Cheap FF alternatives?

With my cat Sparrow on a LID for IBD and a new suspected chicken allergy, I have more limited funds than I used to for Klio and Daisy's food. I do feed them some higher quality stuff on occasion (TikiCat and Wellness Core, mostly) and they do share Sparrow's food sometimes, but I rotate in the cheaper brands to help cut down on costs.

I've been using Soulistic and Fancy Feast. I went with Sheba for a while, but it doesn't agree with Daisy's stomach and Klio isn't impressed with it. Daisy loves the Soulistic, and they both love the Fancy Feast, so it has been working out.

But I saw on a few different sites over the past couple of weeks (including here) that a lot of people have been reporting cats get sick off of Fancy Feast suddenly. I haven't had any problems yet, but I don't want to risk it, so I'm going to stop feeding them that for now.

Daisy can stick to the Soulistic, but Klio is not a big fan of shredded foods. I have some leftover Sheba pate and the Wellness Core, but not a lot, and I just can't afford to be buying her only Wellness, or buying cases of Sheba for her to just nibble it and have to throw most of the can away. She can share the venison LID, but at $1.60 a can it's not much cheaper than the Wellness, so if I can get her something else, that would be good.

My question: Do you guys have any good experiences with other "grocery store" brands? My local grocery store carries Friskies, Paws Premium, Fussie Cat, Meow Mix and Iams in addition to FF, the Rite Aid has all those plus Sheba and 9 Lives, all in the FF price range. If these were your choices, which would you recommend? Or is there another cheap brand that's good enough to warrant ordering from Amazon or Petco?

Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf (non-fish flavors) are not bad. It's cheaper than Wellness, but more expensive than FF (at least in my area). They only come in 3 oz. cans, however. I'd be nervous about feeding "cheaper" brands to an IBD kitty because of all the additives and artificial colors and what not, but I understand that you can only do what you can do.

GoHolistic said:

 
Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf (non-fish flavors) are not bad. It's cheaper than Wellness, but more expensive than FF (at least in my area). They only come in 3 oz. cans, however. I'd be nervous about feeding "cheaper" brands to an IBD kitty because of all the additives and artificial colors and what not, but I understand that you can only do what you can do.

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Our cats (and their sensitive stomachs!) love Nutro Natural Choice. They're low-carb and some of the non-fish flavors don't have carrageenan: minced chicken, sliced turkey, chunky loaf chicken, soft loaf chicken, and chunky loaf turkey. (The soft loaf chicken and chunky loaf turkey are higher in phosphorous so I don't feed those.) Where I live, they cost $1 per can at Petco, after the Pals card discount.

Good luck!

When I fed FF classics, my Grey (RIP) preferred the Winn Dixie brand.  Sometimes she'd settle for Harris Teeter brand.  But she definitely preferred the Winn Dixie brand over the FF name brand.

GoHolistic said:

 
Nutro Natural Choice Soft Loaf (non-fish flavors) are not bad. It's cheaper than Wellness, but more expensive than FF (at least in my area). They only come in 3 oz. cans, however. I'd be nervous about feeding "cheaper" brands to an IBD kitty because of all the additives and artificial colors and what not, but I understand that you can only do what you can do.

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Oh, sorry for the confusion! The IBD cat only gets the venison LID. But because of that, I can't afford to spoil the other two all the time, only a couple times a week, so I need a cheaper food just for them. Poor Sparrow gets no variety in her diet, at least until the allergy is figured out.

Thank you all for the suggestions. <3 I will check out the Nutro. There aren't any Winn Dixies around here, but thank you for the suggestion.

PeppermintPlant said:

 
Oh, sorry for the confusion! The IBD cat only gets the venison LID. But because of that, I can't afford to spoil the other two all the time, only a couple times a week, so I need a cheaper food just for them. Poor Sparrow gets no variety in her diet, at least until the allergy is figured out.

Thank you all for the suggestions. <3 I will check out the Nutro. There aren't any Winn Dixies around here, but thank you for the suggestion.

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My bad! I read through your original post too fast. 

Actually, I do the same thing with my three - one gets better food because of his issues while the other two get cheaper stuff sometimes. Boo and Caesar also like the Purina Pro Plan Classic wet food (also only comes in 3 oz. cans). Most of them contain "fish" (non-specific), except for:

Purina Pro Plan Finesse Chicken & Liver Entree (Classic) - this is actually probably their favorite, even over FF

Purina Pro Plan Focus Chicken & Beef Entree (Classic) - this one at least specifies "salmon"

You can click on the links above to see the ingredients.

Originally Posted by GoHolistic  

Actually, I do the same thing with my three - one gets better food because of his issues while the other two get cheaper stuff sometimes. Boo and Caesar also like the Purina Pro Plan Classic wet food (also only comes in 3 oz. cans). Most of them contain "fish" (non-specific), except for:

Purina Pro Plan Finesse Chicken & Liver Entree (Classic) - this is actually probably their favorite, even over FF

Purina Pro Plan Focus Chicken & Beef Entree (Classic) - this one at least specifies "salmon"

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I will keep those in mind! I think I'll give the Nutro a try first, though, because if FF is having an issue, I believe they're a Purina brand? I know if there is a problem with the food, it's probably just with one or two batches of FF, I just don't want to deal with any stomach troubles beyond what I already have to deal with, lol. But I will definitely keep this one on the back burner just in case. Thanks!

Friskies classic pate is good enough, large cans are available. Consider homemade food (catinfo.org), it may be healthier and way cheaper, if you can get grinder and no-auto-traw freezer.

Food for thought - with an IBD kitty, why not put everyone on raw?

You mention Fussie Cat. I'm surprised your grocery store carries it, but it is a good brand. Just to make sure, I'm talking about this:

http://www.fussiecat.com/

What about buying the large cans of Wellness? You can freeze cat food if it can't be all be used in a couple days.

Raintyger said:

 
Food for thought - with an IBD kitty, why not put everyone on raw?

You mention Fussie Cat. I'm surprised your grocery store carries it, but it is a good brand. Just to make sure, I'm talking about this:

http://www.fussiecat.com/

What about buying the large cans of Wellness? You can freeze cat food if it can't be all be used in a couple days.

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I hadn't thought about getting the big cans of Wellness, but that would be much more cost effective! I have been seeing good things about Fussie Cat, so I picked some up (the same brand you linked - turned out I had seen it at Rite Aid, not the grocery store, but since they're side by side it wasn't hard to drop by). Thanks for the ideas!

As far as raw, I appreciate that suggestion too. But I have OCD and food contamination is one of my major triggers. (I have thrown out unopened, sealed containers that have air trapped inside on the extremely low chance that it was caused by botulism, emailed my poor doctor with my e. coli and salmonella fears regularly, had long discussions with the vet tech on how to tell if canned cat food has bacteria in it, etc.) That plus my tiny counter, tiny kitchen and tiny freezer means it's not an ideal option for me, and my vet is 100% adamantly against feeding raw, even commercial raw. I know that loads of studies show it's good for cats, but I really like my vet, and she's had Sparrow's asthma and IBD under control with the bare minimum of medication and almost no steroid use for years until she went on Flovent in December, and she's back under control again now. And more importantly, my cats love her. So while intellectually I might disagree with her on what they should be eating, I'm fine with a grain-free canned diet for everyone if it keeps her happy and my food- and medical-related anxiety in check.

Actually the large cans of Wellness come out to being about equal costwise to FF. I pay 55 to 60 cents for 3 oz of FF; for 12.5 oz of Wellness, I pay $2.68. So, all in all, there's only a very negligible difference in price, when you figure that FF costs me $2.25-$2.50 for 12.5 oz. .18-.20 per oz for the FF as compared to .21 per oz for the Wellness.