Cutting costs?

LJC89

I have 2 kittens aged 6 months and 8 months. Up until a month ago we just had one but have now ended up with a stray.

I feed around 70% wet food and 30% dry. Now we have the stray of course their food bill has increased. I feed predominantly food from Zooplus, Bozita, animonda carny etc. Our food bill for them is now around £60 a month.

I want to continue feeding them a good diet and will always be sure they are getting what they need. I was just wondering how people manage to feed their pets on a budget? Are there any lesser known high quality brands or are there any bargain websites you use?

Thanks in advance for any help

krlyr

If you could source cheap, or even free, meat/bones/offal from local butchers you could feed a part, or complete, raw diet. Good as it's not full of all the cereal/vegetable fillers of commercial diets, but I've heard with cats it's generally a case of letting them decide if they'll accept it or not.

dogstarheaven

wet food is inevitably a lot dearer, so if you're able to get them to switch to a 100% dry food diet, then that'll be a significant cut. Supplement with the odd chicken scrap here and there. I'm on a completely tight budget myself but my cat gets the best - Burns Chicken & Brown Rice (more meat content, 80% organic and no GM ingred unlike other brands). It's about £25 for 7.5kg I always shop around and buy itt on offer). This works out at £3.32 per kg or -

http://shop.burnspet.com/CatFeeding.aspx

Every week, I give him a can of wet food as a treat spread over 3 mealtimes, or sometimes Dreamies or treat sticks.

paddypaws101

LC89....so they eat pretty much a whole 400g tin each per day? Hungry kitties! Do check the recommended feeding amounts though, I am sure that once they are a year or so old then they should be eating a fair bit less and costs can be reduced that way.
dogstarheaven....if your budget is really that tight then I would stop wasting money on treat sticks or Dreamies and feed a bit more decent wet food or even some raw meat.
Krylr....it is far more difficult to try and source free or cheap butcher's scraps to feed a cat than it is for a dog. I do make up a lot of my own home made raw but with ratios of 80:10:5:5 (meat, bone, liver, offal) it does not work out cheaper than the Bozita that OP is currently feeding.

krlyr

Hence the "if", I do understand that the cost of raw varies hugely dependant on available sources

Fridaycat

You should not feed a cat a 100% dry diet... not unless you want the expense and heartache of medical problems such as UTIs later on in life....

The best value, great quality wet cat food in my opinion is Bozita which you are getting from Z+ - the pence per kg is not much more than the cheap stuff you get in supermarkets.

I have 5 cats - they have dry food in the morning (Hill's or Royal Canin) and Bozita at night time - yet our food bill for them is only a little higher than £60 (having just done a quick calculation in my head) - £60 for 2 sounds a lot to me