Cat litter and cat food

[smellycats]

DH and I have just been on zooplus and are overwhelmed by the choice. I'm hoping we can get good advice based on MN experience.

cat food

We're currently feeding our 7month old kittens Felix Kitten As good as it look. We're also giving them Go-Cat kitten biscuits. But they seem to be always hungry, and our little girl feels thin to me. (They have been wormed). We want to change their food. Please can you give us advice on best brands. We want to try grain free mostly meat food. Also, dry food recommendations.

litter

We're currently using Catsan. Is there anything better - less smelly, easier to manage etc? DH was looking at a clumping type. Any good?

All our previous cats have gone outside to use the loo. But our plan with these two is to give them free reign of the garden and fields beyond, but bring them in overnight. (To avoid the dusk and dawn chorus and hopefully protect birds a bit). So we need litter for overnight. If we don't lift the poo immediately it has been done, the entire house stinks. So we're wondering if catsan is maybe not that good and if there's something better.


Many thanks.

[AnnaMagnani]

Cat food:

Have a look at grain free brands like Animonda, Bozita, Feringa, Sanabelle, Almo Nature, Purizon, Thrive.

You need to feed a lot less of these as they are more filling so the costs aren't equivalent to x pouches Felix Kitten - however kittens do eat a lot of times a day. It might take a bit of experimenting to find something both you and the cat are happy with - we picked Feringa wet, cat hated it, Bozita = cat only licked the jelly off the chunks, Animonda - cat loves it and we like that the tins are recyclable. Both cats and owner happy

Dry food - my cats aren't picky over dry food but turn their noses up with disgust at Go Cat on the rare occasions we have had it. We've had Sanabelle, Purizon and Feringa.

Litter: Cats Best or World's Best

Treats: Cosmas Snackies. Basically Thrive only cheaper. Cats go crazy for these. Way better than Dreamies.

[JasperLily]

The ideal food is one high in meat content, but these are going to be the expensive foods. Basically go-cat is rubbish, like you eating jellybeans for every meal. I do feed mine Felix, but also give a good quality biscuits as well. You want a biscuit with meat as the first and main ingredient.

The smelly poop might be linked to the diet, better quality food might improve the smells a bit.

I tend to stay away from clumping litter, it can get stuck to them and ingested when they clean. I use the cheap supermarket brand, but only use 2 large bean can full per tray. I empty and completely clean twice a day.

[AnnaMagnani]

After long experience of Zooplus, cost isn't exactly the same as quality.

You can buy Lily's Kitchen, Thrive, Applaws which are all more expensive and high quality.

You can look at things that sound great but are of no interest to cats - finest vegetables, home cooked, garden herbs, organic reindeer. These sound great to owners but cats don't really care. They just want to eat meat.

Or you can buy food that is meat, grain free but without the fancy sounding bells and whistles. For us this worked out cheaper than highstreet cat food as the cat ate less of it - one tiny portion Animonda and ad lib kibble instead of several pouches a day and still kibble.

This thread is a bit old now but someone helpfully did the work looking at only the low carb wet food on Zooplus and you can see prices ranged from £2 -£11 a kg of food. Somebody is making a big markup there on the luxury brands.

www.petforums.co.uk/threads/zooplus-cat-food-list-just-the-good-stuff-work-in-progress.440844/

FWIW I buy the small tins of Animonda as it suits how much my 2 cats eat. Bit more expensive than the bigger tins but the multipacks are always on special offer, and way way less than brands like Lily's Kitchen and definitely less than a similar spend on Felix which is more per kg and the cat has to eat more of it.

[Bargebill19]

Sanicat litter is my current favourite for odour control and lack of tracking. (Catsan smell of wee to me before a cat has even used it).

Tbh, it’s down to personal preference and what your cat likes. - not all cats like the feel/texture/smell of some litters. And what’s your wallet can sustain. (Whispers quietly- the same with food!)

[AnnaMagnani]

For odour control the crystals the crystals are the best.

They are not the cats' favourite though At All.