The price of cat food

[Donna Ferentes]

Dry food is just out all the time.

Not at all. We feed Ichy with dry food once in the morning and once in the evening.

And in her case, she doesn't like that arrangement either. Much-Whingeing-From-The-Puss.

 

[Santino]

In most supermarkets you can get a frozen pack of 6 coley steaks for less than £3. Keep in the freezer and poach for a few minutes - <50p a portion.

 

[Epona]

I don't agree with feeding cats an all dry diet, and neither do feline nutritionists (those not sponsored by dry food companies anyway!)

Try www.zooplus.co.uk they have a good range of much better quality wet food than whiskas and felix, and some of it is cheaper. You can buy 18x 370g boxes of Bozita for £11.60, which works out at 17p per meal. Because it's all meat you don't need to feed as much as a food like whiskas which contains loads of cereal products that the cat can't digest properly and which for a feline, has no nutritional value.

 

[pengaleng]

Really?
But the cat likes to be fed twice a day
Dry food is just out all the time.
She wouldn't like it if you stopped regular mealtimes

it usually goes by weight with the siamese, they arent supposed to get fat, my mam has to give hers 2x 30g of dry a day because it's still small, mind you that food works out at around a tenner for a small bag. also if you go by weight you can still have regular feeding times because the cat eats all of it.

 

[Epona]

In most supermarkets you can get a frozen pack of 6 coley steaks for less than £3. Keep in the freezer and poach for a few minutes - <50p a portion.

... which contain no taurine and will cause dietary deficiency the results of which will be blindness and muscle atrophy if fed long term, as well as diets heavy in white fish increase the risk of urinary tract disease and bladder crystals. Cats are not evolved to survive on fish, and proprietary fish flavoured cat foods are either mostly meat with a bit of fish for flavouring, or contain vitamin and mineral supplements to make it a balanced meal.

 

[Looby]

When it was on special in tescos we bought that oh so fishy and meaty stuff.

Because we buy in bulk we had about 6 weeks worth of food and I was really worried about them refusing to eat anything else the fussy buggers.

I'm finding whiskas really expensive now so might grab some tescos sachets and see if they eat it.

Just checked tesco online and whiskas is £2.25 at the moment so I'm going to stock up on friday.

 

[knatchbull]

From my experience of buying food for three cats the cheapest supermarket (or certainly cheapest around teh Camberwell/Kennington/Walworth area) is Asda - they have regular offers on boxes of 24 and 48 Whiskas pouches, other supermarkets dont seem to stock boxes larger than 12 pouches. Also their own brand food is the cheapest around (if your cats will stand it - it seems to be an acquired taste).

Otherwise Sainsburys and Tescos seem to be competitive and their own brand food goes down better than Asda's. Somerfield are in most cases the most expensive (50p or so more per box of 12 pouches) but they do have good buy two for £6 offers - our cats recently enjoyed very refined 'gourmet' food as a result of such an offer!

 

[Santino]

... which contain no taurine and will cause dietary deficiency the results of which will be blindness and muscle atrophy if fed long term, as well as diets heavy in white fish increase the risk of urinary tract disease and bladder crystals. Cats are not evolved to survive on fish, and proprietary fish flavoured cat foods are either mostly meat with a bit of fish for flavouring, or contain vitamin and mineral supplements to make it a balanced meal.

I give the Hogster fish as a treat probably less than once a week. So.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

At the moment Sainsburys have a 2 for a fiver offer on ordinary Felix which Mr. K likes.

He detests Whiskers, will eat Sheba (but he only gets that occasionaly as a treat as it is expensive) but his all time favourite is Friskies - once got him a can of that and I have never seen anything devoured so quickly. Trouble is it is hard to come by.

Oh and we got a free can of Gourmet Souffle the other day (salmon and egg mouse!) which didn't go down too badly. Especially good to eat off the floor it appeared

 

[Looby]

Especially good to eat off the floor it appeared

That really gets on my tits when they do that.
Big Fat Ron used to do it a lot and I think it might be because he's a bit buck-toothed and struggles to get things like tuna out of the dish.

 

[zenie]

Big Fat Ron

Best cat name evah!

 

[Detroit City]

hmm apparently it's not cheap feeding these little critters

 

[zenie]

hmm apparently it's not cheap feeding these little critters

It can be, if you want to feed them on sugary crap, the cat equivalent of eating McDonalds every day

Whiska's peeps you know they put kitty crack in it?

 

[Looby]

Best cat name evah!

It's Ron really but when he's all fluffy he does look big and fat. He also used to get fed by all the neighbours at our old house because he's so cute. Hence the nickname.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

That really gets on my tits when they do that.
Big Fat Ron used to do it a lot and I think it might be because he's a bit buck-toothed and struggles to get things like tuna out of the dish.

Mr. K. just seems to do it because he can. And presumeably it is then fun watching me on my hands and knees on the kitchen floor cleaning up his cat spittle felix mess

Big Fat Ron is a fantastic name for a cat btw

 

[Vintage Paw]

Do your cats kill their food before they eat it?

Charlie of Doom does. He grabs his first biscuit of his meal and shakes it a la drillcat before he eats it.

Can't kill that killer instinct, it seems.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Do your cats kill their food before they eat it?

Charlie of Doom does. He grabs his first biscuit of his meal and shakes it a la drillcat before he eats it.

Can't kill that killer instinct, it seems.

Aw that's so cute!

Mr. K doesn't - I am begining to think that he does not possess very much of a feline killer instinct, in fact he often seems like the Niles Crane of cats - he has a sniff then basically sticks his nose in and gets troughing. Or picks up a huge mouthful lets half of it drop on the floor swallows what is in his cat gob then hoovers up what he's dropped. While making big nom noises!

Or grabs a load of biscuits turns his head to the side and then chews them between his teeth so they sound like walnuts cracking. He seems unable to eat quietly

 

[geminisnake]

Is it OK to feed cats just dry food then?

yes. Ours doesn't eat meat during the summer, which is how the wee bag got onto puches in the first place

She doesn't really seem to get on with the expensive brands. They are too rich for her I think.
She usually gets the opticat stuff from Lidl(trays and sachets), morrisons own sachets(senior) and kitekat fishy sachets. She doesn't eat that many different flavours so it can limit the choice quite a bit.
She also gets quorn, chicken bits, fish bits and adores pork if we are having that. She was feral before we got her and got given scraps sometimes which is why she eats human food.

 

[Orang Utan]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

 

[Firky]

Murphy seems to catch enough leverets and rabbits at the moment to not want fed. He usually gets mince from the butchers, 100% meat is better for them than the shite they put in Whiskas. Mostly serial anyway.

 

[Epona]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

Lean cooked pork is OK in moderation (not bacon or cured/salted/smoked meats though), but the fat is indigestible and can cause problems. Some cat foods contain pork meal but it's usually been separated from any fats.

The main problem with feeding cats bits of this and that is that most meat and fish that we eat is not nutritionally balanced for a cat - they eat the whole prey including bones, organs, and stomach contents, which is not the same nutritionally as getting steak, mince, bits of chicken, and fish that we would cook for them. Commercial cat foods have supplements and calcium added. If you're going to feed homecooked or raw food more than one meal a week you need to know what supplements to add to give the correct nutrition. Not saying that you're going to do that mate, but I do get a bit alarmed about some peoples' attitudes towards feeding their felines

 

[Firky]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

Nope, not sure why.

 

[ChrisFilter]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

Nope - they can't digest it.

I wouldn't feed mine an all dry food diet either, the only people who say it's fine work for the dry food companies... 'go figure' as our American cousins would say.

 

[Orang Utan]

Nope, not sure why.

They're all Muslims

 

[Firky]

21 Answers and no one answered this correctly. Amazing how no one cares enough to actually research these things.

Pork is not used in pet foods because in the list of meats that cats AND dogs can digest, pork is WAY down the list.

At the top is eggs, followed by chicken and other poultry. then you have lamb and fish. then you would have your beef and pork. Any company that nows about pet nutrition would realize that putting pork in the food means that it compromises the pets health because even though the package may as 32% protein, because they can't digest pork, they really only absorb 15% of the protein.

Low grade companies like Purina, Pedigree, Iams, Science Diet, etc would use pork but it would most likely be labelled as 'animal' or 'meat'....meaning the company got it from a rendering plant and has no idea what is actually in the food.

So, just for the record, if you do a bit of digging, you will find that this is the correct reason.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061026113647AAYemOq

 

[Orang Utan]

Lean cooked pork is OK in moderation (not bacon or cured/salted/smoked meats though), but the fat is indigestible and can cause problems. Some cat foods contain pork meal but it's usually been separated from any fats.

The main problem with feeding cats bits of this and that is that most meat and fish that we eat is not nutritionally balanced for a cat - they eat the whole prey including bones, organs, and stomach contents, which is not the same nutritionally as getting steak, mince, bits of chicken, and fish that we would cook for them. Commercial cat foods have supplements and calcium added. If you're going to feed homecooked or raw food more than one meal a week you need to know what supplements to add to give the correct nutrition. Not saying that you're going to do that mate, but I do get a bit alarmed about some peoples' attitudes towards feeding their felines

From now on, I'm going to feed my cat a big tin of tuna in brine and a huge bowl of milk every day

 

[ChrisFilter]

From now on, I'm going to feed my cat a big tin of tuna in brine and a huge bowl of milk every day

Milk will give them the shits, lactose n' all that. You can buy lactose free milk though.

Fussy fuckers.

 

[geminisnake]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

Really?? Coz if we didn't give her some when we have it she'd probably freak.
I think she may have been jewish in a past life and realised what she missed

Oh, just seen Epona's post. It's usually the fat she gets too Tis only once a month or so, and tbh she's about 14 so it's probably not worth stopping now.

 

[Detroit City]

You're not supposed to feed cats pork are you?

you can, unless they are moslem cats

 

[ChrisFilter]

you can, unless they are moslem cats

No, you can't.