Cheap cat food - false economy?

[OiledBegg]

My cat has 3 x felix pouches a day plus grazes on pets at home biscuits.... If I switched to asda pouches this would be a lot cheaper but is it true that you're just storing up big vet bills in the future as the food quality isn't at good?

[queenoftheworld93]

We buy higher quality food in bulk online and it works out cheaper. We go through one can of wet food and a handful of dry per day for two adult cats. Costs about £30-35 depending on offers for five weeks.

[Allofaflumble]

I have tried every cat food known to man! The advice is staggeringly confusing. All dry - good for the teeth but v bad for the kidneys and causes dehydration.

All wet food. Cat will be fat and their teeth will rot! Raw diet. Better quality. Tried it all. Wasted a fortune. Licks the jelly but won't eat the meat. Bozita, Natures menu, hills, Royal Canin blah blah.

Then cat gets CKD. Loses weight. Told to feed RCRenal. Works for a while then back to square one. Vet says feed whatever cat will eat as its crucial with CKD.

Today the stand in vet says ooh no, cat should be eating Natures menu, Applaws etc........hes getting fat again.

He LOVES Bob Martins pouches. Eats it all. No licking around the meat pieces. Wet food is a bloody nightmare in the summer.

With the dried (Hills diet) he nearly died from dehydration and was having fits. His poos were like dried up old bullets. The wet ones stink to high heaven.

Confused...you bet.....and i must have passed on hundreds of pounds of cat food over the years. Rant over.

[MrsJamin]

If anyone is a customer of Natural Instincts could you refer me to them? Then we both get money off? Message me if you can :)

[Bonbonchance]

If you buy in bulk you can get good quality food for not so expensive - I get Bozita wet food from Zooplus in bulk a few times a year & stock up, I think it's not much more than Felix or whatever & I noticed a difference in my cat when I switched a few years ago & she's in perfect health, only one vet visit in the 6 years I've had her for a spot on her chin.

[MrsJamin]

That looks great, will try and get enough to keep them going until 14 weeks! Thanks so much.

[MrsJamin]

They're on felix kitten food as they were on offer at the supermarket! Not sure which is the best? Not feeding as they left their mother last week. I assume they don't need 'kitten milk' as that's just marketing?

[TheOneWiththeNicestSmile]

Cheap pouches aren't only 4% meat - they're 4% named meat.

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

I assume the kittens aren't nursing anymore?

I would feed them kitten food because at nine weeks they're still very young and have more specific requirements than adults. Try and make sure it's not a cheap brand though - what are you feeding them at the moment?

[SacredHeart]

Natural instincts do a raw weaning food and then by 14 weeks they can go on adult. At 9 weeks kittens would usually be feeding off mum and only exploring food so I would definitely give kitten food if they aren't nursing anymore as they will be lacking mum's goodness.

[MrsJamin]

Great thread, have two 9 week old kittens with very smelly (and lots of) poos so am interested to know if this could be affected by their food. Does anyone know of a good kitten food or can they just eat normal cat food? Is it a marketing ploy to have kitten food in the first place?

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es]

My two won't touch Butcher's Classic either, I ended up donating the tins to a wildlife rescue.

I've found it hard to find good quality complete wet food, we need pouches as DS feeds them and he can't manage tins. At the moment the two of them share a pouch of Felix twice a day and have a small amount of no-cereal dry food. A lot of the better quality wet foods are supplementary not complete.

[cloudlessskies]

When I was younger and didn't know any better my first cat ate wet pouches with a few biscuits sprinkled on top. With my second I've looked into meat content and the majority of cheaper wet pouches/tins are only 4% meat!! The rest is water and veg derivative.

Having dome some research I settled on science plan biscuits which are 62% meat. The recommended portion per day is small (and I initially thought too small) but I went with it and am very happy. It fills my girl up, she tends to graze over the day and never asks for her food. Compared to my first cat who was always hungry on wet. It is good for their teeth as prevents plaque build up.

I worry my girl gets bored having the same (only one flavour for long haired) to eat so will occasionally offer her some wet pouch/cooked chicken/ham but it goes uneaten. When a tin of tuna is opened though then she'll ask!

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

One of ours was underweight when we got her and it was Sheba/Gourmet or nothing. I'd rather she ate something - although since being neutered she's turned rather chunky!

[thecatneuterer]

That's a shame! My many, many cats don't get given a choice. They eat Butchers or starve. It's a tough regime in my house :)

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

Thanks Ours turned their nose up - we have two tins of Butchers lurking in the cat food cupboard from over a year ago! Occasionally I try them on it again and get looked at with much disgust lol.

[thecatneuterer]

TheBunnyOfDoom (love your name!) the jury seems to be out on the teeth question and vets do seem to disagree.

However Butchers Classic (honestly - i don't work for them!) is recommended by our vets as it seems to help with gingivitis and mouth problems generally. It is also cereal free and seems to help with sensitive stomachs too.

I can't stress this enough - Butchers Classic is fabulous!

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

Isn't all-wet meant to be awful for their teeth?

[sweetkitty]

I changed my cat onto Millies Lionheart yes it's dry but it's high quality dry 75% meat or fish, 25% veg no grains or additives. First thing I noticed is his poos are a lot smaller, firmer and a lot less smelly, he's 15 and his coat is gleaming.

[iloveeverykindofcat]

potap123 I agree ideally. Some cats are terrible getting their dry though. Zara (fussy princess) eats a good amount of wet but can produce an ear-splitting nasal nehhhhhh sound to demand dry: it's a really weird noise, hard to represent, but she's half Abysinnian and it's a real nasal whinge that clearly says 'give me thaaaat one! I can't eat ever again if I don't have thaaaat one now!'. We compromise with a smalll amount of Thrive in addition to her wet (90% chicken, no grains).

[LittleCandle]

I give my cats Harringtons dried food, as they are quite fussy about their dried food. They didn't use to like wet food, but as they have aged, that has changed. They are quite fussy about the wet food, and loathe Felix with a passion. I tried them on Tesco's own and they like it a lot and it is cheaper than Whiskas. Last week, i bought a box of Lidl's Coshina wet food and they gobbled it down. It works out at £1.75 for a box of 12 packets, so guess what my boys are going to be eating for a while (they'll probably get tired of it, but I hope not).

[TheBunnyOfDoom]

I'm not sure about cheap wet food (ours eat Gourmet Perle or Sheba) but don't give them cheap biscuits. We learnt this the hard way - we used Go Cat and our male cat ended up with a urinary blockage that nearly killed him. He spent five nights at the vet and cost us over £800 in bills and medication.

He's now on urinary biscuits from Royal Canin and thankfully there's not been a problem since. The vet said the "danger period" for re-occurance is two weeks and it's been four months now so hopefully he'll be okay, but we're always on the look-out for symptoms. It was horrible and really worrying for us - he was really sick and not himself for a couple of weeks after coming home.

Please please don't give them cheap biscuits. I wouldn't want anyone to go through what we did with ours.

[iloveeverykindofcat]

I have to say it was for me. Granted, the cat in question has a very sensitive system due to being a panleucopenia survivor, but we were always at the vets about her colitis flare ups until I got her onto Nature's Menu. Now we go once every few months instead of a few times every month. However, my other cat who was a pampered pet from birth can eat anything (but won't).