Kittens and their maintenance costs

milkydrink

jillie1974 wrote:

make sure you feed them a mix of dry and wet food. if they only have dry food they can get a condition similar to cystitis and it can damage their kidneys! my older cat Charlie had this and spend 5 days at the vets being treated!

best of luck with them. have you thought of names yet?

Can I ask how old Charlie is & what brand of dried food he was fed. I was told by a trainee vet (who was studying animal nutrition at the time) that used to be a problem years ago & can be with the cheaper brands.
But not so with the modern good quality ones, I feed Royal Canine (the best), but they did say for people not willing to pay so much, that Iams is the best of the budget brands.
In fact good brands now, actually have stuff in them to combat urine problems in breeds prone to them, such as Persians (mine).
But all those supermarket own brands complete & whiskers & similar complete are not good quality food.

Wickedkitten

I would actually suggest to anyone that they actually look on the ingredients panel of whatever food they are considering, and pick one where at least 2 of the first 3 ingredients happen to be meat based (the first one definitely being meat -min 24%) rather than just picking whatever food happens to cost the most.

patchwork_cat

The best cat litter is worlds best cat litter - yes that is what it is called. It is quite expensive for a bag, but the bag lasts ages. It is perfect for kittens as they can eat it and no harm done. You just remove any waste. The only problem I have with it is the dog loves it - I think it is a sweetcorn deivative and she eats it.

I don't think that Iams is much cheaper than Royal Canin.

Wickedkitten

patchwork_cat wrote:

The best cat litter is worlds best cat litter - yes that is what it is called. It is quite expensive for a bag, but the bag lasts ages. It is perfect for kittens as they can eat it and no harm done. You just remove any waste. The only problem I have with it is the dog loves it - I think it is a sweetcorn deivative and she eats it.

I don't think that Iams is much cheaper than Royal Canin.

Iams definitely isn't budget

milkydrink

patchwork_cat wrote:

I don't think that Iams is much cheaper than Royal Canin.

It's the size, Iams 3 kilo is £13 (so £4.33 a kilo)

Royal Canin, 2 kilo is £13.50 (so 6.75 a kilo, it's actually 56% more per kilo, to me that's a big difference).

Iams is also frequently on offer, if your clever you may never pay full price. Hills Science is also sometimes on offer, Royal Canin is very rarely on offer, I've been feeding it 5 years, I get a special offer about once a year (sometimes it's a free plastic measuring cup!)

milkydrink

Wickedkitten wrote:

Iams definitely isn't budget

If you work out the cost per day, I think you will find Iams very good value & it's frequently on offer.

Wickedkitten

kimevans wrote:

Royal Canin is very rarely on offer, I've been feeding it 5 years, I get a special offer about once a year (sometimes it's a free plastic measuring cup!)

Royal Canin is on offer at petplanet at the mo. You can get a 2kg bag for less than 6 quid

http://www.petplanet.co.uk/category.asp?dept_id=354

Plus you can also get cashback from quidco

Wickedkitten

kimevans wrote:

If you work out the cost per day, I think you will find Iams very good value & it's frequently on offer.

I know it's good value, it's what I feed my kittens. However saying it's a budget food compared to Royal Canin implies its not as nutritionally sound just because it happens to cost less.

milkydrink

Wickedkitten wrote:

I know it's good value, it's what I feed my kittens. However saying it's a budget food compared to Royal Canin implies its not as nutritionally sound just because it happens to cost less.

When I said budget, I meant the best budget buy within the premium range of foods.
I have been told by a trainee vet (who was doing the animal nutrition part of the course) that Royal Canin is the best, with the highest meat content (it's also the most expensive). But I would never knock Iams, Ted loves RC but if funds weouldn't allow I would happily feed him Iams & kinow he was getting a good diet :-)

milkydrink

Wickedkitten wrote:

Royal Canin is on offer at petplanet at the mo. You can get a 2kg bag for less than 6 quid

http://www.petplanet.co.uk/category.asp?dept_id=354

Plus you can also get cashback from quidco

I hit that link so quick, but it's not for the persian one :-(

Thanks anyway, sometimes you get the odd offer at "Pets at home". If they do I stock up :-)