Cheap commercial dry catfood for non diabetic cat

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eccentricfuzzyme

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When I switched Josie to the specialty low carb, high protien food I switched her "brothers" too. But it costs literally 4 times as much as thier old food, and I can no longer afford to keep feeding them it too. But knowing what I know now about food, which commercially available dry food (like at walmart canada) is best for a non diabetic adult cat?
 
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as cheap commercial dry food that is good for even non-diabetic cats.

Please read Dr. Lisa's information:

http://www.catinfo.org/

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth

Does walmart canada sell Special Kitty? I know wet costs more upfront than dry, but the 4 packs of cans here are less than 40 cents a can I think. Weigh the "today" cost against the "tomorrow" costs both to your civvies' health, and future vet care if they eventually suffer the effects of a dry food diet.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, (sorry),
Carl
 
This is probably not what you want to hear, but.....I have 13 cats (only 2 diabetics) and all of them eat canned food, and really when I did the math, it still costs me about the same to keep them all on canned than it does to have the non-diabetics on dry. Now with 13 they don't eat the top of the line canned, I feed either Special Kitty (Wal-marts house brand) or Friskies and I get the 13oz cans. But where I see the savings is in what I'm not spending in litter, and vet bills. Since their bodies uses more of what is in the canned food, there is less out put in the litter boxes, also I have one guy that I have struggled for years with his allergies, until switching everyone's diet to canned, now he is off the allergie meds, no longer going to the vet for antibotics for infections caused by those allergies and is a much happier cat.

Everyone also shed less now that they are on canned food, so there is a savings for me in time as well, because I spend less time cleaning fur off everything. Now they still shed but it is more seasonal now than all the time. So I have less to clean out of litter boxes, less fur all over the house, no more UTIs and don't have to pill one everyday just so he can keep the fur and skin on his face. As well as having one diabetic in remission and the second one working really hard at becoming diet controlled, she hasn't made it there yet but her insulin has gone down from 1.25u BID to a mere .25u bid. And I don't have to worry about my diabetics getting into the dry food.

Now if you do need to switch the non-diabetics to dry food, I would stay away from the cheap stuff and feed a high quality one, which isn't going to be cheap, but it becomes one of those things of weighing the costs upfront for the food to the costs down the road of paying a vet to handle the problems that dry food leads to.

Again, probably not what you wanted to hear (sorry)

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
MommaOfMuse said:
Now if you do need to switch the non-diabetics to dry food, I would stay away from the cheap stuff and feed a high quality one, which isn't going to be cheap, but it becomes one of those things of weighing the costs upfront for the food to the costs down the road of paying a vet to handle the problems that dry food leads to.

They are already on the expensive dry food, that is the problem, they are eating me out of house and home. I cannot afford to buy my own groceries because all my money is going to caring for Josie and feeding the three of them.

I rent a room out and not everyone is as tolerant as wet cat food stench as others. I myself hate it but would consider it if it wasnt that expensive (but i have done the math with what is available here and it is more expensive anyways) but my roomeirs have made it pretty clear they do not want to be around that.
 
i wish i would have known 14 years ago, when i first got my cat, to only feed her wet food. I probably could have avoided the $2000+ in costs to treat and maintain the diabetes, not once but twice, caused by feeding her dry food. (among other problems)

honestly its alot easier to shell out a few extra bucks a month to get wet food now, than it is to have to pay a huge vet bill down the line when they get sick.
 
This is just a suggestion, but if you refrigerate the food before opening it there is hardly any smell at all. That's what I did when a former roommate didn't like the smell. You can get can covers at the pet store for when food is opened in the fridge, and it contains the smell completely, unlike plastic wrap.

If you get a cheaper wet food in the big 13 oz cans, then it actually works out to be a lot less money than feeding any name brand dry food. Friskies and Special Kitty are two good cheaper brands. Is there a PetSmart near you? Their Sophistcat brand comes in 13 oz cans, and they're only 79 cents. An average size cat usually eats around 5.5 oz of food a day (some a bit more, some a bit less), so it works out to be about 6 cents an ounce or about 33 cents a day per cat. A cheap dry food is usually about $13 for an 18lb bag, which works out to be about 4 cents an ounce. However, that 2 cents an ounce you think you're saving will more than get eaten up in litter and food (cats tend to eat more dry food than wet food, and they go to the bathroom more). When you add in the cost of vet bills because of diabetes and Urinary Tract problems, etc., you are saving WAY more money feeding a canned diet. And when you take into account litter and the extra food getting eaten, I think it's arguable that the dry food is costing you less to begin with.
 
I don't want to keep pushing the canned on you, but I did want to mention that once you switch to canned only the litterbox smells are greatly reduced. This could be a very nice added benefit.

Ron and I have several litterboxes around the house and it's very rare that a kitty has a foul smelling present left for us. They can digest the canned so much better, you've probably heard the saying "garbage in, garbage out" in this case it's true.

We switched everyone over to canned in May of 2006.
 
agreed on the litter box comments! when i switched jewel over to wet food, i noticed that the poop was alot less smelly. sometimes i wouldnt even realize she had pooped cos i couldnt smell it AT ALL. she also seems to poop alot less now too.
 
Wet food is really the absolute best.

If you have NO other options look for things labelled grain-free. At least the crappy fillers are reduced in those. The Janet & Binky charts on this site include a dry food chart. Look at the chart and look for the best protein/lowest carb content you can afford.
 
I wanted to second Julia's observation that cold wet food hardly smells. She's right. I don't pre-refrigerate the cans simply because I've gotten used to the smell, but when I use the 13oz cans, half of it gets refrigerated and it hardly smells when I take it out. I also use the reusable can covers which are cheaper and better than saran wrap.

I also only feed twice a day, and both cats share a bowl. They gobble their food up as soon as it is out, so there really isn't much smell at all.

And canned Friskies is definitely cheaper than the grain-free dry food--by a LOT.
 
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