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? 😻

Most cats really prefer wet food. I think to only feed dry, even if it's good quality, isn't a very nice thing to do. By all means feed both, but I wouldn't deprive my cat of food they like for the sake of a few wrappers. If you're that concerned about the environment then make sure you don't by any wrapped food for yourself, then a few sachet wrappers for your cat will be counterbalanced by all your other efforts.

And as Each says, tins can be recycled and can be very easily washed.

Have you thought about a mix of dry and raw food? I mix dry, raw, pouches and tins for my arsehole awkward old boy.

Raw chicken wings and turkey thigh mince are easy.

Godmine would curse me if i started to put raw food out🙂

@HardAsSnails
I don't know if I could give them raw meat . They'd have it all over their faces then then come and put in on me- no thanks.

I cook them chicken and turkey if it's reduced in the supermarket so they have real meat sometimes.
As I said, dry won't be all they eat but wanted the bulk to be dry to reduce waste from pouches.

@thecatneuterer
They get through 180 pouches a month, that 2160 a year so quite a lot.
I'm trying to reduce my families plastic waste massively and have, this is part of it.
I'm already a shampoo bar using, moon cup wearing, toothpaste in a tin brusher, smol laundry detergent washer, cloth nappy kids, vegetarian etc but still love a bit of convenience (and drive a diesel car every day so not trying to sound like a martyr).

I think half and half is a good compromise to start with.

Mine gets a half tin of Applaws kitten as a treat and a big handful of Applaws dry a day. Her water is away from her food and she consumes all three at a rate I am happy with and which means I am happy she is getting enough liquids. She also has cat grass.
She's an indoor cat.

www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/bozita/bozita/300455

Would cardboard Tetra Pak packaging be any better for you?

There on my list to try with ours - they are starting to get very fussy though.

We do a mix of pouches and various tins and different dried foods - avoiding grains and getting best we can.

Our indoor male kittens are on Ava dry food. Wet food was giving them a bad tummy as was anything that wasn't grain free. They have 65g per day each and a 2 kg bag lasts about 2 weeks. We spent £25 per month and buy it from pets at home which is next to the supermarket we do our weekly shop in.

@bigKiteFlying
They look really good!
Expensive though, don't think I could afford to give them that exclusively but mixed with dry is an idea

Google tells me

On the whole, wet cat food, with the primary ingredient being meat or fish, provides a meal that's better suited to a cat's dietary needs. But that doesn't necessarily mean that canned wet cat food is always a better choice than dry cat food. The best dry cat food is better for your cat than the worst canned food.

We've only ever done dry. Cats all live outside and none die young. Last one to die was 17.

How much dry food they get through totally depends on the food.

When left to their own devices, some of mine would eat their own body weight in dry food each day.

I've had 2 sibling cats that were stone makers and feeding them the vet recommended dry food stopped it so make of that what you will. One still going at a ripe old age - she eats unlimited kibble as she's old now and a tiny bit of wet but she's honestly not that interested in the wet.

I have one younger cat who I started on a mix of wet and dry - made sure it was grain-free and it has been vital to limit portions or she would be the size of a barrel. Old lady cat feeds from a microchip feeder. Wet wise the pair of them have half a tiny tin of Animonda Carny between them a day which is enough for me to see a difference in coat in the older one but she won't eat any more and the younger one would just be fat. I prefer the tins because of recycling and they go nuts for the food.

So in terms of washing out tins, it's only one tin every other day and it just goes in the dishwasher.

They did like the Bozita but tended to just lick the jelly off the chunks which was missing the point - Animonda has been better but god, the smell of the poo is something else!

Your cats eat alot 🙂 mine have 56 a month one small tin seems to pack more in it than a pouch.

@pollysproggle Bozita portions are really small if what you are feeding now is high street pouches.

Grain-free foods on Zooplus like Bozita or Animonda are all-meat - the portions compared to Whiskas are tiny as a result. If you are used to feeding loads of pouches there is a lot of saving to be made and while making a big improvement on the quality of food your cat is eating.

Which is why my lot are full after a meal of a quarter of a small tin. Between 2, they are eating 15 tiny tins + dry food (we buy massive bags that last forever), compared to yours on 180 pouches. Even if we fed wet food twice a day it would still be 30 tins only.

Whatever you do, go grain free. Maximum preferably 100 % meat.

@bellinisurge @AnnaMagnani
Yes that's the idea too, I've been giving them felix as good as it looks pouches which my mum recommended and they advise 3-4 pouches a day.
The dry food I buy is encore and recently Crave, both grain free which seemed to be better for them so got me thinking about a complete switch as surely a high quality grain free dry food is better than cheaper wet food so I could ditch the pouches and the waste.
The high quality wet food seemed so much more expensive and I've been looking at it thinking they'd need the same quantity as felix but now I see that's not the case as they eat less.

@EachandEveryone
My cats are just greedy, I've posted before about my youngest eating habits, eats everything. Fruit, horseradish, cake, carrots and whatever the kids drop on the floor.
I can't leave any food unattended, ever.

Yes, have a look through Zooplus. There are some v pricey wetfood options there but the cheapest ones I think are Bozita, Animonda and Feringa. Animonda has been the biggest hit, probably because it is the smelliest.

Dry-wise mine have had Feringa, Sanabelle and Purizon.

If you want treats, Cosma Snackies are a cheaper version of Thrive. Even my neighbours' cats turn up at my house for the sound of the Snackie tube rattling

My two are on half and half Millie’s lionheart 80% meat grain free

The wet is little plastic tubs they get one between them a day but are leaving some preferring the dry. They drink out the dogs bowl (ignoring theirs) and demand taos to be ran for them. Drink more than any cat I’ve had.

I had a male cat with bladder stones two ops he had to remove them, special diets the lot.

I’m looking to change them over if they are leaving the wet food

Dcat will only reliably eat Hills Oral Care dry food. We use about 1.5kg every 4/5 weeks.

I’ve only ever fed my cats dry food with the odd pouch here and there and they’ve all lived to 15+ (bar the one who was killed by a car) with no health issues. Ditto my parents cats. If there was a health issue caused by the food I would obviously switch it.

Sweetkitty we provide our cats with water bowls around the house but they would always prefer to drink out of my glass of water if I leave it on the floor - yuk! or a muddy puddle if outside.

Or in the case of one cat, the toilet.

Lovely creatures, cats are.

Mine love Pure Petfood, it comes as a dry, dehydrated mix you then rehydrate with water. The whole pack is one large plastic bag inside a cardboard box and makes lots of meals so very little packaging waste. purepetfood.co.uk/collections/complete-recipies-cats

I also firmly believe, based on lots of reading, that wet is best. If you really want to feed dry, then grain free high protein dry is OK, in addition to good quality wet food.

Given high quality wet and high quality dry mine prefer the dry the dry was only meant as a back up!

Yes cats are odd creatures but that’s why we love them. DCat1 is currently sleeping in a Tupperware bowl on top of the kitchen units despite being supplied with perfectly comfortable cat beds