Many cat owners tend to overlook the importance of cats’ drinking water. Especially for male cats, due to their physiological structure, insufficient water intake may lay hidden dangers for them to suffer from urinary system diseases.
The amount of water a cat needs every day is equivalent to the calories it needs in a day. To put it simply, a cat needs 60 ml of water for every kilogram of its body weight. For example, if a cat weighs 4 kg and it needs approximately 240 kcal of calories per day, then the amount of water it needs per day is roughly 240 ml.
I. Take feeding with canned food as an example:
If a cat eats staple canned food with a water content of over 80%, and it needs to eat 245 g of canned food every day to provide the 240 calories it needs daily, then how much additional water does it need to drink to meet the daily requirement of 240 ml of water?
1. Water provided by the canned food: 245 * 0.8 = 195 ml
2. Water generated during the digestion process (a cat generates about 11.5 ml for every 100 kcal it eats): 2.4 * 11.5 = 27.6 ml
3. The water that the cat needs to drink to supplement: 240 – 195 – 27.6 = 16.4 ml
II. Take feeding with dry food as an example:
Take the dry feed with a water content of 10%, such as the Instinct High Protein Cat Food as an example. The Instinct High Protein Cat Food contains 4470 kcal/kg. The cat needs about 54 g of it every day to provide the required 240 calories. Then how much additional water does it need to drink to meet the daily requirement of 240 ml of water?
1. Water provided by the dry feed: 54 * 0.1 = 5.4 ml
2. Water generated during the digestion process (a cat generates about 11.5 ml for every 100 kcal it eats): 2.4 * 11.5 = 27.6 ml
3. The water that the cat needs to drink to supplement: 240 – 5.4 – 27.6 = 207 ml
That is to say, dry feed can provide 4% of the water that a cat needs every day, and most of the water needs to be replenished by the cat drinking water on its own. However, for most cats, it is very difficult to drink 200 ml of water. Long-term insufficient water intake will lead to health problems for cats. Cat owners should pay more attention to this aspect in daily feeding.