The real cost of having pets

rising_from_the_ashes

Thanks Eveie - bit reluctant to feed the salmon as she gets a wee bit of raw meat mixed in with her kibble and not sure the two would go together..... maybe that's a human worry!

gettingready

Zara is on the salmon skinners

rita-rabbit

I have stopped online ordering & am getting wet food from supermarkets (Butchers Classic tins all flavours) & dried food from a vets (Burns - generally fish, 2kg around £12). Occasional raw from supermarket or butchers - less than monthly due to mess of cats! Litter - woodchip from the milkman (30l bag for around £12) & fullers earth (£1.60 or so for 10kg) - Liddles & Aldis. Oko is for when I am feeling flush - generally I just clean their boxes more often nowadays & the woodchip has a nice smell.

No insurance - long story - no lectures please.

Feliway plug ins (only turned on when I am away) I still get online from whoever is doing best deals at the time (inc free delivery). Alongside Drontal wormer and Logic hygiene gel - they are still far cheaper online & generally I buy these 3 things together as/when needed.

by not buying daily essentials online I have control over when I have them - if one store doesn't have what I want I can go to another without waiting. Plus the aspect of NOT ordering extra stuff to hit the £19 target to benefit from free delivery (which I did with Zooplus) is saving me money in the long run.

flea treatment has been a bug bear recently & I have made a larger expenditure on this due to various online stockists `running out' & experiments with other spot on types falling far short of our requirements. So have forked out £76 for several months cover:
Seresto collar - 8 months @ £25
Program injectoin - 6 months @ £51.

My two mostly sleep or chase each other - I did away with toys years ago due to lack of interest.

Fridaycat

I bought some Butchers tins recently following some good feedback on here...

3 of the 5 wouldn't touch it, and of the two who did, it gave one of them the runs - this was Harry cat who I have never been aware of ever having the runs (even when poorly) in his previous 7.5 years :eek:

I'm back to the drawing board a little - the 2 Bengals love their Grau grain free, but Harry and Friday have gone off it (hence trying the Butchers). Robbie has always been fussy with wet food.

So I went back to Grau Gourmet (which has 4% rice) and this seems to be palatable to H & F, though I've also bought some PaH purely pouches today and some Hi Life tins as I don't want to get too reliant on one food as it's a pain when they decide they're bored of it

Meanwhile, Robbie has his rubbish Felix as that & Royal Canin (which is too expensive to feed unless on offer) (pouches that is, not referring to the dry) is all the wet food he'll eat, and I've gone back to buying smaller tins of Grau Grain free for the two Bengals as this really is the best quality food IMO of all.

Cats :rotfl:

gettingready

I am happy my lot like Classic... I mean:

George - mostly dry, will have a bit of tinned but not too keen
Fred - never EVER any dry food, any rinned will do
Macius/Teddy - both equally happy with dry and wet

Fiona and Phoebe - visiting this week, tiny bit of wet but mostly dry....

Classic is under £3.00 for 6 tinns in Asda/Tesco and one can get only Fish varierty.

Used to order bigger packs from PAH but those were mixed with "meat" nd none of my cats liked their "meat" variety only fish so lots was being wasted.. Now fish only...

rita-rabbit

Asda & some other supermarkets sell Feline Fayre which is fish (tins). I will not stretch to buying Grau or Royal Canin - it's too expensive.

I used to buy Animonda Carni, Smilla or Bozita from Zooplus as well as Oko - but I needed to economise & my two are doing fine on Butchers. They know however that I am not likely to tolerate `boredom' with food so they don't try it with me! I personally cannot finance my own consumption of `the best' foods but cook from scratch to keep quality high so my conscience is clear on the cats.

Oh & I do feed human cod liver oil capsules & glucosamine tablets - both sourced from either £1 shops or Liddles or Aldis - they are elder cats so this is for their bladders, skin, joints & bones. Generally 30 tablets is about £1-£1.30.

gettingready

Right so all was good for a while till I got an sms from my current dog walker this morning that he is having a knee op next week so won't be walking the dogs for a while...

He has sent an email to all his clients 3 weeks ago - my one ended up in spam so only saw it today when he told me the date he sent it...

In any case I was facing the prospect to find a replacement dog walker for Zara from next week....

:eek::eek::eek::eek:

After having a heart attack for like an hour or so - put my thinking cap on and contacted a lady who advertised as pet tax some time ago and took me with Zara to the vets last week. She is happy to walk Zara...from Tuesday next week (MOnday we are going for the 6 week post of check up to FP)

BIg sigh of relief as she used to walk dogs locally here, worked at vets for few years, lives local and drives....

Ufffffff - that was lucky....

rising_from_the_ashes

Fridaycat wrote: »

Royal Canin (which is too expensive to feed unless on offer) (pouches that is, not referring to the dry) is all the wet food he'll eat,

Don't know if you remember but I got some of these towards the end of last year when they were BOGOF which made them an OK price ...... well - have made several attempts and neither of my wee [STRIKE]b*ggers[/STRIKE] oops darlings will touch it :mad: - it may be destined for the rescue (have been hanging off as was sure they'd eventually eat it!)

cathwood

Just read OP. All i can say is - its cheaper then having kids.. lol

gettingready

cathwood wrote: »

Just read OP. All i can say is - its cheaper then having kids.. lol

Ermmmm - my daughter is 22 so I know...than kids are actually cheaper