Have you ever really thought about or questioned how much food you should feed your Pet? What do those feeding guidelines on Pet food packaging really mean? How do you know if you are feeding your Pet the right amount of food?
Let’s start with the feeding guidelines on the packaging. Guideline is really the key word here; that is all that they really are. They are a starting point, after which we must make logical changes to keep our Pets in ideal body condition. Feeding guides provide an estimation of what the average Pet requires for his/her current body weight. Did you know that the actual amount of food that your individual Pet needs can vary from the average Pet by 25%? This large variation in requirements is one of the greatest challenges we have when feeding pets and can be a leading source of the obesity epidemic that we are now faced with in veterinary nutrition. The large variation among individual Pets is due to differences in sex, breed, environment (indoor vs. outdoor), exercise and a whole host of other factors.
Feeding guides typically list the amount of food that your Pet needs per day, rather than the amount of food that they need at each meal. So, if you feed your Pet twice a day, you should divide the amount the feeding guide recommends by two.
Most feeding guides will tell you how many cups of food to feed per day. Take a critical look at the cup that you use to measure your Pet’s food. Feeding guides are based on a USA standard cooking cup of 237 ml. In this era of supersizing, we often forget what a standard US cup size is. Some Pet food companies are helpful and provide standard feeding cups for their foods. You can ask your veterinarian if they have one to give you with your food. It can also be difficult to judge a quarter, third or half of a cup. An easy solution is to invest just a few dollars in purchasing a cooking cup set at your local kitchen retailer. These make it so simple to accurately determine what a quarter of a cup really is!
Accuracy is important in how much you feed, but so too is consistency. Our Pets will lead healthier lives if we are consistent in our routine with the time of day that we feed our Pets, how much we feed and how much we exercise them. Now that we have implemented an accurate and consistent approach, how do we really decide if we are feeding the right amount to our Pets? The answer is simple and enjoyable. We need to touch and feel our Pets! Specifically, run your hands over the sides of the chest and abdomen of your Pet to the tail. You want to be able to feel the ribs, and the ribs should have light cover of fat on them. As you reach the abdomen, you want to be able to feel an indentation of the waist. Also, if you stand above your Pet, you should be able to readily see the indentation of the waist. This technique of feeling for the amount of fat that your Pet is carrying is called Body Condition Scoring, and it is a technique that your veterinarian will perform (along with body weight) at each visit. If you can easily feel and see the ribs, with very little fat covering, then your pet will need more food. If on the other hand, your pet has a generous covering of fat over the ribs and thickening of the waist area, it is time to reduce the amount that you are feeding and/or increase the amount of exercise. A good general recommendation is to increase or decrease the amount you feed by about 10% and monitor your Pet closely for the next 2-3 weeks for improvement. Finally, remember that your veterinarian is the best person who can give you expert advice about how to feed our Pet and if your Pet is in ideal body condition!
