Economics forcing change in diet. Any suggestions?

[andyturner]

Andy you have to share who is doing 2kg of rc free!

I got from http://www.vets.co.uk/ in Filton, Bristol. Its an offer RC themselves are doing.

Regards,
Andy

[Dawn F]

Andy you have to share who is doing 2kg of rc free!

[andyturner]

Hello everyone,

Thank you very much for all your replies  - loads of information to digest!

I just hauled a 12kg bag of RC home tonight, 2kg free, £36!

Tried felix at the weekend. Seemed to go down ok.

Thanks again for all you input.

Regards,
Andy

[Kay and Penny]

funnily enough two of mine will only eat the Felix  trays - the only obvious difference is that they don't contain the fish derivatives which are in all the other Felix products

[Helena]

Felix is a big hit.

Bubz wont eat Felix at all in pouch form and only reluctantly out of the tin. She gets the three flavours Hi-Life Essentials when Asda has all flavours (btw: is it true that its best keeping to one flavour?) and whichever is left when Asda runs out, usually the tuna one is the less favoured in this area!

[caledonia]

I have 2 cats and spend only about £25 a month on food and that's Royal Canin dry Maine Coon and whatever pouches are on offer.

The key with the dry food is buying in bulk. I buy the 10kg bag for £46 and it last 5 months - that's only £9 odds a month.

According to the feeding guidelines it shouldn't last that long - however I top their bowl up twice a day and fully change it every second day and they never empty it.

They also have a half satchet each twice a day. Which works about about a £4.

Buying in bulk for both wet and dry certainly helps.

[souffle]

I'm really boring and use the pro plan chicken and either whiskas or felix pouches for Callie and Monty.
I am very careful to buy them in and follow round the stores for the special offers - usually 2 boxes for £6 (24 pouches) You can normally get them for that at least one of the big supermarkets. We also get the pro plan when it is on special (20% off any size) at sainsburys and that lasts well. I guess you could make a diet changover easily enough so good luck.
We also give them some meals of cooked 'human' food - like but a slightly larger chicken to roast and it does them a few meals too.
Callie & Monty are greedy guts though and will eat pretty much anything though Callie does not agree with some things so we stick to the ones mentioned.

[Tiggy's Mum]

I have two cats and spend around £40 a month on food (less if you factor in buying when it's on offer), they eat the Bozita cartons for breakfast and dinner (high meat content, grain free and each 370g carton is equivalent to approx 4 pouches) and James wellbeloved biscuits to snack on.

Bozita cartons are around £1 a carton, so equivalent to 25p a pouch if you were comparing it to pouch cat food. If you buy the 24 packs it works out to 88p a carton, or 22p a pouch. Added to this I always buy three months worth at a time and use the STOCK-UP code on Zooplus (when you spend over £75) which gives a 5% discount.

For dry food a 2kg bag of James Wellbeloved is normally around £15 and I get through one bag a month, but I buy the bigger 4kg bags which work out cheaper (around £21 a bag, which is £10.50 per 2kg), plus when it's on offer I buy a years worth! I went through a period of my life when my finances were incredibly tight so my budgeting has stuck with me!

I give them Royal Canin young male neutered. Per cat, per day: x1 pouch wet food. 90g dry food, so all up x2 pouches and 180g dry.
3.5kg of dry is £26. x48 pouches of wet is £42.

With your prices as they are it looks like you'd be spending more than £70 a month though - 5.4kg of dry (180g for both cats  x 30 days) works out to £40.11 and the wet £52.50 (87.5p per pouch x 2 = £1.75 x 30 days). I make that £92.61 in total

I feed more wet than and less dry than you as mine have the equivalent of four pouches per day between them but if you were to keep the feed ratios the same but switch to Bozita/JWB it would cost £41.55 per month in total (£13.20 for wet, being 22p per 'pouch' x 2 = 44p x 30 days) and £28.35 for 5.4kg dry (based on 4kg bag being £21 at Amazon).

[onyx]

zooplus is really good for food.

although it may seem pricey, bozita, grau and animonda carny are all really good quality foods. you have to feed less of them than other brands. (wet food)

as an occasional treat, butchers classic can also be ok, but some of the nutritional elements arent as clear as the ones listed above, and some of the calcium/phosphorus levels may be slightly off.

if you have the room (or space), have you looked into raw feeding at all?

[Mymblesdaughter]

Goodness I've just looked at the price of Royal Canin it's very expensive isn't it? My Mum uses it and I was trying to find out for her the meat content a couple of months ago and it seems no one knows.

I use Porta 21 dry for my two and they both really like it it's £37 for a 10kg bag I buy the organic one. If you just buy the non organic it's about £25. It's about 35% meat. I feed them applaws wet and that is expensive. They cost me about £50 a month and I think that's too much. I keep trying them on new wet foods but they only go for the stuff that looks like real meat or fish. I'm thinking of trying them on raw but haven't got around to it yet. As people say that can work out to be cheaper than cat food.

I'd definitely recommend Zooplus they have lots of good quality food much better than the supermarkets. You get discounts for bulk buying and you get extra cash back if you go through quidco. 

[Gill (sneakiefeline)]

I use a good dry food (Pro-Plan fish) plus felix or other stuff but apart from Lupin who is refusing to eat most stuff, that goes down well with the other two.

Tend to change the wet food often as they do go off Felix but my cats are especially fussy.........sigh

If yours have been used to one wet food for a long time ttry to make the change over slowly and mix new food with old, gradually reducing the old food until its all new.

[Susanne (urbantigers)]

I think you could definitely get a cheaper wet food for the same or better quality than royal canin.  I rarely use RC wet foods so am not sure of the ingredients but I think they contain cereal/veg deriviatives?  In that case most supermarket wet foods would be of equal quality but much cheaper.  I feed hi life essentials wet food (under £3 for 12 pouches) to one cat and various supermarket senior brands for the other.  I have an upper limit of £3 per box of 12 pouches so buy felix etc. when they are on offer.

[sheilarose]

Hi Andy,

I'm similar to Dawn. I use a quality dry food (James wellbeloved is top favourite here) and whatever wet food is on offer from the on-line suppliers or supermarkets.

Felix is a big hit.

You can get the food you use at better rates that you're paying now if you buy on-line or in bulk. Try Zooplus, Bestpet and Animed for starters?

Here's one that looks much better value already.

http://www.bestpet.co.uk/product/~product_id=787

[Dawn F]

which wet do you use? I use royal canin dry and felix wet for 4 cats and don't spend a lot more than you

felix is often on offer and 48 pouches should costs about £12 or at worst £18 (but you will usually find it in one of the supermarkets for £3 for 12)

[andyturner]

Hi,

Having analysed the monthly accounts we have concluded more is going out then coming in so I'm having a think about what to cut back on. One thing we have noticed is that cat food is costing £70 a month for x2 cats? They are both very healthy, active and happy - and I know how important good nutrition is - but is there a cheaper way to get the same quality of food & life?

I give them Royal Canin young male neutered. Per cat, per day: x1 pouch wet food. 90g dry food, so all up x2 pouches and 180g dry.
3.5kg of dry is £26. x48 pouches of wet is £42.

Its the wet food that that's killing it, and they could live without it, but they like it and it feels unnatural to just give them dry food.

Any ideas/thoughts are most welcome.   

Thanks & regards,
Andy