Nutrition experts - your views on the following food - advice greatly appreciated!

[Lil_Scruff]

Hi Den,

At the moment I currently have three cats/kittens  - hopefully in the future we'll expand on this 

As a rough estimate I'll probably (ultimately when they're full size) give them 100g each a day so 3x100g = 300g /11.34kg = 37.8...so the bag should last approx 40 days. Maths isn't my strongest point so if I've made an incorrect calculation then please let me know!

So do you think the food will last 40 days? I could probably try to seal the bag up tight somehow. I could also think about vacuum packing part of the contents...or would there be any point (and would it be safe) to try freezing some?

Again thanks to all for your replies.

[Den]

How many cats do you have? If you only have one or a couple it's probably not a good idea to get such a large quantity bag. Dry food has a certain shelf life when opened, the longer it's open the more the good stuff leeches into the packaging and the less good it is.

How long would you say that amount would last you?

[Gillian Harvey]

I don't think high fat is as much of an issue as high carbohydrates with cat food as they are designed to process fat & protein, but not carbs.

Well aware of that, they are not designed to process high fat though, if you consider wet foods contain much less fat, for instance Classic 5%,  Whiskas Simply 5% and Hi Life real meat pouch  (high meat content) only 1.8% - which is actually a bit low, 5% is about right.

[Zenith (Liz)]

That sounds very reasonable for a decent food.

Mine are currently on Hills Kitten which isn't cheap and if there's a Cosco anywhere near me i'll try to get a sample to see how it affects Nova's tummy

[Lil_Scruff]

Thanks again all for your help on this.....wish I could get away with eating 20% fat at each meal! 

[Tiggy's Mum]

Royal Canin kitten food is only 18% fat!

Just had a quick look and by contrast adult Royal Canin Hair & Skin is 22%!

There only seems to be a very small % variation between kitten and adult foods anyway.

Eg - PAH adult 20%, PAH kitten 21.5%
JamesWellbeloved adult 18%, James Wellbeloved kitten 20%

[Mark]

I don't think high fat is as much of an issue as high carbohydrates with cat food as they are designed to process fat & protein, but not carbs.

[Lottie (Team Svartalfheim's)]

Royal Canin kitten food is only 18% fat!

[Tiggy's Mum]

Looks ok as dry foods go, apart from being very high in fat. 

I just looked on the PAH website and it seems a fairly standard fat content for high meat content foods -  PAH premium stuff I use is 20% oils & fats, JamesWellbeloved 18%, Hills Natures Best 20.8%, Proplan 16%, Purely 16%, Iams 17%.

[Lil_Scruff]

Thanks for your input all - especially Ellen for the calculations.

I think I may well give it a go now that it seems to be of reasonable quality although as Gillian says it's rather high in fat so will have to watch the portions. I bought a large Royal Canin storage tin from the Paws Inn summer social which should be good for storage. I'm slightly worried that as it's such a HUGE bag and I only have three cats (which are all still kittens) it might get stale before it's finished.

Puggy - I must admit I'm a CostCo fan too although it's true to say that you can't come out of there without spending a fortune    I was there a couple of weeks ago and they had some ginger cake on sample and it was out of this world. If anyone likes ginger cake then give it a go - very moist and spicy.

Cheers again,

Sarah

[puggy1975 Zoe]

I know a few people who use Costco Kirkland cat food and it goes down well, i buy cat litter from costco, not tried Ollie and Tyler but if it seems good quality i think i will grab a big bag next time i am in

Ohh i love costco

[Mark]

Looks like a quality food for the same price people pay for go-cat & other similar rubbish. Sounds like it would be great for rescues and catteries.

[Gillian Harvey]

Looks ok as dry foods go, apart from being very high in fat. 

[Ellen2010]

So that is a 10Kg sack of food, 8oz = 200g which equals one cup.  So would say that it is per cup that they give the amounts for but on quick calculations and just looking at text books it looks pretty good and will try to convert the feeding guide into metric for you.  Ingredients are different to nutritional value, I never look at the ingredients just the panel that says protein, fat, etc, that is the bit with the nutritional value (Guaranteed Value) not the ingredients.

Below is the feeding guide converted.

Size of cat                   400g - 2kg                 2kg - 4kg                      4kg - 6kg                        6kg - 8kg

Amount of food            50g - 67g                 67g - 100g                   100g - 133g                   133g - 200g

Hope this helps with feeding the correct amount for them

[Tiggy's Mum]

I'm no expert but looking at the meat content alone it looks pretty good - 55% chicken. Really can't believe the price £15.74 for 11odd kg is bargainous 

I use Pets at Home premium own brand (40% chicken) which is £11 for 2kg, JamesWellbeloved (26% turkey) is £14 for 2kg . This stuff works out to £2.78 per 2kg 

[Lil_Scruff]

Hi Ellen,

Thanks for your response. I've just had another look at the pack and bizarrely it doesn't state what amount the info is in regard to. It's am American company and they're still on 'old' measurements so I don't think it's 100g worth...I've taken a snap of the feeding guide which hopefully may be of help and as you will see weights are stated in ounces and pounds rather than grammes.

It does appear to be very good 'value' - £15.74 for 11.34kg (25 lbs) which makes me wonder how well it scores on the nutrition side.

Also to note it's only available in the one flavour (chicken and rice).

Thanks again,

Sarah

[Ellen2010]

If you could give me more details to as to whether it is per serving or say per 100grammes I could do some calculations for you to see if it is value for money but the moisture contents looks about right although a lot of foods that are dry normally are a little higher with moisture contents.

[Lil_Scruff]

Hi all,

I was recently given a sample pack of CostCo 'Kirkland' complete dry food. Upon inspection the kibbles looked and smelt good quality - they looked very similar in size and shape to the Hills Science kibbles rather than the 'High Street' brand whoppers you see. I buy a lot of (human) food from CostCo and as it is of a good quality I decided to give the sample to my cats. They LOVED it and wolfed in down in record time.

I've since been able to take a couple of snaps of the back of the packet showing the ingredients and nutrition info. If there's anyone on these boards who knows about this sort of thing then I'd be very grateful to hear your views on whether it is good foor or utter cr*p!

Many thanks!

Lil Scruff