Credit crunched cat food - what to swap Hills Science Diet for?

[pollyperkins]

Well we realised in our house that our two lovely girl cats (aged 9 and 5) eat better than the rest of us! They've been on Hills Science Diet Light (as they're both seriously into eating and were getting a bit, well, shapely) for a year and on Hills since they came to us as very little kittens.

The problem is that our house has been hit a bit by the credit crunch (or more like whacked about with a big stick) and so we're trying to cut costs wherever we can. So we're trying to find cheaper alternatives to the Hills food that is as good. Has anyone got any experiences or suggestions? It would ideally be another dried food as that's all they've known and I don't want to go cheesing them off too much. TIA

[peggotty]

I also use Hills and it IS bloody expensive, but if you can get to a Pets At Home they nearly always have an offer such as 2 for 1 etc on Hills, it may mean the cats will have to swap between types or flavours within the Hills feline range but at least they will still be getting the food they are used to. HTH

[pollyperkins]

Peggotty - I've got one of those round the corner and I do keep a look out on t'internet too for cheapy deals.....just that the big credit crunch stick did whack us quite hard Will be keeping my eyes peeled online for good hills deals tho

[fairimum]

ours happily eat the huge bags from costco - think about £13 for 15kg (ish) and lasts us about 3 months for 4 cats!

[OrangeFish]

I'm not a cat owner, but when I was feeding Hills to my dogs at some point I realised the price was more expensive per kilo than getting them meat for human consumption from the supermarket.

How about IAMS?

[pollyperkins]

Ooops - didn't notice anyone else had replied!

IAMS looks to be about as expensive as the Hills from what I could see at the supermarket earlier this week. I've just started the cats on Tesco's equivalent of Hills which should work out to be £8 for about 1.5kg (vs £13ish for the Hills). There have been no complaints so far from them although if they could express a preference it would be for canned tuna all day every day!

[LaurieFairyCake]

Purina One - £11.83 for 3kg on Ocado

[GetOrfMoiLand]

My cats have Go Cat (supplemented with bats and mice). They are sleekly healthy.

This is the only thing they will eat, tried them on Iams, whiskas crunchies and purina and they turned their noses up at it. Thankfully they have frugal tastes

[steamedtreaclesponge]

I used to feed Hill's or Iams but had to switch for similar reasons. They now get Go Cat or Whiskas dried food and seem to be thriving on it!

[skihorse]

I'm not sure about the cat version, but I'm on the dog version of "Royal Canine" type stuff from the Lidl. Over here it's 5 euros for 3kg and the dogs do brilliantly on it. I know they do a cat version and if the quality is the same as the dog one it'd be well worth it!

[hairymelons]

IAMs is well expensive too. This is how crunched we've been- every week in Tescos I look at the price per kilo on the dry cat food . Whiskas Complete or Go Cat seems to be cheapest but sometimes other stuff is on offer.

[skihorse]

er... when I say "I'm on the dog version" - I do of course mean "our dogs" as opposed to me settling down with a bowl of doggy-dins + milk.

[prettybird]

The cat version from Lidl is fine: our tow cats (pampered Siamese ) have been on it for years and are both sleek and healthy!

[prettybird]

two, not tow

[Goober]

This is about my dog but cat food still aplies.

Dog used to have Hills. £56 a bag, one bag a month.
She now has Lidl premium complete dog food, £2.99 a week.

My friend gives her cats their cat food, says it is very good, they are healthy with lovely coats.

[minimu]

Credit crunch hit us too so our cat moved from science diet to a premiumn cat food from lidls. He loves it and it is very very very cheap!

[LightningBolt]

Mine have Iams but only because one of those bargain shops (B+Ms) sell it really cheaply.Failing that Aldi dried food is acceptable for my 2.

[madusa]

my cats have the costo (Kirkland) food and they are very trim.

Of course the bigger cat supplements this with rodents and birds

[prettybird]

There are also periodically offers on the Lidl premium cat food (which is called Opticat) which makes it even cheaper!