Snacks for cats as a reward without upsetting their feeding
Cat snacks are small treats you give in addition to the daily food: as a reward, for training, as a moment of togetherness or simply to pamper. The most important thing to know before you fill the bowl is the quantity. A widely recommended rule of thumb is that treats should make up no more than around 10 percent of the cat's total daily calorie intake. The rest should come from a complete food that covers all of the cat's needs. The reason is simple: treats are rarely nutritionally complete, and cats are small animals where even a few extra calories count. A handful of snacks every day can therefore fairly quickly push an indoor cat towards being overweight if you don't reduce the meals accordingly.
In this collection, the treats are intended as exactly that supplement, not as a replacement for the meal. If you need to increase the feeding itself, you'll find the full range of cat food elsewhere.
How to work out how many your cat is allowed
There is no single fixed number that suits all cats, because it depends on the cat's weight, age, activity level and how calorie-dense the individual treat is. The calculation is based on the cat's total daily energy requirement, of which treats should make up no more than around a tenth. A sedentary indoor cat of four to five kilos has a modest requirement, and it doesn't take many snacks before that tenth is used up.
The practical solution is to set aside a fixed small daily portion and stick to it, no matter how much the cat begs. If you use snacks for training, it can be a good idea to break the treats into smaller pieces so you get many repetitions out of the same amount. That way you reward more often without giving more. And if one day you give extra, you can turn down the evening meal accordingly.
The difference between the three snacks in the series
The treats here each have their own profile, so you can choose according to what your cat falls for. THE SILENT SHADOW, THE GOLDEN GHOST and THE GENTLE GIANT make up the basic range, and all three can be used both as a daily reward and for those moments when the cat needs to be tempted or praised.
If you're unsure which flavour will hit the mark, it makes sense to try more than one before committing. Cats are notoriously fussy, and what one cat loves, the next just sniffs at. If your choice lands on a particular favourite, you can buy it in a bulk pack as THE SILENT SHADOW x 3, THE GOLDEN GHOST x 3 or THE GENTLE GIANT x 3.
Snacks that turn into a little moment of play
Treats don't have to be just something the cat swallows in a second. THE SHAKE FOR A ROOAAR BOX is designed to turn the very act of giving a snack into an active moment rather than a passive reward. It draws on the idea of enrichment, that is, giving the cat mental and physical challenges in everyday life that it would otherwise have got from hunting its own prey.
This kind of active feeding is especially well suited to indoor cats that don't seek out hunting and movement on their own. Having the cat work a little for its treat stretches a small meal over a longer time and gives the brain something to do. If you'd like to read more about the idea behind it, we've gathered it in the post shake for a rooaar.
Can kittens have snacks?
Kittens can have treats, but here the quantity matters even more than with adult cats. A kitten is small, grows quickly and has a finely balanced need for nutrition to support that growth. If its stomach is filled up with snacks, there's less room for the complete food that actually has to sustain the growth, and kittens are also more prone to digestive problems from sudden changes in diet.
So give only small amounts, introduce new treats one at a time, and keep an eye on the stools during the first few days. The basic food is still what matters for a kitten, and treats should be the exception, not the rule. You'll find the full range for the little ones under kitten.
Snacks for the slightly older cat
A senior often has a lower activity level and therefore a smaller calorie requirement than a young, active cat. The same daily portion of treats that a young cat burns off without any problem can therefore more easily settle as extra kilos on an older cat. Reduce the amount as the cat becomes less active, and rather use the treats as a fixed little point of contact than as something given continuously throughout the day.
The food itself plays a greater role with age, and if you have an older cat, you can see the special meals for senior cats. If you're unsure when a cat is even considered an adult, we go through it in when is a cat fully grown.
What you should look for on the product label
Cats are strict carnivores, and their bodies are set up to get nutrition from animal sources. That's why the meat content is the first thing worth reading on a treat. A high content of meat and few fillers says more about the quality than a long list of flavour enhancers. As far as possible, avoid treats with a lot of sugar and with artificial colours and flavours, which add nothing for the cat.
If you want to understand what it actually takes to cover a cat's needs, and how to read a label more generally, you can use the article what should cat food contain as a reference next time you're standing there with a bag in your hand.
