Wet food, cost vs quality

[KKL]

Ok, I am at a crossroads. Between wet food (now for all 3 cats), test strips, insulin, needles, vet costs I am running a pretty high tab right now. I have been feeding Wellness Turkey in 12.5oz can at $3.00/can, I require 1.5 cans a day, so about $4.50 a day...and $137 a month just in wet food....that is $1,644/year for JUST their wet food!

So, some have recommended the Friskies Classic Pate Cat Food, Poultry Platter that comes in a 13oz can, which seems to run about $1 per can. Which would bring my cost down by about $1097 a year (at least food wise).

My question is this...I know there are die hard food beliefs as to good, medium, fair and poor quality dry and wet foods. How far down the chain is the Friskies vs Wellness. Is it really a quality of food that I am paying for, and/or brand name?? Is it really going to negatively impact the health of my 18y/o, 13 y/o and 14 y/o cats if I were to make the switch?

I guess growing up we fed both 9 lives and meow mix (cringe) to our cats, but they lived to be 20 years old without any health problems. Now, granted it's been dry food, but I had always fed mine very good food and yet we have had a plethora of health issues.

Thoughts??

 

[dsmithkma]

Have you considered making your own cat food? Dr. Lisa Pierson has a recipe on her website that I've been using and it's been great for our 4 cats. I make up about 2-3 weeks at a time and freeze it. Then I defrost it as needed. My guys get approx. 2 oz 2X day.

Depending on if I buy the chicken thighs on sale, which I can get for $.89 per pound (or $.06 per oz), plus approx. $.02 per oz for the "supplement slurry" you add to the meat, it breaks down to about $1.28 per pound of food and with 4 cats that works out to about $38 per month.

It is a bit time consuming at first, compiling all the necessary supplements and getting your own tecnique down, but for us it is so worth it. You know exactly what's in their food and the cost savings is really nice.

 

[hmjohnston]

I believe to feed the best food you can afford. Considering that you have 3 you can mix and match it if you feel guilty. Two cans of friskies to one can of wellness? I freeze mine alot in ice cube trays so you could do that and give two cubes friskies to one cube wellness per cat.

And I don't think feeding them all the same kind would impact their health, either, unless one had special needs- like low phosphorous b/c of a disease. It is more like feeding hamburger verses angus beef. Sure, we would all like a steak but having a hamburger isn't going to hurt us.

 

[Mike and Chinkers]

Fancy Feast Classic at about .70 a can works well also. Sometimes you can catch petsmart and walMart competing and get .59 a can. It is low in carbs--