Hills Science Plan - cat food

LayZ_3

Seems to be some blatent price fixing going on on this - its the same price (expensive) everywhere I look. Anyone got any leads on a discount?

cslogg

Lazyz,
I agree with you about the price fixing.
I hunted high and low for prices on this brand a couple of months ago and it was the same price everywhere.

cslogg

tru

Pets At Home usually have one of the flavours on offer, not much of an offer mind, £1.50 - £2 off the large size.

neilk_2

We get ours from pets at home - normally waiting until they have a promotion and then it works out cheaper, else buying 10kg sacks for about £37 (does that sound about right?).

I have had vouchers before from a Hills promotional van in the car park and my vet sells Hills, you could see how much yours is...

condyk

I have bought Hill large sacks a couple of times and, to be honest, the food loses its smell and flavour by the time you get half way through and then the cats don't want it! No real way of preventing this, even when the sacks are firmly closed. Smell is very important in cat food. I always check Sainsbury's when I do my home delivery shop just in case there's an offer on the mid sized or smaller packs of Hills or another premium brand. I then buy several. Usually, I get enough for 3 months or so and then another offer usually comes along if I'm lucky!

rushnowt

Hills Science offer a breeders club, where by joining you get free food , money off coupons and discounted prices, if you buy direct from them but this is only much good if you order a large amount. You can contact them and ask them to send info to join, usally this can be done just by giving a few details over the phone or they may send you a form to fill in your details. You just give them the names and ages of your cats and each time you have "litter" you contact them and they send packs out for you for each kitten.

The price is very expensive for this food as it's "recommended" by vets as they get a cut of the profits. Firstly i'd try to change the cats diet as it would work out a lot cheaper. Or try to find a friend who gets in a wholesalers, although there isnt much difference in price with the big name brands as there isnt much of a markup.

HTH

[Deleted User]

My cat is on the Hills Prescription food (Hill Feline KD) as she has a renal condition. This can ONLY be bought via vets - even though it does not contain medication.

I have searched the internet at great length both in the UK and the US and the prices are about the same - that's if you can get it all at without buying from a vet.

Hills themselves, have so far, declined to answer my queries.

redfox

Ice, you can get Hills Prescription Diet (and other precription medicines) from https://www.petdrugsquick.co.uk.
You may need a prescription from your vet, depending on what you want to buy, but it's worth the hassle of getting that as you can really save some money by buying from them instead of your vet.

For example, the Frontline Cat x 6 packs are £15.72 as opposed to the £24.80 my vet charges for the same thing. I just asked my vet for a prescription and then went to petdrugsquick and saved a bunch - I have 4 cats so the savings mount up!

http://www.petdrugsquick.co.uk/?p=background tells you all about them

rushnowt

My cat is on the Hills Prescription food (Hill Feline KD) as she has a renal condition. This can ONLY be bought via vets - even though it does not contain medication.

I have searched the internet at great length both in the UK and the US and the prices are about the same - that's if you can get it all at without buying from a vet.

Hills themselves, have so far, declined to answer my
queries.

ice, i've made a few inquiries for you and pedigree also do the same prescription food for your cats condition, not sure of the price though and it all depends on which vet has arrangements with which company, but maybe worth a call to pedigree and explain your circumstances or another vet to check on differences in prices.
sorry cant be of more help.

Debs

LayZ_3

The price is very expensive for this food as it's "recommended" by vets as they get a cut of the profits. Firstly i'd try to change the cats diet as it would work out a lot cheaper. Or try to find a friend who gets in a wholesalers, although there isnt much difference in price with the big name brands as there isnt much of a markup.

HTH

Yeah I hear ya, but they seem to like this stuff (kittens both abt 8 months old, on the kitten Hills). Any of the other brands you'd suggest instead?

I really object to this lack of price competition and how it is blatently pushed by vets as a panacea pet food (in that it helps them on the way to a new 3 series).

rushnowt

Hiya Layz,

Unless your pet as been prescibed a particular diet by your vet, you can feed her/him on anything you want, it does not have to be one of the big "premium" brands as there are plenty of good reasonably priced feeds about, always make sure you feed the correct food for the age of your kitten and you wont go far wrong.
Cats are renowned for being fussy eaters, and it can sometimes be difficult to change diet/brand but if its something you would like to do, then just do it very slowly, buy a small amount of a different food and mix small amounts into the original food, increase it slightly every couple of days until you are eventually feeding the whole of the new food, doing it this way is less likely to upset kittys tummy and it should be come accustomed to the new taste over time. If kittys not keen either persevere (no animal will starve themselves) or try another food which ever you prefer.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.

This is an exerpt from an article i found :- Science diets and Hill's dog and cat food products are not good diets. They use chemical preservatives that have been shown to cause problems in some animals, and they use by-products, which are words on the ingredient label that need to be avoided at all costs. This generally means food not utilised for human consumption