If you feed your cat dry food only..

[pollysproggle]

..how much do they get through a week/month?

I want to make the switch from pouches to dry food for my two cats. I'm coming to the realisation all the empty pouches going in to the bin is not good for the environment!

I currently get a monthly subscription of 180 pouches then buy a few small bags of dry grain free food which is normally enough for the month.
I know tins are more eco than pouches but I don't want to be washing out cat food tins every day so I'm thinking a good quality grain free dry food and a few tins here and there.
They like dry food and have a water fountain already.
I'd like another bulk buy/subscription option for the dry food but I'm not sure how much they'll roughly need.
I've googled but I'm coming up with calories per pound of weight and I'm not sure what they weigh.
I put one of them on the scales and it read 4lbs which is obviously wrong- they're pretty average sized beast!
Any advice on rough quantity? 😻

2kg lasts me about 3 weeks with two indoor cats.

I wouldn’t.
Dry diets are linked to kidney failure, especially in male cats.

Thanks@Toddlerteaplease

@Fucksandflowers
Isn't that just the case with poor quality dry food and not enough water?
I intend to get a high meat content and grain free brand. It won't be exclusively dry but I want it to be the bulk

Weight yourself, then weigh yourself again holding the cat to get their weight

Good idea @Sparklfairy but then I'd know my weight and I'm not ready to face that right now.
I'll get one of the kids to do it!

I buy a 10kg of Royal Canin which lasts around 11 months.

That's for 1 cat and she goes outdoors.

Not a greedy cat. I give her 2 small scoops a day. CAnnot remember exactly, but I think it's around 50g in total.

Never had any health issues.

pollysproggle hahaha at worst you could tell yourself it's for scientific purposes and swiftly forget the original weight

I’m pretty sure it’s all dry food.
Cats are apparently desert animals and don’t have the high thirst drive of say dogs, so even with water provided they don’t drink enough for a dry only diet.
In fact, I’m fairly sure that Lily’s kitchen only offer their dry food as a topper and not as a main diet for this reason.

Our cat is on a dry diet only on the advice of the vet and he has about 50g of kibbles a day. He's a good drinker and gets on better with dry than wet food as the latter seems to upset his tummy. We use Fetch delivery service as they piggyback their deliveries onto the Ocado shop.

www.lilyskitchen.co.uk/pet-care/caring-for-your-cat/healthy-cats/cats-feeding-your-cat.html

You are prepared to compromise the health of your cats for the sake of some empty wrappers?

There are 1001 ways to save plastic other than changing your cats diet.

I am adopting cats soon, my intention is to try out tins to find the ones they like and suit their requirements . ( Once I've slow-introduced new foods)
I'd much rather wash tins than risk them, especially the male .

@AndWhatNext
Thank you, I was looking at Royal Canin- really good reviews and lots of bulk buy options

That's interesting @Fucksandflowers
My two have a water fountain that they drink from a lot even on a wet food diet but maybe it's worth having a chat with my vet.

@PintOfBovril
Thanks for the tip I'll look into that

3KG will last me around 6/8 weeks

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

That's great you're adopting and sounds like you'll be a very sensible cat owner like me.

You can recycle them with a bit of effort www.terracycle.com/en-GB/brigades/petfood

I would do dry food on Vet advice but surely the wet food has more aroma which is half the pleasure of food?

I still recall Arthurs Chicken'n'Tuna which smelled better after it came out of the cat's bottom than out of the tin.

And once a tin exploded as I opened it ..............it was in my hair , on the ceiling , the worktops, cupboard door , my eyes ..................

It's not that hard to wash out a tin. Our cat gets a small scoop of dry food plus a fifth of a tin of wet food, which we worked out is the right no of calories for 4 kg.
Harrington's dry food is in paper too.

@drspouse
You're right there, it isn't hard to wash out a tin^ but it's not a^ tin it's lots of tins and I don't really want to do that.
I hate washing out tins and peeling off wet paper wrappers. Plus they stink. I want to bulk buy too and don't want trays of tins.

I'll have a chat with my vet, maybe half and half might be the answer

The urinary issues with dry food are not kidney failure, but bladder stones. The issue mostly occurs in male neutered overweight sedentary cats who eat low quality dry cat food (go cat is very associated with this).
If feeding dry food it should be high quality ( few fillers no brightly coloured bits), there should be access to plenty of fresh clean water, do not over feed the cat and make the cat be active hide food, use puzzle feeders.

But if you're feeding two cats wet food once a day, that's 1 tin every two days.
No need to take labels off. Just rinse and recycle.

I have two friends that are vets. They feed their cats dry food and when I got my cat they advised I moved him from the felix pouches the breeder was feeding him to a good quality dry food. I feed my cat royal Canin.
My cat has a water fountain and drinks plenty

My cat only likes dry food and wont eat wet or anything else at all, she is fussy and only likes the one brand of dry (perfect fit.)

We get through 1.5kg a month (approximately) it's basically one scoop a day.

@drspouse
Agree that's doable for me so maybe a mixture of wet and dry. I think I'll get a couple of kilos of royal canin a month then top up with tins in the supermarket shop.

Where I am you have to take the labels off to recycle.

@Mog6840
Royal canin seems a good choice, I know that's the only food they sell in vet reception.
I think it works out a lot cheaper too, I spend £40 a month on food at the moment!

@Girliefriendlikescake
Sometimes I wish my cats were a bit more fussy but they eat anything.
The other day a frozen chicken nugget fell out the freezer and my youngest snatched and devoured it before I could get it back. Wasn't even real chicken, was quorn!

The tins are tiny. Mine would never getthrough an ordinary sized tin a day. They have dry grain free food which comes fro, Zooplus. Purizon which is great quality. If i run out i buy Encore from Sainsburys. Then they half half a tiny tin each of Sainsburys Encore rip off or Tuna Savoury cakes or Appaws which is not complete but it doesnt matter because the dry is good quality.

Two measly tins a day. Am I washing them wrong? We've only just started recycling in our area and i dont have a dishwasher i just rinse them after ive done my ordinary dishes.