Alternatives to vet recommended food..

[swapsicles]

Ok so i wont go against the vet but it has suggested to me that my 5 year old should go onto royal canine s o urinary due to being very poorly recently and to prevent further issues.
( blocked bladder/ crystals requiring surgery, a drip and catheterization over several days)
The vet recommended this brand and said to think about it until his next check up.
Cost is an issue unfortunately but also want the best for my kitty. In particular the dry version looks to be full of crap for a lot of money!
I can get it slightly cheaper at zooplus.
My other options are to feed a different food but still good quality, possibly raw or a high meat content?
I'll go through all this with the vet soon, just wanted to hear from other cat staff what their experiences are with this sort of thing

I'm not a vet, but I'm under the impression that male cats who are susceptible to urinary crystals are supposed to mainly be fed wet food.

I would go wet food and high meat content

Our young cat is on the royal canin urinary, it's pricey but works out cheaper than having to keep taking him to the vets,

I found some websites were cheaper than the vets, I think I saw one website called petdrugsuk or something close to that name, our vets have price matched with them, maybe your vet would too.

I use a freeze dried food that i reconstitute. It gets a lot of water into my cat

I worked at a vets for 6 years and saw a lot of cats with urinary problems come in for the same thing over and over again. The Royal Canin food definitely helps. It might seem expensive but it’s a lot cheaper than surgery and hospitalisation, especially if you don’t have insurance. If he is insured it’s worth checking if they cover prescription food. Some do, some don’t, and some will pay a percentage towards it. Getting the food online is always cheaper. Hills C/D is another prescription urinary food you could try (vets recommend either Royal Canin or Hills depending on who their supplier is) so see which is cheaper. Dry food is always much more cost effective, and if you’re worried about water intake you could add warm water to the dry biscuits to turn it into a mush, and then let it cool.

you could add warm water to the dry biscuits to turn it into a mush, and then let it cool

This is a great idea.

I'm definitely going for wet food, just want to do my research so he gets the best one, to add to difficulty i have 3 cats so also have to feed him separately !

Oh and im insured with petplan so will ask if they pay part if the food cost, provided it doesn't bump up the premiums, quite scared about renewal too!

We used the hills I/d urinary (wet) for a couple of months. Then the same brand but dry with gourmet pouches. Then gradually switched to royal canin urinary (dry) with cystease tablets and pouches.
We're now on Lily's kitchen chicken with no supplements, again, a gradual switch. I also always feed at least one pouch of wet per day (currently Sheba).
This was following a nasty infection with crystals 18 months ago. We've had no recurrence.
I also give him cat soup if I think he's not been drinking much.
I also ensure he's going out to pee enough. He's a tray refuser and I think withholding his pee because of snow/rain/a balloon popping in the next county, means he doesn't go enough. Means lots of encouragement at the back door
My view was to take the vets advice in the first instance and then figure out what worked for him long term. The supplement seemed to be very effective and I keep some in a cupboard just in case.

Btw, we also have another cat with sensitive digestion, hence the messing about with his diet! She pinches as much of his as she can, then becomes unwell, so we have to get them both on something that suits.

In my experience vets always stock either Royal Canin or Hills Science diet food and are very reluctant to recommend alternatives. They do both have some special formulas (we've used the Calm one when our cats have been particularly annoying for example) but I also think that the vets make a profit on the sale and so are not completely unbiased in their recommendations. Neither brand does particularly well in pet food reviews that looks at content quality.

We raw fed for a while but one didn't like it and another was fussy so now I feed Butchers classic wet food, we chose it because it's grain free (dog is intollerant to wheat and pinches cat food from the bowl when he can), it also means there's no carbs for our old cats systems to struggle with. Our old boy hasn't had a blockage since he had one 5 years ago. He refused the food from the vet

I know your cat has a different urinary problem, but my girl had cystitis on and off for a year (passing clots of blood at time). Two vets at my practice literally used the same words, they'd rather see any cat on a cheap wet diet rather than dry. On a wet diet it will keep them hydrated, and stop concentrated urine irritating their bladders.

If you want to continue with the same food, there are other websites which may be cheaper.

I think you need to take the vets advice

I've a similar problem, 3 cats, 1 of which is prone to urinary problems. He prefers dry food and wet food (butcher's classic) gives him the runs, he rarely drinks. Another cat throws up if he eats dry food and a third will just eat anything he can get and is overweight, but also gets the runs from wet food. The vet said feed them Hills urinary dry food but it looks it's full of grain and crap.

Zooplus has a good range of cat food, wet & dry. My previous cat was allergic to grain so I started buying grain free. There’s a lot of choice on there so you could buy some small packs to test before stocking up.
I do think Royal Canin and Hills are pretty rubbish and only recommended by vets because they’re marginally better than Whiskers.
When my cat was having regular asthma attacks they wanted to put him on steroids permanently but swapping his diet sorted him out. The vet was unaware that some cats can’t tolerate grain.