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RE: Cats eating like elephants
This is usually a result of "looking too closely".
The starter bowl should feed one cat for one week. A normal bowl should feed one cat for one month (30 days). Six cats should consume a starter bowl in 7 x 24 / 6 = 28 hours (1 day, 4 hours). Six cats should consume a normal bowl in 30 x 24 / 6 = 120 hours (5 days).
Cats who are PermaPets consume NO food and, as a result, cannot get sick. Cats on Pet Food or who are too old to breed (that is, Breed Off for age, or as a result of your clicking on the blue menu dialog) consume food at a lower rate. Cats who are hungry consume food at an accelerated rate.
Let's examine how it works. This is probably not the exact model, but it should help you see how it works ...
Think if it as "kibbles" .. the cat sleeps for 8 hours .. 8 kibbles .. it awakes and, over the next hour, needs to consume 9 kibbles to catch up .. then for 7 hours, 1 per hour before going back to sleep.
So there are two real-days in the pattern.
0..0..0..0..0..0..0..0..9..1..1..1..1..1..1..1..0..0..0..0..0..0..0..0.. ==> 16 kibbles (67% of stated rate)
9..1..1..1..1..1..1..1..0..0..0..0..0..0..0..0..9..1..1..1..1..1..1..1.. ==> 32 kibbles (133% of stated rate)
total ==> 2 days, 48 hours, 48 kibbles (100% of stated rate).
Now, if all my cats are sleep-aligned, and all are on the second day of the pattern, I'll **APPEAR** to be consuming food at 133% normal rate. So, six cats want to consume 192 kibbles. A starter bowl has 168, so it runs out after only 20 hours. [But, if all my cats are sleep-aligned and, instead, all started on the first day of the pattern, that same starter bowl will last 28 hours.]
Is this "wrong?" .. NO!
It only appears so because we looked too closely. If we examined 2 days it would be spot on (or nearly so). The longer term we examine the more accurate the "one cat, one month, one bowl" rules becomes.
In actual practice, things are very complex because cats are usually on different sleep/wake cycles, kittens are born, kittens become adults, adults become 121 days old, etc. And, of course, sending them to/from the Cattery, taking them to/from inventory, and taking/rezzing bowls of food, effect it too.
But, if we keep looking, we'll see the numbers become very, very close to the "official" rate.
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Cats eating like elephants
