What to feed the cats... canned foods

I'll start by saying im in Australia so many brands that people suggest may not be available here.

Before my cat Theodore got sick with a urinary obstruction, we used to feed our cats an Aldi brand of food, which they liked. They then got sick of that so we switched to whiskas. After a new months, they now don't like that either! We then started feeding them the tiny little cans of fancy feast and similar brands and they like those but the problem for us, is that these cans are easily $1.20 a pop and at two cans a day it's becoming expensive. When I give them these they always want more. So what I'm asking is, does anyone know of good quality canned foods that come in larger size without breaking the bank?

 Wow, $1.20-1.50 for Fancy Feast! I'm trying to skim the brands you have available on PetBarn, but it's taking its sweet time to load. Do you have any local bulk stores, like CostCo? I know our CostCo in Canada carries Friskies wet - which advertises an Australian site for both wet and dry foods but I haven't seen any in the online stores I've looked at - in big 48 can packs (5.5oz), and they're about $25 CAD, which is much cheaper than buying bulk packs like that in a grocery or pet store (where the price would be the same for only 18 cans or something). If you have or know someone with a CostCo (or other bulk store) membership and there's one nearby, it may be worth checking it out. Most of them do have pet sections.

It looks like this place can save a few bucks on Fancy Feast bulk packs if you know which recipes your cats like:

https://www.budgetpetproducts.com.au/new/index.php?categoryID=430&categoryName=Fancy Feast

Are there no cans of food you've seen that are available in the 13oz? Some brands don't show the availability of large cans online, but I've stumbled upon them in-store. If your cats don't mind the same thing a few days in a row, the bigger cans are worth it if you can get them. Sometimes I'll mix wet foods to keep it from getting too redundant.

Other than Fancy Feast, the only other relatively affordable food I'm seeing a lot of on AU websites is Dine, but I can't find enough information on it to recommend it. Even with what I can find, it looks like a lot of their recipes are gravy or soupy, which IMO is kind of a waste of money. Pates tend to be more bang for your buck since they're usually higher in protein and meat, and then you can just water it down as you please.

Hopefully other people and fellow Aussies can offer more information!

Yup, alot of the food here is in pouches or gravy mixes. Obviously there are supermarket label foods in the large cans and there are alot of them. Off the top of my head, the only named brands in larger cans are Whiskas and Snappy Tom and Kitekat that are available in supermarkets. We do have a local farm supplies produce store that sell bulk lots of canned food but they aren't a known brand. I know alot of farmers etc buy these for farm cats and whatnot. Maybe these would be ok? We do feed a good quality dry food but the cats(particularly the female loves her canned food) The Dine can sometimes go for 7 cans for $5 if you're lucky. If I buy a larger cat, the average price is around $1.60 and that might last us 2-3 days depending on what the cats are like.

We do havet a costco here in Australia but it's a two hour drive from here. Maybe that will give me the incentive to save a load of cash and go check it out and buy stuff hehe.

Ah, is there anyone you know who lives closer who might be able to check out the CostCo there? You could always call and check their stock too.

Snappy Tom doesn't look too bad.. lots of fish flavours and not too much else, and the label is a bit vague, but the same appears for Kitekat. Kitekat is lower in protein (but higher in water), but you can calculate protein more accurately using dry matter basis instead of can labels which cause the actual percentages to vary quite a lot: http://fnae.org/dmb.html

You learn to read ingredients and packages on the fly, so pick up a few that are readily available to you and skim them over for high percentages of protein (relative to the amount of water; water is usually something like 78%-85% in wet food - to give you a gauge, Friskies is 10% protein and a higher quality brand like Weruva is 12% when it comes to wet). Foods with fish tend to be a bit higher in protein, but fish also causes concern for mercury, phosphate, and magnesium levels, the latter two of which could be problematic for urinary issues.

For example, Kitekat has 84% water and 7% protein in some formulas, but this is still about 43% protein in DMB. Friskies' DMB for 78% water and 10% protein is about 45% protein, and Weruva's "chicken soup" recipe has 87.5% water and 8% protein, but it still tops off at 64% protein in DMB.

Better would be meats or meat byproducts first (I have no problem with byproducts, though I think some people still do - mostly the relatively mysterious quality of some byproducts), water/broth, and very few/lower concentrations of starches or additives (salt, added flavours, added colours, grains) other than the vitamins.

Well, after some thought, I decided to go check out my produce store. They had a special of fancy feast cans for $0.50 each! Limit 20 so I bought 10 to start with hehe. I should have bought the 20 for $10 but oh well.I will spend some time reading labels for protein values for different brands.

Thanks for all your help 

Awesome!