Great Feed, House and Keep Your Pets Hunt

Frances144

Rinko wrote:

One interesting moneysaver is that our local RSPCA centre do free neutering and spaying for cats. Definately worth a phone call to see if your local centre offers the same service?

I am not sure that the local RSPCA are there to do free neutering and spaying because you want to save money! If you can afford to have a pet, you have to budget for paying for essential operations, ie spaying/neutering and not rely on other people's charity as a "saver option".

Of course, if you are truly that hard up, the RSPCA are there for you.

gemmaj

I used to give my dogs a little tinned food just to keep dinner interesting. Now I make something similar and freeze it:

Take cheap meat eg Chicken (I got a huge bag of chicken legs from Morrisons for £1.50) and cook it in the slow cooker - if it has bones then if you cook it for 24hrs then the bones will soften and can be mashed up. If any bones are left, remove them after.

Add some brown rice (or pasta) and cook for another hour or so. Then add some frozen veg (such as peas and carrots) and give it 10 minutes.

Freeze it in individual pots, bags, or freeze in muffin tins and pop out for easy storage. Just microwave and serve!!

Its cheap and you know whats in it (no preservatives etc!)
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While your in the mood, why not make some biscuits for them too! Cook them next time you have the oven on. There are lots (and lots and lots) of recipies on the internet.

Take some wholemeal flour, optionally add some polenta / cornmeal. Add some water or milk or gravy and an egg. Add something for taste - the gravy will do, or some parsley or mint, peanut butter, stock, banana, endless posibilities!

Ideally cook it longer at lower temperatures, but its not critical. If you leave it in the oven overnight after its cooked then the biscuits will harden. They won't keep great so freeze them if you make too many.

A word of warning - from my own experience - if you have a load of crumbs of dog food from the bottom of a bag, DON'T TRY TO COOK WITH THEM!!!!! Your house will stink worse than you can imagine for days!!!!!! And your oven may never fully recover:rotfl:
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Finally, doing any dog training? I was told to bring hotdog to my training class, but used this instead:

Get fish. Almost any - nothing with too much salt (nothing tinned in brine) and no huuuuge fish which contains loads of mercury (shark, swordfish, etc). Tuna tinned in oil is fine, mackerel, cooked or uncooked fish: Go fishing!

Mash it up or stick it in the food processor. Add a little flour. Add a little water to make it stick together IF you need to (you probably wont). It should be vaguely dough-like. Press it out on a baking sheet. Cook it in the oven - if uncooked fish it will need a while, cooked fish (tinned tuna etc) will just need 10 minutes. Again better at lower, not higher, temperatures.

When out the oven score into rough pieces and leave to cool - then it will cut easily into pieces when cool (don't be tempted to miss this step IMO!!!). Will last a week at most in the fridge but freezes well. So long as it wasn't cooked at too high a temperature it will leave a moist, chewy treat that your dog will go MAD for - and very healthy with all those omegas!!

(edited cos its such a long post!)

koolkat_2

Just a quick word of warning about feeding raw mince to dogs... I used to give raw mince to my dog when he was a puppy as getting him to eat was a nightmare. I later found out from a friend who had been doing the same that if the mince is fresh i.e. not previously been frozen at any point it can contain a bacteria that can be very harmful to dogs (and humans). When we eat it we obviously cook it and that kills the bacteria but freezing it also kills the bacteria so always buy frozen mince or freeze fresh mince at home then defrost before feeding.

Terark

The best, and cheapest food to feed your dogs is on raw meaty bones.

Most butchers will give them to you for free, or for very little money.

We've cut our dog food bills down to less than a quarter of what we were spending on pet food. And the dogs are so much healthier, better coats, they dont smell, fresher breath, less mess to clean up!

The key thing is that the bones and meat are not cooked. Dogs dont build fires and they need the enzymes in the raw meat to help them digest it. Also cooked bones tend to flake and this is dangerous for the dog. It has to be raw.

Its a no brainer really - cheaper AND better.

california_2

I am very annoyed that supermarkets have stopped selling individual cans of food, I once counted 14 varieties (more variation than I get!) but now they only do the 6 or 12 packs and the flavours are all the same. Our cats tend to off flavours for a while and it is difficult finding alternatives. Does anyone know where I can get individual cans with a variety of flavours? Whiskas and Kitekat, they won't touch Felix since the 'new improvement'.


Pet stores still sell individual tins, and purchasing from them will hopefully stop the supermarkets taking over yet another local high street shop. You can find local ones in your phone directories on online at yell.com. They also usually make up their own dry foods for all types of pets. And the people who run the shops are invaribly knowledgeable about all sorts of 'pet' things, including minor ailments.

tidy_sum

tiff wrote:

Argos have a clearance on some of their pet stuff, I got the fleece blanket for £2.99 and the navy travel bed for £3.99. Some of the other stuff hasnt been in stock where I live.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Browse/catalogId/10001/identifier/8326563/jspStoreDir/argos/Trail/C%24cip%3D42115%3EC%24cip%3D44805%3EC%24cip%3D45150.htm

Thanks for the link. I needed a new dog bed for Jasper the Lab and the faux leather one will do nicely. I've reserved it. Cheers.

PS - Asda currently have an offer on 5kg bags of Bakers Complete for only £5 a saving of around £2.50.

chris73

Having exhausted various brands of 'wet' cat food, I opted to try my fussy moggy on dry food.

After various products, I found that Hills Science Plan was my cat's favourite, however the cost was pretty substantial.

I then came across an auction on Ebay, for various dry cat foods, with the seller claiming that it was made by the same company as Hills. The cost was £8.25 for 7.5kg which is a fraction of the Hills Science Plan variety.

I thought that it would be worth a gamble, as I could always give it to a neighbour whose cats seem to eat anything, if my own turned up her nose at it!.

However, my cat immediately enjoyed it as much as Hills and now prefers it to any other dry food or 'wet' variety. The added advantage also being that you don't get the waste or smell that you get with meat either!.

I found its always a good idea to wean cats gently off other brands or converting from wet - dry food, by mixing in a little of the new food slowly, gradually adding a larger proportion of the new type over a week or 10 days.

Dry Gourmet Cat and Kitten Food

gromituk

rozzid wrote:

GET PET INSURANCE - ITS [sic] WORTH IT IN THE END

Well that depends.

Your pet may drop dead suddenly of natural causes and your premiums would then have been completely wasted.

You can go on pumping medication into your pet when it's well past its natural lifespan, because insurance is paying for it. Sometimes it may be kinder to call it a day. Upsetting for you, but the animal doesn't know it's happening.

Similarly, you can spend a fortune on operations following an accident, when the kindest thing to do would be to put the animal down.

Of course I would be very sad to see my cat go, but the shelters are always crying out for homes for the animals they have. I would find a new cat just as delightful over time as my present one.

Remember that insurance companies are not charities - they are there to make a profit from your premiums. Get insurance if you're legally obliged to or if you can't stand the worst consequences of not being insured. Otherwise, you are just paying for peace of mind. With pet insurance, the worst consequence would be having to put the animal down. I see the decision to take it out as being a lot less black and white than many posters on here are suggesting.

rach1973

What does everyone use?

We've got a 4.5 month old kitten that is still using a litter tray...he is so fussy and we end up empting it every day (yes I do clear it out when it needs it!!!)

I'd like to know what is the best and cheapest and where to get it.

TIA

Rachel

gromituk

Have you read the rest of this thread? Several suggestions have been made already.