Completely overwhelmed by cat foods

FairyPrincessk

Hi,

We've recently adopted a kitten. At the moment she is still eating whiskas kitten wet with a small dry supplement in case I can't get to her bowl when empty. This is what she was on when we got her. We asked the vet, who suggested either Hills Science plan or Royal Canin. However, I have looked at the price :eek: there is no way we can afford this regularly. I've also done some research and I'm not convinced it really is worth the money. The huge stickers advertising hills in the waiting room don't help either!

Now, I would like to take her off the whiskas--I don't feel it is worth the money paid for it, but I don't really know what else to put her on. We keep our food budget very low and while we did set a budget, we probably can't afford to go much over general supermarket brands. We're happy to buy in bulk online if this means getting better value for money, but I'm so overwhelmed! I don't know what is the most important--higher meat content, higher protein content, low carb or grain free and I don't think we can afford many of those options anyway.

I understand whiskas is pretty poor quality, and I''m not really interested in paying for their marketing. If I can get better than whiskas for a whiskas price that is probably the best I can hope for. Obviously I'd like to give her the best can afford. While I could afford pricier stuff and shop sales periodically I don't want to get her hooked on something that we may not be able to buy in the future. Although I'm open to suggestions of alternating.

She'll be on kitten food for about 7 more months, and I'd prefer to have her get most of her calories from wet.

Suggestions?

rising_from_the_ashes

OK .... 1st thing ...... deep breath, I can almost feel your panic from here!

2nd ..... wet is MUCH better for them than dry - and vets unfortunately don't get a whole lot of training in pet food & also probably get paid to sell the stuff like Hills / RC etc


It might seem like some of the wet foods are expensive BUT as they're much better quality and higher in meat (and less cheap fillers) you really don't need to feed as much so they can actually work out cheaper overall:)

I did a basic comparison a couple of weeks ago (for myself!) as Mia will eat the Sheba Terrine Fushion pouches - which are actually OK as they are grain free.

She also loves a food called Granatapet which is £2 for a 400g tin (don't panic, keep reading!)

By the time I'd worked out how many pouches are in the tin (4.7) and added the cost of them - it came to £1.93 AND she would need to eat a lot more of the Sheba than the Granatapet so it's actually more economical to feed

There are others similar quality and cheaper eg Ropocat @ £1.40 / tin and Macs @ £1.27 / tin


One of the best places to look - that has a HUGE variety of wet foods AND a reasonably low spend before you quality for free delivery is Zooplus http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches

You can also buy a mix of very high quality (eg the Granatapet) and rotate with those slightly lower (eg Smila) to help with costs


Finally - she doesn't need to be on kitten food, you can put her onto adult food and it won't do her any harm at all

Hope that helps a bit - I could go on more but don't want to bamboozle you too much. Happy to answer / help more if I can

FairyPrincessk

Thanks Rising, that is actually a huge help. I'll look into both the grantapet and the sheba. I was a bit taken aback that the vet (who was otherwise brilliant with her) didn't seem to give much logical advice. I'll also check out zooplus, was already looking at them for some litter.

I know I was overthinking it a bit, but I knew I'd find some sensible advice on MSE!

chocdonuty

Bozita from zooplus is a good option if you're looking at cheaper foods,
I usually switch between that and whiskas/sainsburyss/butchers if it's on offer,just for when I can't afford a big delivery in one go or run out and am not around to receive a delivery as there's nowhere to leave it where I live.
They also get a good quality dry on top as Ollie won't eat it without and if I just pop it on his bowl the other 2 prefer it and Ollie just let's them, softie that he is!
I generally use encore which has a v high meat content and is just applaws in different packaging, (also btw it's only £1 for a small bag of kitten variety in sainsburyss at the mo) or occasionally Arden grange/wainwrights
Cat foods a minefield, but it is really worth looking into getting the best food for your cat on your budget as just like humans eating bad food can cause many problems now and in the future.

rising_from_the_ashes

I believe butchers is a good sm priced one that can certainly be added to the rotation with higher quality wets

Re endure / applaws I don't know about the dry but the wet ones are not complete foods so only really now & then as a treat if you decide to feed them. They are very expensive for that though & I know several people who've had real difficulty getting their cats to eat their things once they had these

rising_from_the_ashes

The happy kitty company (where the ones I mentioned earlier co e from) do trial packs but u fortunately their delivery costs can add to the price a fair bit uncles you but a lot (which you'd really only do once you know she was going to eat it!

rising_from_the_ashes

On a side note - zooplus have good deals on litter this week - not sure how long it lasts but worth a look if you were thinking about it anyway:)

krlyr

Just bear in mind that the nutritional training of a vet is very often just one or two lectures - often sponsored by companies like Hills or Royal Canin! I'm sure many vets take a personal interest and study it further, but I'm sure many don't either.

suzeesu2000

I have THE FUSSIEST girl in the entire known world! When she came to us, she had only ever had dry food. I personally do not believe a 100% dry diet is the best, not natural, so we slowly weaned her over to Whiskers pouches. She had one in the morning and one around tea time with free access to a bowl of dry and water as she liked.

After about six and a half years her ladyship decided she didn't like Whiskers anymore. Oh what fun we have had trying to find an alternative! She has now gone for Felix. Mummy is VERY happy as it's cheap as chips!!

Kitty will let you know what is acceptable - don't panic if the change causes a few days of runny bum! It's just like having kids- you will cope and kitty will let you know if what you serve up is ok.

FairyPrincessk

Great responses, thank you! We'll try her a few things first to see what she'll tolerate and go from there. At the moment she isn't particularly fussy--so I'd like to make the switch sooner rather than later!

Will definitely be doing a littler order from zooplus over the weekend!

paddypaws101

FairyPrincessk wrote: »

Great responses, thank you! We'll try her a few things first to see what she'll tolerate and go from there. At the moment she isn't particularly fussy--so I'd like to make the switch sooner rather than later!

Will definitely be doing a littler order from zooplus over the weekend!

Well then i think you can do a lot worse than Bozita tins, backed up by Butchers Classic from the supermarket. Adding some raw or cooked meat into her diet along the way can work out cheaply too....things like pork shoulder are always on offer in supermarkets, kidneys and hearts are cheap as chips, and if she will chew on a raw chicken wing then you have built in tooth cleaning! You can feed around 20% of her weekly diet with these scraps as top ups....any more and you need to look more into a balanced mix which is a little more complicated.