Hi,
We feed our house cat Wellness, but at over $3/can (including sales tax), that is not working for our 5 newly acquired barn kitties.
I know that Friskies and 9 Lives are terrible wet foods which is why they are under $1/can.
What is a better quality wet food that is not too pricey?
Thanks!
Joyce
You might try Fancy Feast “Classic” line (as opposed to the other lines of they offer, no gravy). Its not that expensive and not too bad for them. We feed Earthborn holistics, which is about $1 a can, not cheap (but they love it!)
Raw. I made the leap from canned to raw as a cost savings measure. Instead of splitting a large (1.80) can of Evo between two cats, they each get 4 oz of home prepped raw. This costs me about 0.60-0.75 per day for the two cats depending on the price per pound of whole chicken.
Fancy Feast Classic is most likely the cheapest grain-free
Great Choice (Petsmart brand) Poultry Platter. It’s grain-free and has turkey meat as the first ingredient. It’s as good as the Fancy Feast and cheaper at 40 cents for 5.5-oz. can. The other flavors don’t have muscle meat as the first ingredient, but the Poultry Platter does.
The raw sounds interesting and we will look into it.
Thank you for the recommendations for canned food.
We’ll get some of both the Fancy Feast Classic and GC Poultry Platter.
I knew the good folks at Coth would be able to help us feed these orphan barn kits.
Joyce
Are the fish flavored wet cat foods such as Tuna, Salmon, Whitefish etc. good or bad?
Here is an example of the Grreat Choice Salmon & Ocean Whitefish:
Ingredients: fish broth, salmon, chicken, turkey, ocean whitefish, animal liver, wheat gluten, fish, corn starch, meat by-products, natural flavor, tricalcium phosphate, salt, added color, guar gum, potassium chloride, sodium phosphate, DL-methionine, vitamin E supplement, vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, thiamine mononitrate, niacin, d-calcium pantothenate, pyridoxine hydrochloride, riboflavin supplement, folic acid, biotin, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, copper proteinate, manganous sulfate, potassium iodide, sodium selenite, choline chloride, carrageenan and taurine
Thanks!
Joyce
What I have found is the cheapest tinned cat food is what the cat(s) will eat. A 3.00 tin they won’t eat is no better or worse than s 99 cent tin they won’t eat. Pay attention to the meat content to grain content and what the cat likes - pure meat is absolutely no good if the cat doesn’t like it. I feed ‘bad’ cat food, Friskies, because the shreds and gravy were all Louie could eat and now he is on senior and that is the only senior he likes; he cannot eat pate style unless I mush it with enough water that he can drink it, and that is poison…just ask him but the rest love that.
The list you put from a label looks pretty good, and I am guessing it has sauce/gravy. Be careful with tuna, once a week only (I have tuna haters here) because of mercury content, but most other fish, both ocean and freshwater, are not so bad. I also look for organ meats as part of the ingredients as those are benificial to cats and they love that stuff. I sometimes buy chicken hearts and chop and sautee them for the cats…kitteh heaven, although I like them too…
Lucky kitties. Our barn cats eat their own type of raw food (ie mice!).
Thanks for the information. I will know more when reading the labels.
[quote=SquishTheBunny;6493377]Lucky kitties. Our barn cats eat their own type of raw food (ie mice!).
[/quote]
Ooops, I meant ex barn kitties.
We brought them all five of them home from the boarding barn at 10 days old when their mom disappeared and we bottle fed them.
They are now snuggly house kitties that love to sleep on the king size comforter on our bed with us.
We already have a cat so now we are officially crazy cat folks.
[QUOTE=Macimage;6487491]
Hi,
We feed our house cat Wellness, but at over $3/can (including sales tax), that is not working for our 5 newly acquired barn kitties.
I know that Friskies and 9 Lives are terrible wet foods which is why they are under $1/can.
What is a better quality wet food that is not too pricey?
Thanks!
Joyce[/QUOTE]
I pay $1.25-$1.50 a can for Wellness… weird. My cats each get two cans a day. They are 2 years old, healthy weights, and I use the small cans. I tried feeding them the large cans but they won’t finish it and it’s wasted food.
Anyway I mix up my cats foods a lot and switch brands. A local pet food shop offers a deal of 12 mix and match same size cans of any brand (they only carry high quality ones) at a discount flat price.
Honestly I wouldn’t let my cats touch friskies even if they were starving. I’d sooner give them my own food right off of my plate (granted I eat pretty health and lots of fish and chicken). In fact I’ve done that when running out of cat food.
Raw is definitely an option but it takes time and knowledge to get it right.
We are paying $2.89 (plus tax) for the large cans of Wellness.
We don’t feed Friskies or 9 Lives either but we are looking for a good alternative to Wellness which we are received on this thread.
Thanks everyone!
“Best cheap wet cat food?”
Why is your cat wet? In my experience, most cats do not particularly care to be wet.
(giggle)
Silly Bean!
:lol:
My cats - the ones who do eat canned - like friskies, shredded and such, no pate, whatsoever.
The cheese kind works well, tuna flavored…in lieu of the real tuna.
3 bucks a can for cat food? I don’t eat that well! :eek:
But seriously, it’s a cat. They refuse to read the book on what is good for them. One of mine will not touch canned food. Not even canned tuna or chicken breast, meant for human consumption! (now that chicken biscuit from Mickey D’s…you better share!) as long as they eat it, you are golden!
The princess only eats dry cat food, so I upgraded her from the glorified pollenta to stuff that has animal parts as first ingredient… vet had nothing to say about her weight so far…
But seriously, barn cats can supplement their diet, I would not be too worried.
I second (or third) Fancy Feast “Classic” (pate) varieties. Avoid any that have wheat gluten. With Fancy Feast, and most other brands, the varieties containing “gravy” have wheat gluten. Something else to consider is that vegetables, grain and potatoes in cat food are nothing more than cheap filler. Cats do not need any of those. A lot of the pricey “premium” canned cat foods tout veges as something good, which is nothing more than a marketing ploy.
My cat gets mostly Fancy Feast Classic, with occasional cans of Purina One “pate” varieties (beef, chicken, or turkey), Wellness (only the grain-free varieties) and Before Grain to keep him from getting tired of strictly Fancy Feast.
Be careful with feeding fish-based canned foods - it is recommended that these only be fed a couple times/week.
For a lot of great info about canned food and what to consider:
http://www.catinfo.org/?link=cannedfoods
I buy the big 13.2 oz EVO food for my cat who only eats wet. He is a huge 20 pound cat and could eat a whole can a day. He is eating their regular food with the purple label, grain free and low in carbs. He is not as big of a fan of the 95% meat ones (I happen to have a case of cans of the turkey and chicken 95% that he decided he didn’t want to eat). My cat has to have grain free (skin allergies) and is picky (doesn’t like shredded) and anything with beef flavor makes him sick, and for whatever reason the Before Grains brand was making him sick even with the chicken and turkey flavors. I pay 2.09 or the large can, some days he eats the whole can and others it last through part of the next day, but again he is HUGE. They are lasting longer right now as he is not being very enthusiastic about it. Silly picky kitty!
They get Friskies. It’s cheap but not TOO cheap, they love it and with a bunch of late teenagers it is obviously not damaging to their health!
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