Feeding the Cats

I remember the same problem with my darling Tiggy-tiger . I managed to cut our costs right down, but that little critter wouldn't budge on his food.

At one time, we did have him on dried Cat Food, but he had a urinary tract infection and the vet advised against an 'all-dried-food' diet particularly for tom-cats. He said that it can sometimes cause problems for them.

How about alternating them with Sheba and a dried food? Would that work? What did work with him was hot chicken skin (from a roast chicken) and boiled ham - he'd 'have your fingers off' with his claws for those.

When Tiggy-tiger was pts, we had so many tins, packets, sachets (from trying to tempt his appetite) that we passed them all on to the PDSA to use in their overnight hospital.

Our cats aren't quite so fussy as yours, we have never shown them the joys of Sheba (OK, only very occasionally when one is ill).
We too could see that the cats were literally consuming more of our weekly budget than we were, so a friend gave us a sachet of Aldi cat food and they loved it.
Aldi do really good little foil trays, and you can buy them individually, so you could try just one or two. The pink fish one (salmon and something else) is a favourite.
Our cats get tired of any one type of food after a while so we constantly have to change their food otherwise it gets wasted - food left on the plate and they still come and nag us to be fed.
We feed both biscuits (ad lib) and meat (morning, mid afternoon, evening or whenever they come and demand) and they have all remained a healthy weight. Two are about 15 years old and in very very good condition, but yes, they have gum problems.
So... I suggest trying a few Aldi trays, getting some biscuit and leaving it down throughout the day and see if they will eat it...

henbane wrote: »

Hi
Am struggling on a very limited budget and have cut my food costs to the bone but I've got three darling cats and they won't be budged from their high cost foods ie Sheba, I spend more on them than myself! It's no good getting the cheaper ones they all get that "I'd rather starve" look and then go and sulk.

I don't eat very much meat myself so don't have left overs like casseroles etc to give them so I'm looking at feeding them specially purchased meat, I've been researching prices and it's actually cheaper to buy fresh meat than it is to buy foods like Sheba.

Trouble is have never cooked thinks like kidneys and hearts, does anyone know the best way to cook them. Or should it be minced raw?

And my second question is if they have a high quality biscuit on tap ie Hills or Iams would they be missing any essential additives with this diet or would it, as I suspect be better for them.

Be grateful for any help you can give
Henbane

Hi!

If you search around the board we have a lot of cat food/ nutrition queries recently. You have a number of options - firstly you could simply feed a complete dry cat food and nothing else. Iams really isn't that great quality, nor the best price. Hills is much better, usually 50% meat, but it's still pretty expensive - if you can get it on a two-for-one then go for it! Other reasonably priced, high meat dry foods are Pets at Home Purely and Fish4Cats.

Reasonably priced wet foods that seem to go down well with cats include Bozita (from Zooplus), Pets at Home Purely in the small tins (pouches more expensive), Feline Fayre 400g tins (£1.50 per kilo) or Butchers Classic. Any time you are feeding a high meat content dry, wet or raw food you can feed less which means the price is cheaper than you first think. :T

Cats absolutely can eat raw meat, in fact some people believe it's healthier as it's how the cat would eat in the wild. It's obviously important to get the balance right - it's critical not to overfeed liver for example. If you want to go down the raw meat route, then again you have two options. Firstly you could buy in a ready-made: the cheapest is Food4Cats sample pack £10 for 3.2kg, the £10 is then refundable against your second order! :money: Even then the prices are good 60p for 400g 'sausage' of mince, plus delivery.

To do your own raw means some research. As you have found offal is very cheap, and many raw feeders get freebies from a friendly butcher. Ideally you wouldn't mince everything up as whole raw bones will clean your cats teeth (it's a myth that dried food cleans teeth). If you get the balance right between muscle meat, bones, fat and offal you don't need any supplements.

There are several of us raw feeding ready-made on MSE, and several raw feeding home-made mixes over on the Purrs forums:
http://www.rawfed.com/
http://www.catinfo.org/
http://www.catnutrition.org/index.php
http://www.purrsinourhearts.co.uk/index.php#2
http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=64
http://www.food4-cats.co.uk/

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

When you say Hill's is expensive, what are you basing that calculation on? Are you comparing like for like £/kg as supermarkets do?

A 2kg bag of Hill's Feline is roughly £12-£14 a bag (less than £10 when 3for2 at PAH)

This bag will last a cat for a whole month! So that's what, 30-40p per day.

How much does a pouch of meat/fish cost? Say 30-40p How many do you feed a day? Say 3-4 per cat so that would cost an average of £1.20 a day.

Do you still claim Hill's is expensive to feed?

Why are you so protective of Hills? I haven't said anything negative about it, in fact I recommended buying Hills when on offer. For someone on a budget £6 or £7 a kilo (your full price) can be bettered with high meat/ equally low portion size PAH Purely (£3.40 per kilo, 40% or 65% meat) or Fish4Cats (£3.90 per kilo, 60% fish). I am not comparing Hills kilo for kilo with Go Cat or supermarket own brand as you need to feed so much more of poor products, and I did allude to that in my second paragraph.

I wouldn't dream of recommending any food that is 30 or 40p a pouch, in fact I try to avoid pouches as they are not recyclable! Bozita is £2.60 per kilo and around 90% meat, Pets at Home Purely small tins £2.75 per kilo and 50% meat, Feline Fayre large tins £1.50 per kilo and 70% fish, Feline Fayre pouches £2.75 per kilo (multipack) and 60% fish, Butchers Classic about £1 per kilo (no idea of meat content as I don't feed it). :money:

I currently feed Noah - a large male - a mix of ready-made raw, high meat wet and a little dry food for under 50p per day tho I suspect I may be overfeeding as we are still finding our feet with the new diet. Rough calculations and it looks to be cheaper to feed all raw, tho that option is not for everyone.

HTH.

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

I simply used it as an example as that is the one you mentioned in your post! I was merely showing people that you can't make simple comparisons on £/kg which often people do and assume one product is vastly more expensive than another when often it isn't.

I don't give a damn what you feed to your cat! The fact is many people do feed Felix/Whiskas/GoCat et al and are put off buying a premium diet purely based on perceived cost, when often it's much cheaper to do so, if their choices are financially driven!

The OP is currently feeding Sheba and was asking about possibly switching to Hill's or a similar diet to cut costs, so in that case yes, a premium dry diet would work out far cheaper than feeding Sheba every day!

This is getting too ridiculous for words now and I'm sick of your constant jibes at everything I post! May be time to put you on ignore.

And just for the record, I don't favour one particular brand or type of food over any other. I base my decisions purely on the individual cat's needs. No two cats are alike. Even my own cats are fed different versions of a particular diet to suit their needs.

I mentioned Hills because the OP mentioned Hills, for no other reason. I read the OP as saying she was considering switching from Sheba to a combination of home-cooked or raw with free-feeding dry. I therefore made suggestions of dry only, wet alternatives and raw. You queried how I'd come to the conclusion that Hills was expensive and I responded. You actually asked how many pouches I fed a day, hence why I said what I fed Noah and what it cost. Perhaps you intended all four of your questions as rhetorical .... ??