Average canned food vs Premium dry food

jazzygemmy

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My adult siamese cross, Hex, has been on Blue Buffalo Wilderness(grain free) for years and has done great on it...beautiful coat, no health issues, etc. I would measure out her food daily (1/2 cup) and sometimes she wouldn't even finish that in 24 hrs. She is a very active, playful girl. 

Recently, we adopted a male orange tabby kitten (11 weeks old). The shelter sent him home with a bag of Science Diet kitten, which we promptly changed to BB Wilderness Kitten(grain free). He loves it and has already started filling out more and his coat is improving gradually. 

We keep Hex's food on top of the dryer and although the kitten cannot yet jump up there to eat her food, Hex is now eating his food as well and has already been showing weight gain. I give them wet food only once a week and they LOVE IT, but currently it's just a treat. I researched ideas online and basically determined that the best way for them to get the preferred amount of food daily is to switch to wet food, which I understand CAN be healthier for them anyhow. They eat up wet food so quickly, that I know I can feed them a couple times a day and supervise them until they finish. With dry food, they only graze and although they like it, they don't gobble it up like the wet food, so it would be difficult for me to do a ton of feedings every day with each feeding only consisting of a few bites (I have an 11 week old son and am busy enough as it is). 

So, although i'm all for switching to wet food, with my husband being the only one working, we just CANNOT afford a grain free wet food for them. We are currently spending approx. $20 a month for both cats to eat grain free dry food and I calculated that even the least expensive grain free wet food would run us at LEAST double that...if not around $60 per month! I just can't justify that when my baby boy already goes through $200 of prescription formula per month(health issues). 

I have read articles claiming that even "average" wet food that may contain grains is STILL better than premium grain free dry food. Is that true? Basically, the articles I read said this because cats on a dry food diet don't get enough hydration but both cats go through a cereal sized bowl of water every 24 hours...which seems like plenty of water to me. The only wet food that would cost us about the same as the BB would be friskies or comparable. I have a hard time believing that friskies or 9 lives would be nutritionally equal to dry grain free foods. After all my research, it seems you can save money on wet foods if you can find 13 oz cans. Felidae, which I found to be the least expensive grain free canned food would still average $1 per day for each cat.

Basically, what I am asking is for recommendations. Should I really be concerned with feeding a grain free canned food? Are there really any good quality canned foods that would cost less than $1 per day/per cat? Should I just let my cat get chunky? The two cats are finally starting to play more and she is getting more exercise the last week or so, so should I just wait and see if the weight comes back off? I would guess she has gained about 2 lbs in the last month or so!  

Thanks for reading! 
 

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The age-old argument...

I know people that have cats over 20 years old that feed nothing but Purina Cat Chow. The rationale for a wet food diet certainly makes plenty of sense in that cats 'in the wild' consume mostly protein and fat with little carbohydrates. Here is a website created by a Vet that advocates a wet-only diet. She has some very useful charts and information about many commercial foods both canned and raw. According to her, the key is high protein (~50%), fat (~40%) and low carbs (<10%). Lots of 'premium' foods add carbs as filler because it is cheaper than protein. She claims Blue Buffalo is one of them. Somewhere on her site she says a wet-only diet of 'junk' such as Friskies is probably better than a dry-only diet. 

http://www.catinfo.org/

I feed my girls Wellness Complete Health Turkey wet food and is available in 12 oz cans. It is grain-free and many say is one of the best available. A little web searching can find it for around $2 per can. This should last 2-3 days for two cats depending on their size. If you are so inclined, you can probably make your own cat food. Not for me though.
 
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ldg

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Do you have room to stock up on cans when there are sales? Because Fancy Feast "classic" style canned foods are grain free (even though they're not marketed as such), and Friskies pate style foods though some have rice, both have most of their protein coming from animal sources. :) The Friskies comes in large cans too (though the supermarket doesn't usually carry the large cans, some pet stores may - or perhaps you can order enough to get free shipping from wag.com or petfooddirect.com? :dk: ). They both have great profiles from a protein/fat/carbs perspective (on a dry matter basis, both are high protein, medium fat, and low carb). :nod:
 
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jazzygemmy

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A 12 oz. can of the wellness should last 2-3 days for both cats? From what I have read, at least for adult cats, a cat around 8 lbs needs about 6 oz. per day. Hex would probably need a little more than that and the kitten would need even more than that, right? Because I was thinking a 12-13 oz can would only last both cats 1 day with me having to possibly open another can the same day for the kitten. Do you know if the wellness is for all life stages? I haven't watched the video yet, but I am wondering if when the vet was referring to the BB, if she might be referring to the versions that contain grains and lower protein and fat content...however even the wilderness is only 40% protein and 18% fat, so that would still not meet her recommendations. I will go watch that video now :-) Thanks for replying!!
 
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jazzygemmy

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Thanks LDG for replying! I have heard about the classic fancy feast being grain free from a friend and understand that friskies can't be all that bad, but in all honesty, I just have a REALLY hard time bringing myself to feed my kitties "grocery store" foods. When I adopted Hex, the shelter was feeding her Friskies and she looked terrible (she was at the shelter for a year and a half before I adopted her!) Her hair was static-y, greasy, course and she shed like crazy. Now, anytime people pet her the first thing that comes out of her mouth is "WOW! she has the silkiest, softest coat I have ever felt" and that is coming from other cat owners. Maybe we can try to budget in Wellness canned for a month and see where we are at financially...
 

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Do you think the shelter was feeding dry Friskies or canned? Most shelters feed dry. Dry Friskies is really crummy. Canned Friskies isn't too bad at all. So there is a big difference.

Most adult cats eat about 6 ounces a day of canned food if that's their sole diet, so a 12-ounce can would be a day's worth for 2 cats. Still fairly expensive. Since cost is such a problem right now, and canned food is undoubtedly more expensive, I'd probably suggest doing 50/50 wet/dry.

If you use a canned food that's about $2 for a 12- or 13-ounce can (EVO, Felidae, Wellness, etc.), and feed half of that per day, it would be about $30 a month for the canned food and about $10 a month for the dry. That would still double your costs :/, but maybe isn't too prohibitive. If you went with a cheaper canned food like Friskies (which is what I feed my kitties so I obviously don't think it's too bad :tongue2:) that runs about $1 for a 13-ounce can, that would be about $15 a month for the canned food and $10 for the dry. . .not much of an increase there :).

Hang in there! Your son won't need the expensive formula for too much longer (a year? I guess I don't know how long babies need formula :lol3:) and then maybe the budget will loosen up a bit. That stuff is pricey!
 
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txcatmom

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From what I have read, at least for adult cats, a cat around 8 lbs needs about 6 oz. per day
In my experience, food can label serving suggestions are a bit high.  I have 3 energetic (but not crazy high energy), young cats (14 lbs, 12 lbs and 10 lbs) who could share one 12.5 oz can of Wellness each day.  In fact they eat Wellness from 12.5 oz cans for their dinner each night (unless we are rotating in other brands) and the can lasts for two nights.  So, basically I get 6 meals out of the 12.5 oz cans.  And they are a super great value ordered online.  Doggiefood.com is the best price I've found for now.  But we used to use Petfooddirect and they were good too.

The Wellness isn't formulated for kittens, they have a separate formula for that.  Mine were older, teenage kittens when we adopted them and we just fed them larger amounts of the adult food.

I should add....my cats also get a small midday snack and filling raw food for breakfast, so that might be why they only need the 2 oz of Wellness for dinner.
 
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ldg

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Yeah, your kitten is going to eat a lot. In canned food, I'd guess about 8 ounces or so a day? Not sure. Basically, for the next few months he should eat as much as he wants. But most adult cats eat about one 5.5 ounce can a day. I feed my cats home made raw food (I switched partly because I was feeding premium canned, and this saves me a LOT of money - AND it increases the quality of what they're eating a lot). My 7 pound cat eats 3 ounces a day; my 8 pound cat only needs 2.7 ounces a day, the rest of the cats (weighing from 11 pounds to 13.5 pounds) eat about 4.2 ounces a day. (Though cats need to eat less when eating raw because they derive more nutrition from it). But yeah - those feeding recommendations for adult cats are usually too high. :nod:
 

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Hi and Welcome to TCS!   


My Kitties did great on BB Wilderness for years as well, and I understand how you feel about sacrificing quality

if you switch to an affordable wet food. I still give BBW to them as a snack, but I usually add warm water and let it sit for a few minutes first.

(I only give a small amount, as some people are concerned that wet kibble will develop bacteria if allowed to sit.)

As far as cans, I agree with Willowy on the Friskies Classic Pate - particularly Poultry Platter -

it has Chicken as the first ingredient. Also, I intend to do a thread on this, but I recently noticed that

Petsmart has their own version of Poultry Platter which seems nearly identical to Friskies,

except it does not have rice, and carrageenan is much farther down on the list of ingredients.

It is only about 40 cents per 6 oz can, so I have been feeding that to my Ferals,

and occasionally mix it in with EVO or By Nature 95% for the indoor Kitties.

At any rate, I think nearly all of us will agree that adding wet food can only help.

Why not try to give them one wet meal per day and decrease the Blue Wilderness a little?

That way they get more wet food without all of the expense and time of a 100% wet diet.

BTW - most cans will recommend larger serving sizes than the Kitties need -

I have found that feeding the recommended amounts will lead to weight gain,

and often vomiting, so I go with much smaller portions.

I have posted about Innova Cat & Kitten, EVO and By Nature 95% at PetFoodDirect

so many times that I should have it memorized, but I just don't feel like typing it all out again,

so I will find it and copy it and add it to this thread for you.   
 
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jazzygemmy

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Do you think the shelter was feeding dry Friskies or canned? Most shelters feed dry. Dry Friskies is really crummy. Canned Friskies isn't too bad at all. So there is a big difference.
Most adult cats eat about 6 ounces a day of canned food if that's their sole diet, so a 12-ounce can would be a day's worth for 2 cats. Still fairly expensive. Since cost is such a problem right now, and canned food is undoubtedly more expensive, I'd probably suggest doing 50/50 wet/dry.
If you use a canned food that's about $2 for a 12- or 13-ounce can (EVO, Felidae, Wellness, etc.), and feed half of that per day, it would be about $30 a month for the canned food and about $10 a month for the dry. That would still double your costs :/, but maybe isn't too prohibitive. If you went with a cheaper canned food like Friskies (which is what I feed my kitties so I obviously don't think it's too bad
) that runs about $1 for a 13-ounce can, that would be about $15 a month for the canned food and $10 for the dry. . .not much of an increase there
.
Hang in there! Your son won't need the expensive formula for too much longer (a year? I guess I don't know how long babies need formula
) and then maybe the budget will loosen up a bit. That stuff is pricey!
The shelter did half and half of dry and wet food from what I was told. From what I can remember, they fed Science Diet dry and Friskies canned. See, feeding half and half of both grain free dry and canned would be in our budget, but them I'm still stuck with possibly having the issue of Hex eating his leftover dry food and continuing to gain weight :/ Yeah, my son will only be on formula until he is a year old and we are actually *hoping* to have him on mainly solids by 9 months, so at that time, i'm sure we are going to have the extra cash we need to feed them all wet or at least all grain free wet food. But, that's also about the time we were planning on purchasing a house...so who knows. lol. I feel guilty when we are not able to afford the BEST food for our kitties, but I have to remember that they are much happier and healthier than they would be at the shelter or the majority of other cat owners that feel Atta Cat is a perfectly reasonable diet (all my friends feed their cats REALLY shitty food, and the sad part is they all have multiple cats and are always taking in more! If they only had 1-2 cats, they would be able to afford a better diet for them...ok, getting off my soapbox now) lol. Do you guys have any other recommendations for wet foods that are more affordable than grain free but still considered great quality. Like middle of the road of wellness and friskies? 
 
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jazzygemmy

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In my experience, food can label serving suggestions are a bit high.  I have 3 energetic (but not crazy high energy), young cats (14 lbs, 12 lbs and 10 lbs) who could share one 12.5 oz can of Wellness each day.  In fact they eat Wellness from 12.5 oz cans for their dinner each night (unless we are rotating in other brands) and the can lasts for two nights.  So, basically I get 6 meals out of the 12.5 oz cans.  And they are a super great value ordered online.  Doggiefood.com is the best price I've found for now.  But we used to use Petfooddirect and they were good too.

The Wellness isn't formulated for kittens, they have a separate formula for that.  Mine were older, teenage kittens when we adopted them and we just fed them larger amounts of the adult food.

I should add....my cats also get a small midday snack and filling raw food for breakfast, so that might be why they only need the 2 oz of Wellness for dinner.
I guess that makes sense, b/c when I measured out my cats food every day, it said to feed her 3/4 cup based on her weight and she would rarely go through 1/2 cup per day. I guess that's why I am confused...because even if I had free fed her every day, she still would probably eat less than 1/2 cup a day, right? The kitten food she gets into only has a slightly higher fat content, like 2%, than her adult food. Can that 2% really make her gain weight this quickly? 
 

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OK, about PetFoodDirect...

I got tired of looking for the right post, so here it is again.

For affordable Grain Free cans,

I would consider By Nature 95% (Turkey and Liver and/or Chicken and Liver)

These are around $11. per case of 12 six oz cans on AutoShip.

EVO 95% Chicken and Turkey is around $18 per case of 12 (13.5 oz?) cans.

- they are both grain free, and as the name implies, they are both 95% meat.

If you want to consider a good canned food that is not GF,

Innova Cat & Kitten is around $16. per case of 12 (13.5 oz?) cans.

If you select "Auto Ship" (which can be delayed, changed or cancelled at any time)

that enables you to maximize your savings at PFD with typically

an extra 15 or 20% discount. I would also experiment with the number of cases

in your cart - I always adjust until my discount is larger than the shipping charge. 


Even with shipping, the prices are still usually far less than you would pay at any pet store,

except for Blue Buffalo Dry bags - for whatever reason, they are very expensive at PFD.
 

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I think Wellness and Felidae ARE the middle-of-the-road foods. . .the really good stuff is Nature's Variety and Weruva and those kinds of foods. . .at any rate, there really aren't any brands that are in between Friskies and Evo/Felidae/etc. in price (when buying the large cans anyway---that really brings down the per-ounce cost) except maybe Trader Joe's canned food (69 cents for 5.5 ounces).

the sad part is they all have multiple cats and are always taking in more! If they only had 1-2 cats, they would be to afford a better diet for them...ok, getting off my soapbox now
Yeah, but then the kitties would be homeless or dead, and eating cheap food is at least better than that :D. If that's all someone can do I'm OK with it, I just prefer that they at least know that it's crummy food and do better whenever they can instead of thinking that Kit and Kaboodle is super great and sticking with it even when they CAN do better.
 
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Willowy

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Other options for online shopping are www.doggiefood.com, www.petflow.com, www.chewy.com, and, ooh, I'll probably think of a few more later. I always run my order through a few different sites to see who can give me the best price (including discounts and shipping). For my current order, doggiefood is the winner. . .I order from them once a month. If you make an account they e-mail discount codes all the time (so does PFD).
 
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gooned

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A 12 oz. can of the wellness should last 2-3 days for both cats? From what I have read, at least for adult cats, a cat around 8 lbs needs about 6 oz. per day.
The average cat needs about 150 - 250 calories/day. A 12.5 oz can of wellness is about 500 calories. In my case, I'm trying to get my cats to a mostly wet food diet. However, since they are dry food junkies, I still leave down a high quality (Wellness) kibble for them to graze on. I have three and split a 12.5 oz can every day into three meals. The dry kibble goes down very slowly.
 
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jazzygemmy

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OK, about PetFoodDirect...

I got tired of looking for the right post, so here it is again.

For affordable Grain Free cans,

I would consider By Nature 95% (Turkey and Liver and/or Chicken and Liver)

These are around $11. per case of 12 six oz cans on AutoShip.

EVO 95% Chicken and Turkey is around $18 per case of 12 (13.5 oz?) cans.

- they are both grain free, and as the name implies, they are both 95% meat.

If you want to consider a good canned food that is not GF,

Innova Cat & Kitten is around $16. per case of 12 (13.5 oz?) cans.

If you select "Auto Ship" (which can be delayed, changed or cancelled at any time)

that enables you to maximize your savings at PFD with typically

an extra 15 or 20% discount. I would also experiment with the number of cases

in your cart - I always adjust until my discount is larger than the shipping charge. 


Even with shipping, the prices are still usually far less than you would pay at any pet store,

except for Blue Buffalo Dry bags - for whatever reason, they are very expensive at PFD.
So, it looks like evo would be the most affordable. Between the two cats, it would cost me approx. $50 per month. I guess that's not too bad for grain free. It would be only about $1.33-$1.50 per day for both cats. So, in the end, it's about the same cost as feeding .60 cans of friskies to each one every day. Thanks for the info!
 

gooned

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The Wellness isn't formulated for kittens, they have a separate formula for that.  Mine were older, teenage kittens when we adopted them and we just fed them larger amounts of the adult food.
Dr. Pierson (www.catinfo.org) has a cute answer for this..

'Note that kittens do not need "kitten" food.  They just need plenty of canned, species-appropriate (low carb/meat-based) adult food.  Keep in mind that there are no mice running around in the wild with "kitten" or "adult" stamped on them.  Kittens eat just what their parents eat - just more of it on a per-pound-of-kitten basis'
 

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My adult siamese cross, Hex, has been on Blue Buffalo Wilderness(grain free) for years and has done great on it...beautiful coat, no health issues, etc. I would measure out her food daily (1/2 cup) and sometimes she wouldn't even finish that in 24 hrs. She is a very active, playful girl. 

Recently, we adopted a male orange tabby kitten (11 weeks old). The shelter sent him home with a bag of Science Diet kitten, which we promptly changed to BB Wilderness Kitten(grain free). He loves it and has already started filling out more and his coat is improving gradually. 

We keep Hex's food on top of the dryer and although the kitten cannot yet jump up there to eat her food, Hex is now eating his food as well and has already been showing weight gain. I give them wet food only once a week and they LOVE IT, but currently it's just a treat. I researched ideas online and basically determined that the best way for them to get the preferred amount of food daily is to switch to wet food, which I understand CAN be healthier for them anyhow. They eat up wet food so quickly, that I know I can feed them a couple times a day and supervise them until they finish. With dry food, they only graze and although they like it, they don't gobble it up like the wet food, so it would be difficult for me to do a ton of feedings every day with each feeding only consisting of a few bites (I have an 11 week old son and am busy enough as it is). 

So, although i'm all for switching to wet food, with my husband being the only one working, we just CANNOT afford a grain free wet food for them. We are currently spending approx. $20 a month for both cats to eat grain free dry food and I calculated that even the least expensive grain free wet food would run us at LEAST double that...if not around $60 per month! I just can't justify that when my baby boy already goes through $200 of prescription formula per month(health issues). 

I have read articles claiming that even "average" wet food that may contain grains is STILL better than premium grain free dry food. Is that true? Basically, the articles I read said this because cats on a dry food diet don't get enough hydration but both cats go through a cereal sized bowl of water every 24 hours...which seems like plenty of water to me. The only wet food that would cost us about the same as the BB would be friskies or comparable. I have a hard time believing that friskies or 9 lives would be nutritionally equal to dry grain free foods. After all my research, it seems you can save money on wet foods if you can find 13 oz cans. Felidae, which I found to be the least expensive grain free canned food would still average $1 per day for each cat.

Basically, what I am asking is for recommendations. Should I really be concerned with feeding a grain free canned food? Are there really any good quality canned foods that would cost less than $1 per day/per cat? Should I just let my cat get chunky? The two cats are finally starting to play more and she is getting more exercise the last week or so, so should I just wait and see if the weight comes back off? I would guess she has gained about 2 lbs in the last month or so!  

Thanks for reading! 
The dry vs. kibble debate!  You'll get a lot of suggestions here pro and con on both sides of the argument.  I will tell you what I do personally, which has been been very successful for me and my cats.  First off, you'll probably get the obligate carnivore info from someone else if you haven't already so I'll skip that.  Waltham Center for Pet Nutrition (owned by Mars now but still considered one of the leading pet nutrition authorities in the world) suggests a diet of 80% wet to 20% kibble.  I feed a 90% wet to 10% dry.  My cats kibble in Nutro Max Cat Indoor Roasted Chicken.  It's the only kibble they will eat.  I've tried others to no avail.  Their wet diet is mainly Nutro Max Cat and Nutro Natural Choice.  I buy other premium brands of wet for them to give them different textures and flavors. 

There is some debate on grain free.  I'm not convinced grain free is the be all and end all of wet foods but that's my opinion.  If I *had* to make a choice, I would hands down choose a wet diet.  Kibble tends to be calorie and carb dense.  If the cat is on an all kibble diet, water intake has to be monitored to make sure the cat is hydrating itself.  An all kibble diet *may* cause obesity leading to diabetes etc.  An all kibble diet *may* lead to UTIs if the cat is not drinking enough water.  There are other health issues to consider as well.  On an all wet diet the cat is getting it's moisture from the food.  Cats are not wired to go to the water bowl to drink like a dog does so one has to make sure the cat is staying hydrated an a wet diet is the best way to accomplish this.

You can check out the Nutro lines at http://www.nutro.com/natural-pet-food/natural-cat-food.aspx.  Nutro Max Cat is the more economical of the two lines.  Good luck in your quest!
 
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