Feeding a cat (reasonably) cheaply

Feebie

Hi All.

I've been feeding my 3 cats on Costco dry catfood for a couple of years but am looking to change - am thinking about cancelling my membership and after googling the cat food I'm reading some scary reviews .

Which complete dry foods would you recommend? Have used Hills in the past but its pricey and can't really afford it at the moment. Or would I be better giving them wet food with dry biscuits?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Feebie

spike7451

Feeding a cat on a wholly dry-food diet can be bad for them,The's many threads on the topic here about it too.My Daisy gets a handful of RC Exigen Flavor left out a day & either Felix pouches or Whiska's tinned.As she does not drink water,she has to have a wet diet too.

Fire_Fox

Welcome! What is your budget per cat per day? Do you have any fussy eaters? Which Costco food are you using and what is the meat content? What have you read that has concerned you?

Cats are obligate carnivores, they must eat meat but have no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates (grains or cereals). Most commercial dry foods contain as little as 4% meat and are very high in cereals, cats fed this sort of diet tend to eat and poop quite a lot - your money really is going down the drain. High grain foods also increase the risk of health problems such as dental decay and diabetes so IMO they represent poor value for money.

High meat content dry foods can be quite expensive, although the portion size is substantially lower so a bag should last much longer. Applaws (80% meat) when on offer represents reasonable value at ~£5 per kilo. Pouches are also an expensive way to feed as they tend to contain a lot of jelly, gravy or cereal fillers and are expensive per kilo.

It's likely to be cheaper to feed a basic cereal-free tinned food such as Butchers Classic (~£1.20 a kilo) or Whiskas Supermeat (~£1.50 a kilo). You are looking for ingredients such as 'meat meal' and 'animal derivatives'. Another option is to partially or completely raw feed your cats (~£1.50 a kilo). Again the portion size is smaller than commercial food as it's solid nutrients, not padded out with jelly or gravy. This is even cheaper if you have a friendly butcher who will give or sell you meaty chicken carcasses and other scraps for next to nothing.

While money is tight you might consider not purchasing any 'treats' or cat milk as these are unnecessary and can be as expensive per kilo as the best steak! :eek:

Feebie

I've been using Kirkland dry food which is ultra cheap - about £17 for 11 kg. Cats seem to enjoy it but I've read that the meat content is very low.

In terms of fussiness... Spencer will eat anything (a rescued stray), the other two turn their noses up at any human food (ham etc) but haven't really had any cat food other than the Costco stuff.

Am definitely considering giving them a mix of wet and dry food. Thanks for the tip on supermeat rather than jelly / gravy (had never ever thought of that!).

YorkiePud_3

My three rescue cats all eat the 17p trays of VitaCat (Aldi's own make) ...they have two trays a day and mid-afternoon I give them a handful of dried food too to stimulate them to drink ... my vet cannot believe they eat Aldi's because they look so well, their coats are fabulously silky and they are all three in the best of health!

In fact, he said he would be quite happy to see them on Aldi's food all their lives and said even though he might start suggesting the tinned cat food they sell when they get to a certain age, he wouldn't even consider suggesting it for mine if they continue to do so well on Aldi's ... !!

By the way ... money is no option when it comes to my pets (I didn't just go for the cheapest, I promise!!) ... I get whatever they are best on and healthiest on and this just seems to suit them all!

Oh, and while I think on .... Aldi's isn't packed out with jelly like some cat foods ... it's almost like a pate with no jelly in it at all ...

Fire_Fox

Feebie wrote: »

I've been using Kirkland dry food which is ultra cheap - about £17 for 11 kg. Cats seem to enjoy it but I've read that the meat content is very low.

In terms of fussiness... Spencer will eat anything (a rescued stray), the other two turn their noses up at any human food (ham etc) but haven't really had any cat food other than the Costco stuff.

Am definitely considering giving them a mix of wet and dry food. Thanks for the tip on supermeat rather than jelly / gravy (had never ever thought of that!).

What is the meat content according to the label on the pack? I found one set of ingredients online that seemed decent for the price, but I've no idea if that is an out-of-date or non-UK listing.

Be careful what you read online. Bear in mind that Costco are not a UK only company, and other countries have more or less stringent regulations as to what is is allowed to go into pet food or be labelled as meat. Just Googled and found people comparing the meat content of a branded food with the protein content of Kirkland, this is totally unfair as they are not one and the same.

In general, you will not find a high meat content cat food without substantially increasing your budget or going raw. If you opt for raw please do plenty of research, cats cannot survive on just muscle meat they need a fine balance of different parts of the animal. Might be worth checking out the Costco Kirkland tinned cat food if they offer one? The ingredients will tell you all you need to know - you don't want to see vegetable derivatives, gluten, wheat, maize, rice, flour, vegetable protein or sugars.

Other than that it's difficult to make specific suggestions without your budget per cat per day and/ or the meat content of the current food.

Josky

I feed my moggies Fish4Cats (sorry, tried to post link but it will not let me!). It is not particularly cheap I must say, but compares very favourably to the likes of Orijen (which I would love to buy but is prohibitively expensive), and even JWB, Applaws etc etc - plus its a great quality dry food, one of the best that I have found during all of my research! The ingredients list is nice and simple (as you want it to be with pet foods), and fish is the first named ingredient. There are no animal/meat derivatives, cereals or grains (although it does contain beet fibre).

Cod 34%, Potato 21.3%, Herring Meal 26.5%, Salmon Oil 9.6%, Beet Fibre 5.2%, Brewers Yeast 2.0%, Minerals 0.8%, Vitamins 0.6%

I buy the 15kg bag for ~£60, which lasts my two cats forever if properly sealed. A word of warning though - the stuff stinks! However my cats look gorgeous on it. We had an adopted cat (who has since decided be prefers mutiple other homes to ours) that's allergic to almost everything, but this seems to agree with him - certainly he did not poop and pass wind as much! I got worried that my boys would get sick of this, as they have had it since I got them; however I have tried to switch them to other foods for a "break" and they keep coming back to this!

Oh, and we do mix it with high-meat-content pouches from time to time to add a bit of variety and moisture.

Feebie

Hi. Thanks for the replies.


Firefox - I'm seriously thinking about cancelling my Costco membership anyway (can't seem to avoid making impulse purchases...) and need to find an alternative to Kirkland if I do that. Raw isn't an option as I'm veggie and really squeamish around meat Am guessing that my budget is somewhere between the Costco stuff and Hills.

Josky - I've had a look at Fish4cats and its definitely an option. Do you have any ideas about how long the dates are for each bag - noticed that they offer biggish discounts for spends over £200

Feebie

Josky

Hi Feebie,

I've just had a look and I think the best before date on our current bag is May 2012, so it lasts a long time! We're always careful to reseal it so it doesn't get too dry. A 15kg bag lasts us at least 3+ months with 2 cats, and we pretty much "free feed" the dry stuff. Yes, their discounts are really good - I personally am always loathe to spend £120 at a time on cat food though, even though I know it will all get used eventually!

I had to open the bag to get at the label and now all I can smell is the food...blergh! It's fine when its in their bowls though!

mellymeep

For our budget the Pets at Home Purely range is the best I've found.

Fire_Fox

Feebie wrote: »

Hi. Thanks for the replies.

Firefox - I'm seriously thinking about cancelling my Costco membership anyway (can't seem to avoid making impulse purchases...) and need to find an alternative to Kirkland if I do that. Raw isn't an option as I'm veggie and really squeamish around meat Am guessing that my budget is somewhere between the Costco stuff and Hills.

I still don't know what your budget is, as I have no idea what the portion size or meat content of Kirkland is! You can compare the price per kilo, but you also need to know the price per portion.

Assuming the ingredients list is meat/ meal first as I've seen online, my gut instinct would be to stock up on long dated Kirkland before you cancel your membership, then store in a cool, dry and dark place. Feed each cat a half day's portion of Kirkland and a third to half a tin of Classic/ Supermeat/ whichever cereal-free wet the cats will not waste. You have increased the animal protein and water in their diet without busting the budget.

By the time you run out of Kirkland you should have your cats settled on the wet, so you don't have to worry about trying a couple of different brands of dry to find one they enjoy. Fish4Cats is a high quality food but I wouldn't personally feed that alone - domestic felines are not evolved to eat fish so there can be problems with allergies, intolerances and insufficient saturated fats. :eek: Any changes you make to a higher meat diet you may need to do slowly over a period of time so that their digestive enzymes adapt to the changing nutrient profile.