Did You Know You Might Be Feeding Your Cat All Wrong?

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Different animals have different behaviors when it comes to food. As a result, it is common for humans to make mistakes about what our pets need and don’t need when it comes to their food intake. In particular, cat owners might want to make sure that they are feeding their cats in the right manner because that can have a wide range of effects on their well-being beyond that which was both obvious and immediate in nature.

What Are Some Important Factors to Keep in Mind?

For starters, interested individuals should know that there is no such thing as a perfect feeding routine for all of the cats that can be found out there. Instead, if cat owners want to have a perfect feeding routine for their feline companion, they are going to need to come up with one for them. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that they can’t seek out help in the form of veterinarians as well as other useful sources of information.

Generally speaking, a feeding routine needs to take into consideration the cat’s need for play, need for predation, need for safety, and various other considerations. Due to this, the common routine of feeding a cat one or two large meals on a daily basis is a bad idea because it can cause them stress, which in turn, can encourage them to over-eat as a sort of stress relief. Suffice to say that this is not healthy for the cat, meaning that it won’t be good for the cat owner’s bank account either once the long-term consequences start showing up.

Instead, interested individuals might want to pick out a puzzle feeder, which will need their cats to use their brains to get at the food. This is useful because it will stimulate them mentally. Moreover, it will help them spread out their food intake over a much wider range of time instead of concentrating it in either one or two large meals, thus reducing the chances of the numerous complications that can pop up because of over-eating. With that said, there is another excellent option in the form of placing food at different locations situated throughout the home, which can encourage cats to engage in foraging behavior. There is a slight problem in that said strategy isn’t well-suited for wet foods, which is one thing where puzzle feeders can clearly come out on top.

Speaking of which, interested individuals might want to make sure that they are feeding their cats the right amount of food for their particular circumstances. Simply put, if cats are getting more food than what they are actually using up, the inevitable consequence is that they are going to get fat. Most cat owners will just make guesses at how much food their cats need, which are guided by their experience. Unfortunately, that isn’t good enough, as shown by the fact that most pet cats in the United States are either overweight or outright obese. Since obesity is about as beneficial for cats as it is for humans, this is something that cat owners should do their best to correct as soon as possible.

Fortunately, this isn’t something that they have to do on their own because it is complicated enough that they should probably seek out a veterinarian or some other kind of specialist. In short, if they want to figure out how much they should be feeding their cats, they need to consider issues such as the age of the cat, the size of the cat, and the health status of the cat. On top of this, it should be mentioned that having more than one cat in a household complicates the situation further because multiple feline companions have a huge impact on what a cat does on a regular basis. Never mind other considerations such as whether the cat is an indoor cat or an outdoor cat.

Theoretically, a cat owner could come up with a good estimate of how much their cats should be eating with sufficient research. However, considering the sheer effort that is going to require, consulting a veterinarian or some other specialist is the much more sensible option. This is particularly true because they are still going to be the decision-maker at the end of the day, just that they are going to do their job as such with the benefit of having an expert source to consult.