Feeding a 8 week old kitten on a budget

I have an 8 week old kitten, I want to feed the best way possible but on a bit of a budget. Cheapest, healthiest way would be nice
I've been doing research like crazy and would love to feed him raw but it's so time consuming.
Should I feed wet and dry? Or just wet? If wet and dry how much of each?

I think wet food is preferred. I personally feed Friskies. Some people prefer grain free, which I think Fancy Feast and Sheba are both grain free. For a kitten that young, I would feed him as much food as he wants and frequently, because he will need a lot for all that growing and kitten energy. 

Wet is much healthier

I always recommend this since it helped me decided for my kitty

The Basics of Feeding Your Cat

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Feeding Your Cat - 4 pages 11-13.pdf

As far as brands there are many to choose from.  Grain free wet options that are often talked about around here are Weruva, Natures Variety, Natural Choice, Merrick.  Prices vary but buying cases online is what I do for better prices.  Or Petco or Petsmart often have sales.    The cheapest grain free is probably something like Fancy Feast classic (only the cans labeled 'Classic' are grain free)  Another mentioned which is cheaper is the Sheba pates

This might help

Commercial Canned Food

http://www.catinfo.org/?link=cannedfoods

@xcourtney3  is correct. It is recommended to feed a kitten in its first year all they will eat in meals through out the day. 

pookalali said:

I have an 8 week old kitten, I want to feed the best way possible but on a bit of a budget. Cheapest, healthiest way would be nice

I've been doing research like crazy and would love to feed him raw but it's so time consuming.
Should I feed wet and dry? Or just wet? If wet and dry how much of each?

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Canned food Fancy Feast and Friskies are good  inexpensive choices. For something healthier, head to the pet store and see what brands are available. The chain pet stores like Petco and Petsmart have good brands like Wellness and Nature's Variety and there are often sales.

Avoid dry food as the main food. Yes, a giant bag is cheap and easy to store but horrible for your kitten's health over time. See Catinfo.org for more info about proper nutrition. If your kitten will eat canned food, there's no reason at all to feed any dry food except maybe as an occasional treat. If you have to feed some dry for whatever reason, make it no more than 50% of the diet (less would be even better, like 10%) and be sure to add extra water to the canned food to ensure that your kitten is well hydrated.

Raw is great but doesn't have to be time consuming Commercial raw pet food is the easiest to feed but not necessarily the cheapest. These are typically frozen or freeze dried foods. You just thaw the frozen nuggets or rehydrate the freeze dried pieces and feed. I do ground raw meat with a premix. It takes about 15 minutes to mix everything together and then portion out into containers to freeze. Homemade raw using a recipe is time consuming since most recipes call for grinding meat and measuring out supplements.

Sounds great
About how many cans each trip is ideal? I'm trying to make a list so I can have everything ready for him when I meet him in a week.
 

pookalali said:

 
Sounds great
About how many cans each trip is ideal? I'm trying to make a list so I can have everything ready for him when I meet him in a week.
 

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Stock up Kittens have huge appetites because they are growing. You want to feed them as much as they will eat at least twice a day. Two or three 3 oz cans per day or one 5.5 oz is probably enough but every kitten is different. I fed my Aby raw food when I got him at 12 weeks old and it was 2 oz servings 3 times a day for almost a year.

Cases of cans usually contain twenty-four cans, and pet stores will often give discounts if you purchase the entire case. Our local pet store will let you mix flavours, as long as the cans are the same size and brand. Performatrin makes a kitten formula that comes in a 13oz can for $2.59 and I have often used it with my foster kittens as they eat like horses! Nutrience is another one that is less expensive and comes in large cans, but can be harder to find.

Yes, definitely stock up! Do you know, @pookalali, what the kitten is currently being fed? You might want to get some of whatever that is so you can transition the cat gradually to whatever you intend to feed. That's particularly important if he's being fed dry food.

You mentioned raw food and time... I feed our two cats about half commercial raw food (Primal, Rad Cat, occasional Stella & Chewy's) and half canned food. The Primal and Rad Cat are slightly more expensive than the canned foods but not by much and they're pretty convenient to feed. Best of all, the cats consistently love them so there's no waste.

lisahe
Ohhhh. I'm starting to get it now. Where can I buy those raw foods?

Non-chain specialty pet stores will have Stella and Chewy's, Primal Pet, and Rad Cat. You can check the product web site for a store near you:

http://www.stellaandchewys.com/store-locator/index.php

http://www.primalpetfoods.com/locator/index.php

http://www.radfood.com/where_to_buy

Both Stella and Chewy's and Primal Pet are available in both frozen and freeze dried. You can try both kinds of raw to see what your kitten likes.

Petco sells Nature's Variety Instinct raw foods, both the frozen and the the freeze dried.

I would stick with only these brands since they are complete diets. Pet stores sell other brands of raw foods but some are for dogs only and others are meant to be mixed with vitamin and mineral supplements or used as part part a frankenprey diet.

LTS3
Thanks so much!
Would it be cheaper to go canned or use the frozen or freeze dried raw? I used the primal calculator assuming the weight of the kitten and it came out to 1 nugget per day?
I also calculated the price for canned good (fancy feast classics specifically) which came out to 18 cans for $10-ish

Did the Primal Calculator take into consideration that this is a kitten and not an adult cat? If it goes by weight alone, it may not be a correct calculation considering this is a rapidly growing animal.

chromium blues
It did not :/ just trying to get an idea on what to get that's most affordable but also healthy.

That kitten will need at least two nuggets a day, which will double the cost of the food.

The person who rescued her said she's free feeding her Purina kitten chow

pookalali said:

chromium blues
It did not :/ just trying to get an idea on what to get that's most affordable but also healthy.

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This is never easy to figure out! The Fancy Feast would definitely be cheaper than the commercial raw food. I initially tried raw food out on these cats in small amounts: I had some frozen Rad Cat left over from our previous cat and fed them a tablespoon at a time to start. (They were 10 or 11 months old then.) With Primal I started with a small bag of freeze-dried (about 10 dollars?), fed them a nugget at a time, and then started buying bigger bags when they liked it. Only after 10 months, now, am I starting to increase their Rad Cat... because I found a store with a much cheaper price and steadier supply. All of which is to say I think it works well to regularly just feed small amounts of raw food. In my case it turned out to be priced okay because they are pickier about their canned foods so more tends to get thrown away. I think I've got waste to a minimum now but they do have their fussy days!

As for stores, I agree with @LTS3 about independents. My local stores stock all these foods anyway and just about any of them will order just about anything. Just be sure to compare prices -- they can vary a lot!

pookalali said:

The person who rescued her said she's free feeding her Purina kitten chow

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There are worse things than Kitten Chow, and at least it is complete and balanced.

Have you ever looked at Honest Kitchen? It costs no more than a good quality dry food.

I just looked into it. $30 for a 2 pound box isn't that bad.

You can play with the texture, too - adding more or less water depending on what your cat likes.

Chromium Blues said:

You can play with the texture, too - adding more or less water depending on what your cat likes.

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That's a good point: with the nugget kinds we sometimes make smaller or larger pieces for variety, too. And mix different flavors. We find the freeze-dried foods are really convenient.