Cat’s have a refined palate and frequently crave scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and toasted bread on your breakfast plate. While you can indulge them occasionally, this is not their ideal breakfast.
While tasty, human breakfast food may not help our feline friends meet their daily nutritional needs. It may also lead to unnecessary weight gain, leading to severe health complications.
Despite living indoors and enjoying some non-meat treats, cats are carnivores who require meaty protein to thrive and flourish.
Does a Cat Need Breakfast?
There’s a rampant misconception that cats don’t need breakfast because they’re nocturnal animals. That’s highly misleading because cats are neither diurnal nor nocturnal creatures. Instead, cats are crepuscular creatures – they’re active at sunset and first light and sleep during the rest of the day and night.
Unlike wild cats, domesticated cats won’t hunt rodents and other small mammals to appease their hunger pangs.
A more compelling reason to feed your cat breakfast is that cats shouldn’t go for 12 hours without food. If famished for more than 12 hours, a cat’s stomach can get hyper acidic, and an acidic gut can herald severe health complications later.
As a result, your indoor cat needs a sound, nutrient-dense breakfast every day to remain strong, active, and healthy.
What’s a healthy, nutrient-dense breakfast for a cat in 2023?
As the main meal of the day, a cat’s breakfast can run the whole gamut but include a healthy chunk of animal proteins. An ideal breakfast for your furry friend may contain some of the following food options.
- Plain eggs or eggs with curds
- Blended rice with pieces of chicken
- Cooked fish
- Vegetables
- Fruits mixed with plain yogurt
- Select whole grains such as millet, oats, and couscous
You can experiment with these groups to create various breakfast foods for your cats and keep them healthy and strong.
Dry Vs Wet Cat Food for Breakfast?
It’s tempting to fill your cat’s bowl with her favorite dry food treats, but that’s not ideal. While your cat will happily munch on kibbles, they’re better off with wet foods. See, cats are not fond of taking water, leading to kidney problems.
Making wet food a cat’s first meal provides them with a nutritionally dense meal while supplying them with much-needed fluids. By giving your cat dry foods in the morning, you might be sating their hunger but increasing the dehydration risk. Cats that are routinely dehydrated have a higher risk of feline urinary tract infection, hence you may need to safely feed your cat watermelons to help with hydration.
Dry foods are great for a cat’s teeth and allow for convenient, no-mess feeding.
Cat Feeding Intervals
There are no fixed rules about feeding your feline friends, and you can set a feeding routine that suits your daily schedule. Cats are highly adaptive creatures who can adapt to your lifestyle. However, you should pick and adhere to a specific feeding regime, since cats like and adhere to a feeding schedule. It’s not uncommon for a cat to wake up their owners to fix breakfast.
The ideal feeding duration depends on whether you have adult cats or kittens. You should feed week-old kittens every two hours and gradually space them out as they grow older. You can feed 6 to 8-week old kittens every 6 hours. An ideal feeding schedule for adult cats comprises one or two meals per day.
How Much Food Should you Give a Cat?
There are no fast rules about how much food a cat should eat. Naturally, it takes more effort to feed kittens than adult cats. Here is a simple guide to ensure you’re not under or overfeeding your cats and kittens:
Week old kittens weighing up to 5.3 ounces: Feed them 2 to 6 ml of kitten replacer formula every two hours.
5-week old kittens weighing up to 19.4 ounces: Feed them 18 to 22 ml of replacer formula every 6 hours.
6 to 8-week old kittens weighing up to 29.8 ounces: Wean them into wet foods and feed them every 6 hours.
4 to 6-month-old kittens weighing 4 to 6 pounds: Feed them up to one cup of dry and wet kitten food three times a day.
Kittens between 6 months and I year weighing up to 10 pounds: Follow the recommendation on the food labels and feed them twice a day.
Adult cat up to 10 pounds: Follow the recommendation on the food labels and feed them once or twice a day.
Senior cats weighing up to 8 pounds: Offer them a tailor-made diet plan and follow the pet’s recommendations.
Bottom Line
Your cat will thrive if you feed them nutrient-dense breakfast food that caters to their specific needs. Wet food is the best choice for a cat’s breakfast because it’s filling, rich in nutrients and fluids. Avoid sharing your breakfast with your cat, which might deprive them of much-needed nutrients and lead to obesity.