Hello! I am Webs/Steve(he/they), I've been wanting to do something with my main Clan characters for a couple of years now.
I am working with official material and headcanons to make my own interpretation of the Clans. Expect some differences from canon!
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Emergence takes place around the lake territories and follows the everyday lives of five different Clan cats many, many generations in the future. Chiapaw of ThunderClan, Hollypaw of SkyClan, Juncopaw of ShadowClan, Frogpaw of RiverClan, and Dogwoodkit of WindClan.
[ID: A fish carcass, bird carcass, and mouse carcass on a stone slab.]
Are you wondering how much prey a Clan needs a day? What they should eat to stay healthy? Why food processing is useful at all? All the answers to these questions and more, contained within a general guide to dietary needs for your Warrior Cats!
As an obligate carnivore, a cat's entire diet revolves around processing meat. More specifically, the ideal diet should be 55% protein, 45% fats, about 1% to 3% carbs, with the remainder being various micro-nutrients. You can expect the average 10-pound warrior to need 350 calories per day, about 3.5 mice on average.
I've also included a section talking about obesity, which dives into how canon's depiction of it is both harmful fatphobia and wouldn't make sense from a cat perspective. It also discusses obesity in realistic cats; and how you're free to choose the realism on that aspect.
Below the cut;
Caloric Intake
Nutrition
Food Processing
On Obesity
Caloric Intake
The general rule for how much a cat needs to eat is that an active, non-neutered tom will need about 35 calories per pound of their own body weight, per day, just to remain the weight they are.
That means that the average warrior, assuming they are 10 pounds, will need 350 calories a day.
Kittens, pregnant and nursing cats, and large warriors will need to eat more than average. Neutered cats, elders, and clerics/medcats will eat less. There are calculators online for determining how much an individual will need, but you can estimate how much an entire Clan will need just by taking 350 and multiplying it by population!
Assuming the average population is about 30 cats, that's 10,500 calories to feed a Clan for a day! To put that in perspective, that many calories would feed 7 large humans. If you felt like fighting a group of angry cats to steal their day's worth of mice, I mean.
Generally speaking, land prey will have a caloric value around 5 calories per gram. Aquatic prey is significantly lower, around 4 calories per gram. Birds will be just below 6 calories per gram. To find out how many cats a piece of prey will feed, or how many pieces a cat will need that day, take the category and multiply by the prey's weight in grams.
So for example, the average house mouse is 20 grams and it is land prey, meaning its caloric value is around 100 calories! A warrior will need 3 and a half mice a day to stay healthy, and a Clan will need 105 mice daily to support 30 cats.
105 mice may seem like a lot, but remember that a wild rabbit is 1,800 grams on average which means 9,000 calories. 2 big pieces of prey will feed the whole Clan, with leftovers.
Those estimates include every part of the animal. Cats eat organs, small bones, and even skin. Skeletal muscle, or "fillets" in reference to fish, is so low in calories that it's typically somewhere between 1 kcal to 1.5 kcal per gram. That's what you're buying in the supermarket; but wild animals don't usually cut their food into choice strips.
(unless you're writing a clan that does food processing of course!)
QUICK FACTS
Average warrior will need 35 calories per pound of weight
10 pound warrior needs 350 calories a day
350 x 30 cats = 10,500 calories to feed a Clan for a single day
Birds provide the most calories per gram, land prey the middlemost, and aquatic prey the least.
Calculate calories in prey by taking the weight, converting to grams, and multiply by 4, 5, or 6 depending on broad category.
If you're having trouble feeding a Clan on small animals, look at bigger prey like rabbits and trout.
Muscle fillets are inferior to organ meats and have a much lower caloric value.
Nutrition
Not all food is the same. The more important thing to consider about any particular meal is NOT its calorie count, but its nutritional value. This is especially important to cats because protein is not stored as fat. If the body has no immediate use for it, it's flushed out.
Since cats should not eat more than 3% carbs, ALL of their fat stores will need to come from fat.
The ideal piece of meat would be at least 55% protein and 45% fat. Every individual species will have a different ratio, and more importantly, individual cuts will have a different ratio.
Skeletal muscle has a higher ratio of protein to fat. Organ meat, also sometimes called "offal," will have a more balanced ratio. That said, nearly all meat skews towards protein. PURE fat is very hard to find on the sorts of animals Clan cats hunt, and must be carefully divided, collected, or processed to make sure all warriors are getting proper nutrition.
I'll be going more in-depth with dietary fat at some other time, as this guide is meant to just be an overview! Just know that some Clans will need to eat MORE food to stay healthy because of this.
Cats need more than the "macronutrients" to stay healthy. They can't JUST rely on the juiciest cuts of meat to keep their health intact, they also need several vitamins and minerals to support their body functions, and avoid getting a deficiency.
Here's some of the important micronutrients, where to get them, and what happens they don't get enough;
Vitamin A: Livers, mealworms, eggs
This is one of the most important micronutrients in a cat's body, used for practically everything. Without this, their coats will grow dull, and their joints stiff, and they'll start to go night-blind. In a severe state, they'll start to lose the ability to heal skin lacerations and die. Pregnant cats and kittens need more of this than usual, but it IS also possible to get vitamin A poisoning from getting too concentrated of a dose.
Calcium: Bones, eggs
With a calcium deficiency, the warrior will feel stiff and sore, and experience painful muscle spasms. Most cats will simply crunch the bones of small prey and never have to worry about this, but if your cats cook or scavenge, they have to be told to NEVER eat the bones of a roasted bird. Because bird bones are hollow and cooking makes them brittle, they can splinter and cause fatal internal bleeding.
Thiamine: Trout, boar meat, mealworms, eggs
Called a Fish Seizure because raw carp and raw bream contains thiaminase, which will destroy thiamine in the body. Lack of thiamine will cause neurological issues, such as the aforementioned seizures, general confusion, memory loss, and muscle weakness. This can be counterracted by eating trout, which is so high in thiamine that there's a theory that carp evolved it specifically to eat salmonids better.
Potassium: Trout, boar meat, mealworms, eggs
As cats get older, they begin needing a lot more potassium for their bodies. It's a very common micronutrient found in most meat, but elders should get the first bite of special snacks "out of respect" which helps keep their potassium level up. Without it, they become very weak.
i feel like that evil struthiomimus from land before time with how many times i typed eggs
QUICK FACTS
The ideal ratio of a cut of meat is 55% protein 45% fat
Organ meat > Muscle meat
Micronutrients are important
But micronutrients can also cause poisoning if, somehow, they're too concentrated
(very hard to come across concentrated micronutrients without the science of chemistry tho. Like if a cat swallowed a vitamin gummy.)
Food Processing
"Food Processing" is when you do something to your food before you eat it. Just a little bit of care is going to go a LONG WAY when it comes to health of the warrior.
Cats that eat raw meat the way canon warriors do are almost guaranteed to get worms. Roundworms, hookworms, and tapeworms are all passed through the infected tissue of rodent prey, and in fish, roundworms, tapeworms, and flukes can pass through raw meat.
All parasites do something a little different, but most digestive worms aren't fatal unless the cat is sick or a kitten. However, nearly ALL of them screw around with digestion, making the cat need to eat more just to stay healthy, or causing stomach irritation. Some of them can even pass in milk, infecting a suckler's nursing kits.
The easiest way to reduce this kind of infection is simply to slice the prey open from mouth-to-butt, Tigerstar-style, and hook and lift out the GI tract before eating. There's nothing in that worth eating raw anyway. It can just be discarded, or cleaned out and used to case tiny sausages! But it's only a reduction; there's still a risk of catching worms from raw meat.
There's also always the possibility of getting salmonella poisoning.
Many believe that cats are immune to this, but that's not true! Carnivores just have a shorter GI tract than omnivores and herbivores, so salmonella spends less time in their gut and ergo has less chance of causing an infection. It still happens, ESPECIALLY when cats hunt songbirds.
Nothing can be done about salmonella in raw meat, besides eating it as quickly as possible. It's innate to the bodies of birds and reptiles, and usually found on raw eggs too.
Some animals are small enough to be dried and carried around as rations, such as minnows or grasshoppers. Others could be sliced up into strips, and marinated in spices like valerian or catmint for an extra boost of energy. It could also be worthwhile to cut the pelt off a particularly soft animal, like a mole, to dry and keep as bedding material.
All of the above examples of food processing are possible without fire, but if your cats DO have fire, they will have a DRASTIC increase to the quality of their health.
Such as;
Cooking will almost completely eliminate those foodborne parasites. Their eggs don't survive extreme heat.
No more salmonella poisoning! GONE! Cooking is the only way to eliminate this!
It can increase caloric absorption from anywhere between 20% to 50%. Our example warrior who needed 3.5 mice a day could suddenly need one less mouse; and even a meager 20% drop in how much the entire Clan needs saves 2,400 calories a day. 24 whole mice!
I HAVE TO STRESS HOW BIG THAT IS. You save anywhere from 2/10 to 5/10 successful kills.
Thiaminase is destroyed by cooking, making bream and carp healthier and reducing "fish seizures."
It allows for fats to be processed and stored as tallow, lard, and oil, so it can be added to other dishes to make them both healthier and tastier.
Most food preservation requires fire in some way; by heating, jellying, boiling, etc. The only other two ways to reliably store food is by having access to a ton of salt, which is hard for most non-coastal clans to acquire, or vinegar, which is so acidic it's a notorious cat-repellent.
While cooking can also destroy some micronutrients, its benefits FAR outweigh any potential "strengths" of raw food. Destroying micronutrients is also not always a bad thing; as TOO MANY micronutrients can cause poisoning. Fire-using Clans will be more likely to "seek" micronutrients than non-fire Clans as a result, though they probably won't recognize the science behind a hankering!
QUICK FACTS
Worms. Basically unavoidable if your cat's eating like a canon warrior.
Some parasites can spread through milk.
Slicing and lifting out the GI tract can significantly reduce the chance of catching worms.
Salmonella can only be eliminated with cooking
Cooking will drastically increase the quality of a Clan's health, if your cats are advanced enough to figure out fire.
Warriors need to hunt a LOT less prey, and can store that prey, if they have fire.
Fire-using Clans will intentionally try to put more types of food in their diets and get 'cravings.'
On Obesity
Warrior Cats is not a realistic series. The boundary that any particular writer draws between humans and warrior cats is completely arbitrary. The series itself follows no sense of realistic genetics, regularly shows the cats using herbs that would poison them, and gives the characters human-centric morals like monogamy and paternal involvement.
So when it comes to being fatness in your project, please keep that in mind. You do not need too follow realistic cat weight distribution, if that's not what your project about. That said, let me tell you about humans vs cats in this department!
Humans have a massive diversity of weight distribution, with varied genetic predispositions to gaining and losing weight. The shame, bullying, and medical discrimination that comes with fatphobia is a LOT more harmful than being fat itself, and the causes of the "obesity crisis" are ridiculously more complicated than "ppl r snorking 2 much food".
Realistic cats aren't the same way.
When REAL cats are fat, that's VERY bad. It's a sign they are being fed the wrong things by humans, or live somewhere that they are able to eat what they shouldn't. They just don't have that same diversity in fat distribution that humans do. Because of how adipose tissue secretes certain hormones, feline obesity is like a chronic inflammatory disease which can cause arthritis, bladder stones, hepatic lipidosis, and more.
But with that in mind, fatness should be perceived very differently even in the most realistic settings. In comparison to humans;
It is harder for a wild cat to put on weight.
Most of what they're eating is raw protein, actively trying to fill the 45% of daily fat intake they need to stay healthy. Protein isn't stored as fat, it's immediately discarded by the body if there is no use for it. A cat would need to be taking an INSANE amount of prey to start becoming dangerously overweight.
Housecats are often fed human food, which has carbohydrates. Low-quality cat food will also use carbs as filler. High carb food is VERY bad for them, since they're only supposed to have 3% carbs at most. This is one of the reasons why it's easy for pet cats to become overweight.
Realistic cats don't look start looking overweight until they are significantly obese.
Most of their fat is stored around their ribs and internally, unlike humans with our thick hips and round bellies, and they are covered in a naturally sagging pelt of fur. It's not as obvious with them. Visually, weight will be noticed best from a bird's eye perspective, unlike humans where it's apparent at every angle.
Putting on the fat that CAN be acquired is ridiculously important
3.5 raw, whole mice a day, per cat, are needed to fill their basic dietary requirements. There are going to be days or months especially during winter where they might be below that number, and that stored fat is going to be lifesaving. Bulking up is actually a big deal!
So not only is how canon treats overweight characters full of malice, it's full of lazy malice. It makes no sense from a realistic standpoint for wild cats to develop an association between fatness and greed or laziness. It's important, hard work for them to acquire it!
Though the Clans are notoriously xenophobic and kittypets are more likely to be overweight, it still doesn't make sense from a realistic cat perspective to be fatphobic in the same way as canon. It's more likely they'd see fat housecats as having "unearned" weight given to them by humans, like they're cheating, or they might be disdainful of how much junk food they eat, or pitiable because it's a sign of a bad twoleg... or just "sour grapes" variety jealousy ☕.
Bottom line is that there's a LOT you can do here which is better than canon's vicious bullying. The writers just lifted British cultural disdain for fat people and put it into the books. They simply did not think it through.
So please do what they didn't, and just put a little extra thought into how your project is going to view fatness! Consider if fatphobia is even a theme you need in your text.
As stated, you do not even have to write weight in your cats as being realistic in this way! I encourage you to pick and choose what's most fun and fitting for your own work. I personally give my characters a more human weight distribution, simply because I want to spite canon and be more body-positive. I am a fat people and you can take Bumble's big chunky bod from my cold, dead hands.
You can choose to make your work however you'd like, and now with this guide, you can have an easy reference for what your cats should eat! Thank you, StarClan, for this prey <3
lil color reference for how I'm doing my warriors redesigns. basically I'm following cat genetics but in a fun way where I can add new things and take creative liberty. individuals can vary a bit in shade/saturation/hue (just like real cats) but will generally follow these. any red and any black can appear together in tortoiseshells. genotypes and dominance order (numbered) can be seen at the bottom
I had some questions I wanted to edit, some I wanted to add, so here’s round 2 of the Clangen Ask Game! Most are phrased in reference to clangen comics or fan writing, but this can apply to whatever clangen/clangen-adjacent media you create!
For the cats, please include a cat you’d like to answer
🎨 Favorite Hobbies?
🌙 Heavy or light sleeper, what are their dreams like?
🐀 Favorite Prey?
🌿 Favorite herb?
🎉 Favorite Holiday/Seasonal Event?
👯 Wild circle of friends, or a few close ones? Who’s their best friend?
🌳 What does their family tree look like?
⚡️Special powers or abilities?
🌷Quirks or other mannerisms?
🎯 What do their life goals look like? Deputy, Leader, Medcat, a family?
🏠 Would they ever consider becoming a kittypet?
🐾 What do they think of nearby clans/groups?
🪲What do they value the most?
🌲Favorite location on the territory?
🌧️ Favorite weather?
🧹 Favorite and least favorite clan task/chore/patrol?
🙀What do they fear the most?
✨ What is their relationship with StarClan like?
🍀Secret they’re hiding?
For the clan
🏞️ How did your clan start?
📜 How does your clan’s warrior code differ from other clans?
🎭 Does your clan have any specific traditions, rituals, or holidays?
🌌 Does your clan believe in StarClan, or another sort of afterlife?
💥 What’s the most dramatic event in your clan’s history?
🗿 Does your clan have any important or physical artifacts they keep?
🗣️ Which cat is the biggest gossip in the clan?
👑 Your leader and deputy disappear into thin air, who takes over?
⚔️ Who is the best and worst fighter in the clan?
🐾 Best and worst hunter?
🌟 Which cat has the strongest StarClan/Dark Forest connections?
🔮 Which cat is the most superstitious?
⚰️ What are your clan’s death rituals?
🛡How does your clan choose new deputies?
🌠 Are there any cats in your clan who don’t believe in StarClan?
🐱 Who are some of the cats outside the clan, and what is the clan’s relationship with them?
💔 Which cats have the most complicated relationship with each other?/make you go feral?
🎆What do omens/messages from StarClan look like to your cats?
For the World
🗺️ What does the territory look like? Any unique landmarks?
🐇 What are typical prey you’d find in the territory? Rare or unusual prey?
🐺Typical predators?
🦌 Are there animals that the clan can’t or won’t hunt?
🏘️ What is the twoleg activity like?
⚠️ Are there any dangerous areas cats have to avoid?
🏵Areas that are considered cursed or sacred? Your clan’s equivalent to Moonstone/Moonpool?
🌋 What sort of natural disasters happen here, any that have significantly changed the landscape?
❄️ What is the most challenging season for your clan?
🪴What herbs are most important to your med cats? Rare or magical herbs unique to your world?
🪵 What natural resources does your clan collect for tools, rituals, decoration, etc.?
For the Author
✍️ What inspired you to make your clangen comic/ other media?
⏩ How far ahead do you play in clangen? How far ahead do you draw/write?
📝 What do your notes look like?
⏳ What sort of deadlines or rituals do you follow to keep yourself on schedule?
⛔️How long are you planning on making your comic? For as long as you feel like it, or is there a set end?
🎲 How close to “canon” clangen RNG do you follow?
🔄Do you let clangen fully control names, or do you interfere? Where do you get inspiration for names for warriors and kittypets?
❔Do you have any suggestions for people looking to start their own clangen blogs?
💘 Any cats you ship? Any non-canon/crackship/oddball pairs?
™️Who is your saddest little guy?
😻Which cat would you steal to be your kittypet irl?
🐈 Are there any characters currently based on your irl pets?
🌀Out of context spoilers/WIP?
🏔Lore you’ve been wanting to share but haven’t gotten a chance to?
✏️Who’s your favorite character to draw/write?
❤️ Which character does the audience seem to love that you weren’t expecting?
🌍 What are some of your irl inspirations for the lore/worldbuilding of your comic?
💭 Fan theories or headcanons you love? How much does audience interaction change the events of the comic?
🤝 If you could collab with any other clangen creator (or just want to shout out your favorites), who would it be?
This also might just be me, but be sure to give your favorite creators time to draw or write their responses! Don’t be discouraged if it takes a minute
A series for those who would like their Warriors to have some more advanced culinary abilities.
The art here was provided by my partner!! (thank you for engaging in my research journeys boo <;3)
Dried Minnows
Clan of Origin: RiverClan
Occasion: Travel ration, food storage
“StarClan forbid a RiverClan cat go 2 hours without eating,” says the other, very jealous Clans.
One of the most common meals prepared by RiverClan warriors, dried minnows are easy to prepare, can be stored for weeks, and are easily kept in bunches with a small string of peeled willowbark.
One minnow on its own won’t feed more than a small kit; but they’re easily captured in whole schools and processed in bulk to make lots of food. Marinated in rosemary for taste and valerian for a boost of energy, these are usually carried around as travel rations.
[Image ID: Three common minnows strung together through the gills with willowbark twine. They are lightly dusted with spice.]
There’s two ways RiverClan cats would dry fish; a Greenleaf method, and a Leafbare method.
In Greenleaf, when it’s hot and humid, the fish will be sun-dried. Starting on a clear morning, the fish will be laid out on a rock and left sitting in direct sunlight. This method requires a watchcat, else foxes may steal the food.
[Image ID: Grasswhisker, a brown tabby RiverClan warrior cat, crouches in a ‘loaf’ position on a large rock. She is watching minnows dry.]
In Leafbare, the fish will be strung together and threaded through the gills with willowbark strips, the same as they were being carried. They’re brought to a high branch and left there, the wind drying them out naturally over a few hours.
[Image ID: Two batches of minnows are hanging up in a tree that has a single leaf in the middle of winter. The landscape is snowy and the lake in the distance appears frozen. The meeting island is visible in the corner.]
Because of the easy nature of dried minnows, they’re faaar from considered a delicacy. Apprentices going through their first leafbare are tempted to complain about eating these night after night, only for their elders to launch off into long-winded lectures about the nutritional value of minnows, appreciation of the food StarClan gives them, and how there’s starving kits in ShadowClan who would kill for a good meal right now.
Is there any truth to that last part? Well, the valerian spices ARE quite tempting, to be fair. It has a similar effect to dried catnip.
