Hills v Aldi premium cat food

Prudent

I am looking for some advice on cat food. My food budget has always been quite tight which has meant I have had to keep an eye on what I spend on pet food too. I have fed my cats a variety of food, often going with the best offers. Recently though I have been feeding them Aldi premium dry food because its a reasonable price and they look well on it. Hills is on BOGOF in Pets at home, so I got some for the cats. I read the percentage e.g how much protein etc and it looks similar to Aldis food. Usually it would be much more expensive. What are the advantages of Hills over teh Aldi food?

BitterAndTwisted

I get the firm impression that some folk think that because they spend more money on their darling's food they are somehow treating it better than those who do not or can not.

As long as Aldi's is a complete cat food it should be just as good as any other, imo unless your cat needs a special diet

picklepick

If it has a high meat content then its going to better than say whiskas or felix which have a low meat percentage content. I struggle to afford a high meat content diet constantly so tend to feed a mixture of high and low dependent on how my cash flow is. My cats have lovely glossy coats and perfect teeth so we cant be going too wrong.


In answer to your question, if aldi's food is similar in content and nutrition to Hill's then there is probably no difference except for a brand name!!

MrsTinks

Well there IS a difference in quality... same as there is a difference in the burger you might buy from a good butchers and a Tesco Value one...
Meat isn't just meat - there is mechanically reclaimed meat which is certainly not a high quality protein...
Does it have to cost more? Well not a lot more no... I've found that buying online in bulk actually works out a lot cheaper than even super market own - because you need less of it for starters
Personally I get Arden Grange from VetUK.co.uk - for 15kg dog food and 7.5kg cat food I pay about £47.55 inc delivery. This lasts about 3 months for 1 dog and 2 cats. So about £24 for the cat food for 2 cats for 3 months... They occassionally get wet food as a treat so for sake of argument let's call it 2 months If you only have one cat 7.5 kg should last about 4 months - that's £6 a month... and that's a good quality protein (have a look at the arden grange web site if you want )

The difference is between feeding junkfood to your cat and decent quality products like say a burger from your local butchers...

Fire_Fox

Prudent wrote: »

I am looking for some advice on cat food. My food budget has always been quite tight which has meant I have had to keep an eye on what I spend on pet food too. I have fed my cats a variety of food, often going with the best offers. Recently though I have been feeding them Aldi premium dry food because its a reasonable price and they look well on it. Hills is on BOGOF in Pets at home, so I got some for the cats. I read the percentage e.g how much protein etc and it looks similar to Aldis food. Usually it would be much more expensive. What are the advantages of Hills over teh Aldi food?

The protein content of most dry cat foods is around 25%, but with many of the commercial (Whiskas, Go Cat) and supermarket own brand foods most of this protein comes from cheap maize (corn), wheat, rice and potato and they contain as little as 4% meat! Cats are carnivores, so this can be a real problem for some cats causing digestive problems, weight gain or diabetes.

If you read the ingredients list you will see the difference, you are looking for a food where the first ingredient is chicken or fish. A cat isn't able to absorb and use protein from plants as well as it can from meat, so you will usually need to feed much more of the cheaper food. I can't comment on Aldi's dry food as I haven't looked at the ingredients, if you post them up we can advise.

A cheaper way to get more meat into their diet is to feed things like raw skinless chicken wings occasionally, Value/ Smartprice ones are about the same price per kilo as cheap dry food!

Belisarius

Great advice from Firefox. I agree with all she has said & also like the way she has phrased it in a factual, balanced & non-judgmental way. What a refreshing change from all the sniping that has been going on of late.

Fire_Fox

Belisarius wrote: »

Great advice from Firefox. I agree with all she has said & also like the way she has phrased it in a factual, balanced & non-judgmental way. What a refreshing change from all the sniping that has been going on of late.

Thank you! My posts have previously been taken as being patronising/ 'know-it-all', so it's nice to know I am not getting the tone completely wrong.

paddypaws101

Ahh a wet food/dry food debate!
After much resaerch I have had to accept that even feeding premium dry can lead to health problems such as weight gain and diabetes. Cheap dry food will quickly cause problems such as bladder stones.
Excellent suggestion from Firefox regarding chicken wings ( but why skinless? I freeze them in separate bags of 2 or 3 which I can defrost every couple of days to keep a fresh supply.
Never feed cooked bones to a cat.
My cat Paddy has just been diagnosed as diabetic, and after a life time on premium quality dry I have changed him over to a raw meat diet. After some searching around I have found a great local Halal butcher who cleans and portions all his chicken himself. He has given, yes GIVEN, me a bag of chicken necks, wings and giblets, and I also bought some chicken hearts and liver cheaply. This mimics a cat's natural diet closely with skin, bone, muscle and organ meat in good proportion.
This raw food ( BARF ) approach is more common with breeders and those dealing with working dogs... Not for the squeamish though!

rachiee

My cats get Aldi's Dry and Also ASDA'S dry and they are all doing fab on it x

Fire_Fox

paddypaws101 wrote: »

Ahh a wet food/dry food debate!
After much resaerch I have had to accept that even feeding premium dry can lead to health problems such as weight gain and diabetes. Cheap dry food will quickly cause problems such as bladder stones.
Excellent suggestion from Firefox regarding chicken wings ( but why skinless? I freeze them in separate bags of 2 or 3 which I can defrost every couple of days to keep a fresh supply.
Never feed cooked bones to a cat.
My cat Paddy has just been diagnosed as diabetic, and after a life time on premium quality dry I have changed him over to a raw meat diet. After some searching around I have found a great local Halal butcher who cleans and portions all his chicken himself. He has given, yes GIVEN, me a bag of chicken necks, wings and giblets, and I also bought some chicken hearts and liver cheaply. This mimics a cat's natural diet closely with skin, bone, muscle and organ meat in good proportion.
This raw food ( BARF ) approach is more common with breeders and those dealing with working dogs... Not for the squeamish though!

The reason I suggested skinless is all the fat is under the skin, and there is a lot of fat in chicken wings in proportion to the total weight. Secondly I was suggesting Value/ Smartprice which will be battery birds pumped full of growth hormone and antibiotics ... there is some evidence these chemicals can concentrate in the fatty tissue. The OPs cat should get sufficient fish or chicken oil from the good quality dry food she feeds alongside.

If you are feeding BARF the skin/ fat will be 'diluted' with the low fat offal to what will presumably end up the correct percentage for the animal. Also if you are getting meat from a good Halal butcher the birds are usually much smaller and leaner than 'standard' chickens, which rather suggests fewer chemicals. I have a Muslim friend who says hormones and antibiotics are not considered Halal, but I don't suppose every meat supplier adheres to this.

MrsTinks

I think moving to a complete BARF diet from dry should only be undertaken if you do a lot of reading up first... getting the balance right of all the "parts" can be more complex than you might think Not saying paddypaws hasn't done their home work and isn't already giving the right amounts etc - just for people about to jump into BARF - make sure you read up on it first!
Personally I feed my cats a dry diet with wet as a treat (and the occassional tin of sardines in either oil or tomato... they go nuts for the tomato - weird critters) and my dog gets 99% dry diet... once a week/two weeks she gets a proper HUGE bone - usually a beef knuckle or knee or hip joint. most of the meat has obviously been removed but it's great for her teeth and she also gets a fair bit of marrow from it. She's got amazing teeth and a beautiful coat
I have toyed with feeding my cats "offal" from the butchers (helped by having a butcher who I'm on very good terms with so I could probably obtain all this for free) - my problem is actually storage... I can't store everything I need for the human members of the family in the freezer - there is no chance of finding room for cat food... Oh and my cats are messy eaters so they'd have to be fed this outdoors because I'd dread to think the bacteria and goo being dragged over my floors and carpet - but I know not everyone has as messy eaters as I have

(ok ok it's mainly the boy, and his excuse is missing half a canine and a large chunk of tongue - legacies of a run in with a car 5 years ago...)

I think if you do the time to research BARF then it can be both good for the pet and also cost effective - but it takes dedication and sadly in this day and age it's too easy to grab a bowlfull of dry food or a tin of something or other...