Calculator
Dog and Cat Food Calculator
Feeding guides on the bag are a rough starting point at best. This calculator uses the same resting-energy formula veterinarians start from — driven by your pet’s actual weight and life stage — then converts that into servings, bags, and a reorder interval using your own food’s label.
Published
- Calories per day
- 794 kcal
- Servings per day
- 2.3
- Reorder interval
- about 26 days
Would rather not track any of this?
STUD is the home reordering system that lets you reorder your exact household products in seconds. Learn more
How we calculate this
- Resting Energy Requirement (RER)
- RER = 70 x (body weight in kg)^0.75 — the standard veterinary formula for either species, which is why weight is the only physical measurement this calculator needs. Merck Veterinary Manual, "Nutritional Requirements of Small Animals".
- Life-stage / activity multiplier
- Daily energy need is RER multiplied by a factor for life stage and activity — from Merck's own reference table: puppies under 4 months at 3x RER, puppies 4+ months at 2x, adult dogs at 1.4x (weight-prone) to 1.8x (intact), kittens at 2.5x, and adult cats at 1x (weight-prone) to 1.4x (intact). These are starting points a veterinarian may adjust for an individual animal. Merck Veterinary Manual, "Daily Maintenance Energy Requirements for Dogs and Cats".
- Calories per serving and servings per bag
- Both vary enormously by product and are printed on your own food's label — there's no figure we could source that would be accurate for your pet's actual food, so enter your product's own numbers.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this a substitute for veterinary guidance?
- No — it's the standard formula veterinarians themselves start from (RER x a life-stage multiplier), but Merck's own reference notes this is "only a starting point" that may need adjusting based on how an individual animal actually responds. Check with a vet, especially for a puppy, kitten, or a pet with a health condition.
- Is this a pet food calorie calculator?
- Yes. It works in calories from start to finish: the resting energy requirement and life-stage multiplier give your dog's or cat's calories per day, and the calories per serving you enter from your own food's label turn that into cups or cans per day, servings per bag, and a reorder interval.
- My food label gives calories per kilogram of food, not per cup or can — what do I do?
- Weigh out one cup or one can of the food (a kitchen scale works), convert your label's per-kilogram figure to that weight, and enter the result as "calories per serving."
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