Food fur life price compared to canned?

cat dad72 · Nov 30, 2016

Looking into some other options. We have six cats and the cost of canned is starting to break me. Right now I have them on a rotation diet of wellness, fresh pet logs, holistic select and friskies. I don't like feeding the friskies but it's the only way to help keep the cost down. I am going through three large cans a day. Holistic select and wellness are close to three dollars a can and friskies is a little over a dollar. I have been looking at the food for life and it looks like a good food. Trying to figure out if it's going to be cost effective compared to what I am doing now.

mschauer · Nov 30, 2016

That will depend entirely on how much you spend on the meat you add the EZComplete (Food Fur Life product) to. Some people work really hard to find the cheapest prices. Some, like me, are too lazy and just use whatever I find at the grocery store. If you don't work hard to find the cheapest meat prices, you'll likely find your raw food costs more than canned Friskies.

cat dad72 · Nov 30, 2016

I was thinking about using ground turkey or ground chicken and cooking it with the food fur life. Right now if I do two cans of friskies and one of the other it's around five dollars a day.

lisahe · Nov 30, 2016

I'm a little lazy about the meats for EZcomplete, too, and haven't done all the math to know exactly where homemade (which I also cook) falls in the price continuum. But I do know that our cats do not like the food I made with pre-ground meat that I cooked. On the other hand, they do like pork a lot and pork always seems to be reasonably priced at the grocery store. I stock up on boneless chicken pieces when they're on sale: the cats seem to like chicken best, particularly chicken breasts because they pull/shred nicely and they love shreds best. To be honest, I wish they'd liked the ground meat because it would be easier and cheaper for me!

cat dad72 · Nov 30, 2016

Maybe I will give it a try and see how long it lasts. I have been wanting to check it out

lisahe · Nov 30, 2016

Cat dad72 said:
Maybe I will give it a try and see how long it lasts. I have been wanting to check it out

The bag tells you how many servings you get... and each serving goes with 1.5 ounces of uncooked meat. It's not that difficult to sort out how much a serving costs... I just never seem to do it! Our cats love the food and it has been very, very good for one of them so I'd use it even if it were the most expensive food I feed. (Which it definitely is not!)

missmimz · Dec 1, 2016

Using EZ isn't the most cost effective way to feed raw. It's easy, but it's does cost more than using something like alnutrin. I don't use EZ exclusively so I'm not really sure about price, but like others said it depends on where you source meat from too. If you can get pre-ground for a low cost and cook that might work out okay.

cat dad72 · Dec 1, 2016

missmimz said:
Using EZ isn't the most cost effective way to feed raw. It's easy, but it's does cost more than using something like alnutrin. I don't use EZ exclusively so I'm not really sure about price, but like others said it depends on where you source meat from too. If you can get pre-ground for a low cost and cook that might work out okay.

cat dad72 · Dec 1, 2016

I haven't heard of the alnitrin is that along the same line as food fur life?

missmimz · Dec 1, 2016

Cat dad72 said:
I haven't heard of the alnitrin is that along the same line as food fur life?

Alnutrin is just another pre-mix, but it's cheaper and doesn't have some of the things EZ has like liver and digestive enzymes. Alnutrin is really made for raw, but it can be used for cooked, there's info over in the homecooked thread about it. With alnutrin you need to add liver (for boneless meats).

http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com/

paiger8 · Dec 5, 2016

@Cat dad72 If you want to continue with the canned, check into brands with 12.5 oz cans or larger. Wellness makes large cans, and Dave's Pet Foods makes 12 oz cans (for like 1.89 a can and the ingredients aren't bad.)

With EZ Complete, I did a whole price comparison thing a few months ago when I was looking to switch from commercial raw to homemade. With boneless meat (Turkey, Chicken, or Beef) from Hare Today, ordering in the 5 lbs chubs and 30 lbs at at a time, Ez Complete worked out to be .36 cents an ounce (includes shipping to IA, meat, and EZ.)

Making my own with the Feline-Nutrition.org recipe (with Hare Today boneless, heart, liver, eggshell, + supplements) was .23 cents an ounce. I went with this method. Some cats aren't crazy about homemade, mine love it. It probably takes a little longer, but it's worth it for the savings.

cat dad72 · Dec 6, 2016

Paiger8 said:
@Cat dad72
If you want to continue with the canned, check into brands with 12.5 oz cans or larger. Wellness makes large cans, and Dave's Pet Foods makes 12 oz cans (for like 1.89 a can and the ingredients aren't bad.)

With EZ Complete, I did a whole price comparison thing a few months ago when I was looking to switch from commercial raw to homemade. With boneless meat (Turkey, Chicken, or Beef) from Hare Today, ordering in the 5 lbs chubs and 30 lbs at at a time, Ez Complete worked out to be .36 cents an ounce (includes shipping to IA, meat, and EZ.)

Making my own with the Feline-Nutrition.org recipe (with Hare Today boneless, heart, liver, eggshell, + supplements) was .23 cents an ounce. I went with this method. Some cats aren't crazy about homemade, mine love it. It probably takes a little longer, but it's worth it for the savings.

Thanks

nikole wynn · Dec 6, 2016

Hi CatDad72! I came across your post and was wondering what you ended up deciding? I also have 6 cats and I am researching the most cost effective way to switch over to a raw/homecooked diet. I have been looking into both EZ Complete and Alnutrin. Have you figured out your feeding situation? I would love to hear from someone else in a similar situation about what works.

cat dad72 · Dec 6, 2016

Nikole Wynn said:
Hi CatDad72! I came across your post and was wondering what you ended up deciding? I also have 6 cats and I am researching the most cost effective way to switch over to a raw/homecooked diet. I have been looking into both EZ Complete and Alnutrin. Have you figured out your feeding situation? I would love to hear from someone else in a similar situation about what works.

Right now I am just researching as much as I can. I made the switch from canned/dry to all canned about six monthes ago and it is more to do all canned. So I have been having to go the cheaper route with the canned. They are on a rotation and I haven't had any issues. ( there coats look better then ever) I would like to go to a raw/canned diet at some point. Just want to make sure I can afford it and do it right.

cat dad72 · Dec 13, 2016

So I went to the local pet store and found I could special order from a company called Bravo for a decent price. I ordered the chicken blends chub bar. After further research it seems this is not a complete diet

so I am wondering if I can use this to supplement there canned diet? I usually will mix three large cans of food together and put it in the fridge until it's gone. Would it be safe to add some of this Bravo raw to the mix? And how much without making there food unbalanced.

lisahe · Dec 13, 2016

Cat dad72 said:
So I went to the local pet store and found I could special order from a company called Bravo for a decent price. I ordered the chicken blends chub bar. After further research it seems this is not a complete diet

so I am wondering if I can use this to supplement there canned diet? I usually will mix three large cans of food together and put it in the fridge until it's gone. Would it be safe to add some of this Bravo raw to the mix? And how much without making there food unbalanced.

The general rule for unbalanced/unsupplemented food is that it shouldn't be more than 10% of a cat's total diet so you wouldn't want to feed too much each day. I'm not sure how long your custom blend of canned foods lasts but, personally, I wouldn't mix the Bravo into the big batch: I'd add it to each individual meal. Or serve it in small amounts as part of a combination platter. (Our cats don't like their foods mixed so I put little piles of various kinds of foods on their plates when I have small amounts of leftover food...)

I've only used chubs a few times but found them easiest to handle when they were slightly thawed: I sliced through the plastic and the meat with a serrated knife then refroze the rounds.

cat dad72 · Dec 13, 2016

LisaHE said:
The general rule for unbalanced/unsupplemented food is that it shouldn't be more than 10% of a cat's total diet so you wouldn't want to feed too much each day. I'm not sure how long your custom blend of canned foods lasts but, personally, I wouldn't mix the Bravo into the big batch: I'd add it to each individual meal. Or serve it in small amounts as part of a combination platter. (Our cats don't like their foods mixed so I put little piles of various kinds of foods on their plates when I have small amounts of leftover food...) I have six cats so it only lasts a day and a half. I can put it on a side dish and give it to them for a snack. What do you think of bravo? I am thinking of trying some of there other products if the boys like it.

I've only used chubs a few times but found them easiest to handle when they were slightly thawed: I sliced through the plastic and the meat with a serrated knife then refroze the rounds.

lisahe · Dec 13, 2016

Cat dad72 said:
I have six cats so it only lasts a day and a half. I can put it on a side dish and give it to them for a snack. What do you think of bravo? I am thinking of trying some of there other products if the boys like it.

I'd probably start with it separately like that, as a snack, in very small amounts. (I'm not sure if you've fed raw food before, but the general advice is always to start with very small amounts...) That's how I got our two cats started on raw food: I was lucky they took to it immediately but it takes a long time with some cats. (Beyond my general preference not to mix foods, that's another reason I wouldn't mix raw into an entire batch of canned: the cats might not like it...

I'm not sure what I think of Bravo: there's nothing that fits what I need these days so I don't know much about it. Our cats were pretty indifferent to their previous food that was complete: they just weren't interested. That said, the recipes are all different now!

sophie1 · Dec 20, 2016

Agree with Paiger8. EZComplete is comparable in cost to a high end canned diet even if you shop carefully for meats, so it's going to be out of your price range I'm afraid. Same for Alnutrin, because you still need to add an omega 3 supplement (fish oil) to that.

Your cheapest options will be, in order of least to most expensive:

1) Find a local raw feeding coop and purchase from their suppliers. Usually this is a small local business with drop off points that you have to go to on the dates specified.

2) Invest in a grinder and follow the recipes on catinfo.org. If you get chicken & turkey from Costco or similar, you'll cut your food costs in half. Add other meats for variety - there are some suggestions on the website. I'd skip the suggestion about adding bacon grease though. Instead, try adding chunks of beef, pork, or whatever else you find (instead of removing the thigh bones).

3) Order meat/bone/organ mixes from an online supplier and supplement as per catinfo.org recipe. Add boneless (ground or chunked) meats to the mixes to bring the bone percentages down. If you feed mostly chicken and turkey and size the order to minimize shipping costs (or go to pickup spots to eliminate shipping costs) you'll do almost as well as options 1 & 2.

Mix up your own supplements instead of buying pre-made mixes. The mixes are great but they approximately double the cost of the home mix. Home mixing really isn't hard and takes literally seconds. It helps to buy dry vitamin E, the squirt cans of unscented salmon oil, and loose taurine (Hare today carries the latter two items). By saving your eggshells, baking them and then putting them through a coffee grinder, you can mix up supplements for boneless meats + liver, if that's something you want to consider.

cat dad72 · Dec 20, 2016

T

sophie1 said:
Agree with Paiger8. EZComplete is comparable in cost to a high end canned diet even if you shop carefully for meats, so it's going to be out of your price range I'm afraid. Same for Alnutrin, because you still need to add an omega 3 supplement (fish oil) to that.

Your cheapest options will be, in order of least to most expensive:

1) Find a local raw feeding coop and purchase from their suppliers. Usually this is a small local business with drop off points that you have to go to on the dates specified.

2) Invest in a grinder and follow the recipes on catinfo.org. If you get chicken & turkey from Costco or similar, you'll cut your food costs in half. Add other meats for variety - there are some suggestions on the website. I'd skip the suggestion about adding bacon grease though. Instead, try adding chunks of beef, pork, or whatever else you find (instead of removing the thigh bones).

3) Order meat/bone/organ mixes from an online supplier and supplement as per catinfo.org recipe. Add boneless (ground or chunked) meats to the mixes to bring the bone percentages down. If you feed mostly chicken and turkey and size the order to minimize shipping costs (or go to pickup spots to eliminate shipping costs) you'll do almost as well as options 1 & 2.

Mix up your own supplements instead of buying pre-made mixes. The mixes are great but they approximately double the cost of the home mix. Home mixing really isn't hard and takes literally seconds. It helps to buy dry vitamin E, the squirt cans of unscented salmon oil, and loose taurine (Hare today carries the latter two items). By saving your eggshells, baking them and then putting them through a coffee grinder, you can mix up supplements for boneless meats + liver, if that's something you want to consider.
[/quote Thanks for the info.

Food fur life price compared to canned?

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