY / DAY

 

[Caspers Human]

If you want accuracy, get a digital kitchen scale capable of displaying at least two decimal places.

Weigh out three full cans of food, individually (without the can, of course) and average them out to get the amount of food per can.

Divide the number of calories per can, listed the label, by the weight of a full can to get the number of calories per unit.

When you decide how many calories your cat should eat per day, divide to get the number or units-weight to feed your cat per day then divide that amount by the number of servings you want to give your cat every day.

Now, all you'll have to do is weigh out that much food and you'll have the exact amount.

Once you have come up with the right amount, by weight, you can find any container or measuring spoon to dole out the right amount.

 

[daftcat75]

I used a kitchen scale.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L92PSMP/?tag=thecatsite

Because I also warmed up her food, I would weigh a portion into a baggie and then run it under a warm water stream in the sink until the chill was gone. About a minute. I washed and re-used baggies to minimize waste. If it was the first portion from a can, I might just set the plate on the scale and weigh the portion straight onto the plate. Towards the end of her life, I was warming every portion for her though.

The advantage of portioning by grams of food is that you can take the big ME (metabolic energy) number on the back, divide by 1000 to get calories/gram, and multiply by the grams you served to arrive at the calories for that meal.

A 3 oz can is supposed to be 85 g. A 5.5 oz can is supposed to be 154 grams. I never found either to be exactly that. Instead, I decided what the portion should be and went from there. If she was getting "half a 3 oz can", then I would weigh out 42 grams. So much easier to go by weight than a volume measurement like tablespoons and cups.

 

[Caspers Human]

A 3 oz can is supposed to be 85 g. A 5.5 oz can is supposed to be 154 grams. I never found either to be exactly that.

Yes, that's the reason why I suggested weighing three cans worth of food and taking the average.

If a can of cat food is labeled as weighing 47.99 drams-avdp, it might actually contain anywhere from 47 to 49 drams.
Taking the average will help you be consistent with your measurements.

 

[*kara*]

My kitty gets 2 meals of dry and 2 of wet each day. Based on her daily total calories, I give her a half of a 3oz can of Fancy Feast pate for breakfast and the second half at dinner. That keeps the wet food fairly easy (I do make sure that the cans I choose have roughly the same total calories to make it simple). Then, I subtracted total daily calories from the average calories her cans have to get a total calories from dry food number. Calculated how much dry based on the cal/cup number on the bag. She gets 1/4 cup of her dry food per day, split between lunch time and just before bed each evening.

If she really bugs for a bit more, I find a tsp of dry in her feeder ball toy does the trick.