mice are the prey of cats, as everyone knows.
But, do you know how many mice a cat needs to eat to meet its nutritional needs for a day?
Most domestic cats now use cat food or canned food as their staple food. We don’t need to spend too much energy to determine how much cat food and canned food a cat should eat a day, because the package of each food will clearly write "recommended feeding ", we only need to feed according to the "recommended feeding amount". All this is due to the development of the pet food industry. The rapid development of pet food has greatly improved the convenience of raising cats.
However, before human intervention, cats lived on animals such as birds and mice. During that period, no one would guide the cat to "recommended feeding amount."
If the diet of domestic cats returns to the game of mice, how many do we need to feed each day?
How many mice a cat needs to eat is related to how much energy they need.
The reason why we eat food is because the food contains all kinds of nutrients we need. These nutrients support the normal operation of our lives.
Sometimes if we do not eat breakfast, we will suddenly feel dizzy and unable to stand up. This is usually caused by insufficient energy supply and low blood sugar. This is the consequence of insufficient food.
In fact, cats are also the same, they also support their life needs through food, food provides cats with the energy they need.
How much energy does a cat consume every day? There is no definite value because there are many factors that affect cats' energy requirements. Z1z
is firstly weight, which is the same as the daily calorie requirement of fat and thin people. The weight of a cat in adulthood is about 2-7 kg, which varies with breed, diet, and living habits.
"Animal nutritionists have made a simple estimate of the energy required for cats to maintain their weight. This range is very large. They believe that cats need "31~100 kcal" of energy per kilogram of body weight. For lean people Cats, their maintenance energy needs about 70 kcal/kg."
We generally believe that for a normal-sized domestic cat, their maintenance energy needs are about 60 kcal/kg. For example, if your cat weighs 4 kg, its daily energy requirement is about 240 kcal.
In addition to body weight, never sterilizing a cat also seems to affect the cat's energy requirements.
Some animal behaviorists believe that after cats are neutered, their amount of exercise will be reduced, so their energy requirements will be reduced accordingly.
This sounds reasonable, but it is just a guess. Because there is no specific research to prove that the energy needed by cats after sterilization will be reduced.
In addition, temperature will also affect the cat's energy requirements. If you think about the difference between people in winter and summer, you can understand, the same reason.
People’s appetite often decreases in summer. On the one hand, the appetite decreases due to too hot weather. On the other hand, people don’t need more energy to maintain body temperature in summer. In cold winters, people often need more energy to stay warm. Z1z
disease and trauma are also important factors that affect the energy needs of cats. The study of
(Skultety et al. (1969) showed that after hypothalamus and midbrain injury, cats will eat more food than before surgery, and can maintain the same body weight, but energy intake increased by 50% ~100%.
Sick cats need more energy to help them get back to health.
The energy of food is determined by the nutrients of the food itself
Below are the nutrients contained in 100 grams of mice, let’s take a look at the mice. How nutritious is a "big meal"!
From the above chart, we can see that the water content in mice is 70%, which is very consistent with what we said "cats should be based on water-rich foods" The protein content is 19%, and the fat content is 6.3%, which are both very good levels.
Through these nutrients, we are more concerned about how much energy 100 grams of mice can provide? If we can know the energy that mice can provide, also You can roughly calculate how many mice a cat needs every day.
We roughly use the following formula to calculate the calories of food:
per 100 grams of product:
total food energy (kcal) = 5.7 × crude protein grams + 9.4 × crude fat grams + 4.1 × carbohydrate grams
According to this formula, we can calculate that the energy contained in 100 grams of mice is about 174.49 kcal.
How many mice are suitable for cats a day?
Now, based on the contents of the above two subsections, we can roughly know how many mice a cat needs every day.
The weight of a little mouse is about 20~30 grams, we calculate it at 25 grams. The energy that a rat can provide is 43.6 kcal.
Now, we assume that the weight of a cat is 4 kg, and its daily energy requirement is about 240kcal. Obviously, cats should consume 5-6 mice a day.
is indeed the case. Cats consume 6-12 mice every day because of their different body weights. This is also in line with cats’ dietary habits. If food is adequate, wild cats will usually eat 10-12 times a day.
Now do you know how many mice a cat eats in a day? 6~12 mice, do you feel a lot? However, the wild cat is so amazing!
