Would this be OK?

Like most people here, I am searching alternative ways to feed my cats healthy food while keeping under a budget.

I am up to 2 cans of Soulistic wet food a day with 2 cats.. and they're on 100% grain free diet, between wet and dry (Wellness Kitten for Picasso, and Buffalo Blue Wilderness for Monet). It's over $85 a month, not counting dry food!

Reading on, grain-free vs grain, there's some convincing arguments that cats need some amount of grains.

I am wondering if I could substitute 2 days a week with Friskies (The only other brand Monet would eat or I would find something better).. just to get some grains in and especially to save some money?

I haven't heard of any articles saying cats need grains. Please let me know of the source so I can read more into this.

I don't know of anything saying cats need grains (links?), but if you have to do it to save money I don't think giving them Friskies twice a week will hurt them at all .

Even premium dry food is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cheaper than mediocre wet. If you're on a budget, I would just up the ratio of dry to wet a little bit. I believe that wet food is important, but does not need to be 100% of their diet to ensure proper hydration, as long as you have nice water fountains available.

There was a thread a little while back where I did the calculation of a premium dry vs a friskies wet bulk package, and it was a considerable savings calorie for calorie with the dry. Its just much cheaper to package and distribute a huge bag of dry food compared to dozens of somewhat expensive metal cans that can't be dented and are 80% water weight.

Buttercup and Wesley split one 5.5oz can of food per day. Half the can for breakfast, half for lunch, and then dry for dinner and they have pretty coats and are little balls of energy.

Giving cats some grain will help control the urine pH. If the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s pH is too high or low he or she will most likely end up with UTI. The best way to control pH is the water intake. A lot of cats do not drink enough water. Another way is wet foods. If the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s main diet is wet he or she should be getting enough water. There are members here that their cats ended up with UTI when they went with 100% grain free food.

My catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s health is important to me and I didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t want to take chances. I buy two 6 lb bags, 1 grain free (TOTW) and 1 with some grains (FROMM Gold), and I mix the two together. My cat is not a big fan of wet food and eats less than 3 oz a day.

Draco
Wellness kitten dry food has some grains. Being Monet is between 1 to 2 years old you can mix some Wellness kitten food in his Buffalo Wilderness. This will save you from having to buy a 3rd bag of food. When Picasso gets older you can then buy Wellness Adult and mix that with the Wilderness food.

Originally Posted by Zarra

Giving cats some grain will help control the urine pH. If the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s pH is too high or low he or she will most likely end up with UTI. The best way to control pH is the water intake.

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that's my source, lol. I've heard arguments like this on forums for this reason.

Draco
Wellness kitten dry food has some grains. Being Monet is between 1 to 2 years old you can mix some Wellness kitten food in his Buffalo Wilderness. This will save you from having to buy a 3rd bag of food. When Picasso gets older you can then buy Wellness Adult and mix that with the Wilderness food.

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Monet doesn't eat much dry. He probably eats less than 1/4 cup a day, and its out all day for him, so I am relying mostly on wet food for his diet. Doesn't look like Picasso is much of a dry food eater either. I give her 1/2 a cup, about half is gone by the end of the day.

saaaaabv I don't see a harm in substituting friskies for wet 2 times a week.. just wanted to see what others thought

Originally Posted by Zarra

Giving cats some grain will help control the urine pH. If the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s pH is too high or low he or she will most likely end up with UTI. The best way to control pH is the water intake. A lot of cats do not drink enough water. Another way is wet foods. If the catâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s main diet is wet he or she should be getting enough water. There are members here that their cats ended up with UTI when they went with 100% grain free food.

Click to expand...

Whether grains effectively reduce PH levels in a cat's urine or not, this ONLY applies to (some) kibble products, which are detrimental to the health of cats to begin with and for far more reasons than just potentially unbalanced PH levels. Adding grains to (supposedly) balance those levels is just adding insult to injury - literally! - while ignoring the fundamental issue... which is that kibble is a species-inappropriate food item.

Draco, cats do not need grains, aren't built to digest them, and it stresses their bodies to do so day after day. Under no circumstances would I buy a food specifically to add grains to my cats' diet.

That said, the amount of grains present in canned foods is far less than in kibble and in a less damaging form. If the choice is between kibble (grain-free or not) and a grain-containing wet product or two, I would definitely take the latter choice (adding a grain-containing canned food or two to my cats weekly canned food rotation and decreasing the kibble).

As you can imagine, feeding a half dozen or more cats gets expensive real quick, but there were a couple of time/money savers I found back when I was still feeding commercial products. Using petfooddirect.com to help identify acceptable foods was one, as it includes both the entire ingredients list and the nutrient analysis for every product. You can toss up a separate tab for each of the products you're interested in and easily compare them; you may even find products you weren't originally aware of (I did!).

I also purchased in bulk from smaller pet stores, as the owners often granted discounts for bulk purchases if I asked (I saved 10% on almost every purchase this way). Buying in bulk might also encourage the owners to bring in foods they wouldn't normally carry, so you'll both save money and increase the foods in your rotation.

Best regards! And good luck!

AC