How Many Cups Of Food Should A Maine Coon Eat

How Many Cups Of Food Should A Maine Coon Eat

The Maine Coon is a large cat that needs a lot of food to keep them healthy and happy. A healthy and robust Maine Coon is a magnificent animal.

This can be especially difficult for people who feed their Maine Coons dry food because it’s often in cups, which are not the same as grams or ounces.

If your Maine Coon likes dry food, many owners prefer to use cupfuls as a counting measure. So how many cups of food should a Maine Coon eat?

There are about 100 grams of dry food in a cup and nearly 350 calories. Adult Maine Coons need around 500-600 calories per day so they should eat around two cups of dry food each day in terms of calories. It is best to feed your Maine Coon a balanced wet and dry food diet.

There is a lot of information to consider when feeding your Maine Coon. Some people prefer to feed them wet food because of its higher protein and fat content while others believe dry food is healthier for their cats due to the low-fat aspect.

What Is A Cup And How Many Calories Is A Full Cup

A cup is a specified volume of dry food from a scoop. When feeding a cat, one ‘cupful’ gives you a consistent measure of food over time without weighing.

You can do without them, and many people prefer to ‘eyeball’ the correct amount.

If you have a healthy Maine Coon, no one should be criticizing you for anything.

That said, many people use cups as a standard measurement. Nothing wrong with that either.

They can often come in fractions as well, such as 1/2 cup or 1/3 cup for the same purpose.

Dry food can have a standard volume but the calorie content will vary with the quality of the feed.

Of good quality high protein food, a level cup should be around 100g. The cup will contain around 300 to 350 calories.

How Many Calories Does A Maine Coon Need

Calories are the measure of energy needed to sustain a healthy Maine Coon.

There are different factors that will determine how many calories a Maine Coon needs.

The most important being general activity levels, size, gender, and whether the cat is an indoor Maine Coon or not. Mine is, so the energy levels needed are lower.

The average caloric requirement for a Maine Coon is between 350- 600 calories per day as an adult, which would be the equivalent of two to three cups of dry food.

The always quoted statistic is 30 calories per day per pound in weight.

Thus a 15lb Maine Coon would need around 450 calories a day.

Maine Coons continue growing for some time though after birth and can still be growing 2 or 3 years later.

A kitten can need 90 calories per pound in weight as it grows.

As the kitten comes into young adulthood it would still be reasonable to feed them 60 calories per pound in weight.

Kitten food is normally quite high in protein calories to accommodate the growing needs of the kitten.

So calories are dependent on weight and the growing needs of the Maine Coon. They aren’t a specific amount.

If any Maine Coon is becoming overweight then the number of calories should be cut back to maintain a healthy adult cat.

How Many Cups For A Maine Coon

During the first few weeks after birth, the kitten will be getting all the calories from the mother’s milk.

From about two months of age onward, the kitten will start to be weaned and would need around 90 calories per pound in weight.

Even though a kitten should be fed wet food in the early stages until the teeth start developing.

Along with jaw power.

A Maine Coon kitten can easily be 3lb in weight quite quickly so in theory would need around 270 to 300 calories per day.

That’s pretty much one cupful.

Kittens in the early stages should be fed little and often, moving towards 4 times a day after a few months.

While a balanced diet is always preferable, if you are feeding your cat a dry food diet, one cup per day would be the equivalent of around 300 calories.

If your kitten is still looking hungry then it may be because they need to drink more water or go out for some exercise.

So essentially, there is no magic number of cups to give a Maine Coon to eat. It depends upon the stage in life, the growing needs, and the calorie count of what the food is.

At 4 weeks old a Maine Coon kitten could quite easily be eating 1 1/2 cupfuls of kitten food if it was on dry food for a day.

10 years later, the cat could be 18lb and need 2 cupfuls because the food is for adult Maine Coons, still needing a high protein count and it requires 540 calories a day.