Pet feeding calculator
Food-bag charts are built for an average pet that may not be yours. Vets start from resting energy and a life-stage factor instead. This calculator does exactly that — and lets you type in your own food's kcal per cup, because no honest site can know your brand's density.
🍽️ Pet feeding calculator — daily calories
360 kcal/cup is a typical editable default, not any brand's figure — brands differ a lot. Grams assume a cup of dry food weighs about 100 g; weigh your own cup once for accuracy.
Daily calories (MER)
630 kcal
Resting (RER)
394
Cups / day
1.75
Grams / day
175
Method: RER = 70 × (weight in kg)0.75 = 394 kcal, × MER factor 1.6 = 630 kcal. Factors are the standard veterinary ranges published with WSAVA nutrition guidance (neutered dog 1.6, neutered cat 1.2, and so on — full list on About). Treats should stay under about 10% of this total. Split the daily amount across meals, weigh your pet every 2-4 weeks, and adjust by about 10% if body condition drifts.
Ideal-weight guidance: you should be able to feel ribs under a thin fat cover and see a waist from above. If you cannot, use the weight-loss setting with a target weight — and check that target with your vet, especially for cats, where rapid weight loss is dangerous.
Worked examples
- 10 kg neutered adult dog: RER = 70 × 10^0.75 ≈ 394 kcal; × 1.6 = about 630 kcal/day ≈ 1.75 cups at 360 kcal/cup.
- 4.5 kg neutered adult cat: RER = 70 × 4.5^0.75 ≈ 216 kcal; × 1.2 = about 260 kcal/day ≈ 0.72 cups at 360 kcal/cup.
Adjust from body condition, not from appetite: check ribs and waist every 2-4 weeks and move the amount by about 10% at a time. Pair this with the age calculators — puppies, kittens and seniors sit at very different factors.