Best options for raw feeding on a limited budget?

[nobodysaingyl]

We have 4 cats here (2 adults and 2 kittens under 6 months) and have been feeding them Friskies Indoor whatever. Yes, I know, garbage. It's cheap. However, in addition to the 'it's garbage' issue, my older cats have developed what their vet called 'jungle pouches' and since adding the kittens to the mix, are no longer on their feeding schedule. The older boy is called Chubbs for a reason, but he's getting bigger than I'm comfortable with, as is his sister. She used to be all sleek and lovely and now she's a bit chubby and lovely  

I've been doing a lot of research and keep reading about how if cats are fed more of the nutrition they actually need and less (down to NONE) of the fillers they can't process, they'll eat less and cost less in vet visits. I like this concept, yet I'm unsure of how to go about it. I'm puzzled by the plethora of dry food, all claiming to be awesome for cats, to the point where I know Friskies, Whiskas, and Meow Mix are terrible to feed them, yet not knowing what would be healthier yet fit in my price range. 

We budget roughly $25 a month for cat food (two medium bags of dry and 12 cans wet and $15 for kitty litter, but I would be willing to up it a bit if it would help them be healthier. I also want to incorporate raw into the mix, as all the cat love chicken, but I don't.... Yeah. I'm beginning to repeat myself. 

With a household of 2 3yos and 2 kittens under 6 months, what can I feed them that would cost under $50 for cat food itself (both dry and wet) and how would I go about adding fresh chicken to the mix so that I don't over-feed them or short them on nutrition? 

Note: Food bowls are in the bathroom, as we live in a studio apartment, so separate feeding is nigh impossible. Lack of space has required creativity, so there are nooks and cranny, a couple high spaces for the bigger cats, and a 7-block Kitty City by the windows. They seem happy, especially since all of them get loved on by at least 3 different people every day.

 

[Willowy]

First off: no dry food is good. It's just too. . .dry :lol3:. Cats were made to get their moisture from the flesh/blood of the animals they eat, not from drinking, so they have a very low thirst drive. Even cheap canned foods like 9 Lives and Friskies are better than almost all dry foods--for instance, Friskies Paté foods ("shreds" and "filets" and "meaty bits" are way higher in carbs) are only about 14% carbs. Very few dry foods are that low-carb, and those that are lower than that are usually super pricey. So, are you willing to cut out dry food entirely?

I have manymany cats so cost is something I think about a lot. Because of that, I think maybe your price limit may be a bit unrealistic? Even the cheapest dry food (I did the cost analysis with Purina Cat Chow, bought in the largest bag at Sam's Club) costs about 25 cents per day per cat. So with 4 cats, a dollar a day, about $30 a month. Were you really able to keep it to $25 a month with canned food included? Impressive if so. Do you find a lot of sales?

Anyway, I feed my cats mainly canned Friskies. I buy the largest can (13.2 ounces, 94 cents a can at Wal-Mart, $1.09 at Petsmart). This comes to about 40 cents a day per cat. I have recently been mixing in EVO 95% chicken and turkey (bought online for about $2 for a 13.2-ounce can), about one can of that to every 3-4 cans of Friskies, and that brings it up to 50 cents a day per cat. So for 4 kitties that would be around $60 a month. I offer some raw meat every night, and I haven't yet figured out how much that adds to the daily total :anon:. But bone-in chicken thighs are about a dollar a pound, quarters somewhat less than that. I don't bother to try to balance the raw, because if it's less than 15% of their total diet you don't have to worry about balancing.

If you buy your meat from a place like www.hare-today.com, I think you can get it down to about a dollar a cat per day (some meats cheaper than others but you do need to feed a good variety). But this is higher than what you prefer to keep your budget.

There are ways to feed all raw for very little cost, but this usually requires a lot of creativity, ickiness, and legwork! I haven't managed that yet.

 

[ritz]

I've been feeding Ritz (almost three years old) raw for almost ten months, and am going to be fostering Lacy (formerly known as Ace) (around eight months old) beginning next week.  Currently Lacy is being fed Friskies and a high quality dry food ($35! ).  She is get chunky.    I plan on transitioning her to high quality wet food and eliminating the dry food immediately.  I also plan on transitioning her to raw.  I gave her some raw Quail last week where she is currently staying and she recognized it as food and ate most of it.

In so far as cost, I feed frankenprey--regular meat/poultry you find in the grocery store with appropriate amounts of liver and kidney.  I look for end-of-sell date meat, depending on the store, it can be 30% to 50% off.  I portion it out and freeze it immediately.  I've looked into HaretoDay and commercial raw but it is more expensive (and more difficult to find) than frakenprey.

You might also check to see if any farmers/ranchers will sell meat to you cheaply; they do NOT have to be prime cut (cats can't tell the difference).  International supermarkets (asian, spanish, etc.) sell  a greater variety of meats/poulty than regular supermarkets and tend to be a little cheaper (though they don't have sales).

Finally, sometimes bone-in meats turn out to be more expensive than boneelss meats; bone weighs a LOT and cats don't need a lot of bone so I end up throwing a lot of bone away.  (Ritz can handle bones from rabbit, cornish hen and quail, but not chicken or beef.)

Good luck!

 

[nobodysaingyl]

I have no problem cutting out dry food. The only reason I've been going with it is because I can get a 16 lb. bag of Friskies Indoors cat food for roughly $13 ($11 and some change, plus tax) at Target, while the medium bags (not sure of the weight) are approximately $6.29 each plus tax. Side note: My older boy cat likes 'fishing' for his food and keeps knocking dry bits into the water dish and fishing them back out xD

However, even with only feeding them all roughly 1 cup of dry food a day (half a cup in the morning and half in the evening, with approx 1/4 total in free feed for extra snacking for the babies) and substituting wet food 3 evening meals a week, as well as a little raw meat every time we cook some for ourselves, the older kitties are still getting chunky and I'm worried that the babies aren't getting everything they need to grow properly. Hence my questions for those more knowledgeable than I (Like I said, roughly, because my bf and Kenichi's dad both keep feeding them off-schedule and giving them more than I'm trying to portion out. Not a lot, but it's annoying as all get out.)

I want to do the best I can for my 'kids' and also try to help them stay as healthy as possible to prevent avoidable vet visits, you know?

 

[ldg]

I calculated the number wrong, and will update later. :lol3: :anon:

 

[ldg]

OK, I'm not in as much as a rush as I was before.

Here's the numbers if you want to feed them all raw.

Assuming the 2 older cats are like most, they'll likely need about 5 ounces of raw food a day. The 2 six month old kitties will likely need between 8 and 10 ounces a day, and that will scale down as they get older and settle in to adult kitties, needing a more normal amount of food. :lol3:

For comparison, my 11 - 13 pound kitties eat 4.5 ounces a day each. My smaller 2 (7 pounds and 10 pounds) each eat 3 ounces a day. Mine range in age from 5 to 10 years old, and they're not overly active (and age and activity level both impact how much food they need a day).

So - assuming 5 ounces for the older 2 and 10 ounces for the younger two (which should both be high end estimates), you need 30 ounces of food a day. That's almost 2 pounds of raw food a day. (It's a little less than that, but we'll work with that to overestimate). That's about how much my 8 cats eat (but you've got two kittens eating a lot of food).

That means (with 4 weeks a month), they'd be eating about 56 pounds of raw food a month.

To feed raw properly, it has to be balanced. That means you need to feed meat, bones and organs. Meat is about 80% of it, bones about 10%, liver about 5%, and another secreting organ (kidney is usually the easiest to obtain) the last 5%. (I feed hearts and gizzards as well, but these are considered a muscle organ, so do NOT count as a secreting organ, but are part of the "meat" portion of the diet). So a balanced raw diet for your cats at these amounts would be:

For the kitties (assuming they eat 10 ounces a day, which is probably more than they need now:

56 ounces of meat a week (3.5 pounds)
7 ounces of bone a week (usually provided via chicken wings - 2 -3 meals a week)
3.5 ounces of liver a week
3.5 ounces of kidney a week

per cat.


For the adult cats (assuming they eat 5 ounces a day, which may be more than they need depending on size, age, and activity level):

28 ounces of meat a week (1.75 pounds)
3.5 ounces of bone a week (again, usually provided via chicken wings by most)
1.75 ounces of liver a week
1.75 ounces of kidney a week

per cat.


Liver, kidney, gizzards and heart are not expensive. As Ritz pointed out, if you can buy meat on sale, it's pretty easy to control the cost. I just bought heaps of chicken breast for $1.99 a pound; chicken thighs (boneless) for $1.49 a pound, and pork loin for $1.99 a pound.

To feed raw properly, you do need to have a good rotation of protein, like chicken, turkey, beef, pork, etc. as they all have different nutritional profiles. You also need to rotate the PARTS of the animals - for instance, chicken breast and chicken thigh, etc.

So anyway, let's assume you spend $3 a pound. At 56 pounds a month, that's $168 a month to feed your 4 cats. That's $1.40 per cat per day.

That said, when the younger two are older, and eating at that 4 - 5 ounces per day, (assuming it's 5), the amount you're feeding drops to 20 ounces a day, 8 3/4 pounds per week, 35 pounds per month, and at $3 a pound, that's $105 per month, or $0.88 per cat per day. (And that compares to feeding high end canned only, which works out to be about $1.69 per cat per day, depending on the food, if they eat just one 5.5 ounce can of food per day).


Of course, as Willowy pointed out, if you remove the kibble from their diet and feed them just the Friskies pate, that will go a LONG way to improving their long term health.

If you want to supplement with just some raw, you can feed up to 15% of their total diet without working about it being balanced.

 

[goingpostal]

Do you have a freezer?  Buying in bulk is really the way to go, I pay .70/pound for chicken quarters, .90-1.00 for whole chickens, 1.50 for gizzards, 1.10 for beef heart, .80 for turkey necks or whole (seasonal).  1.25/pound will get me rabbit, or pork.  I pay 3+/pound for quail or duck.  I can get many meats for free through hunting/trappers and organs for .10/pound from a meat processor.  Just gotta search around, I spend about $15 a month to feed my cat but not concerned with cost as it is cheaper than canned and much less than I was spending. 
 

 

[nobodysaingyl]

-.- ouch. Not only do I not have the budget for that right now, I don't even have the space. I have a teeny tiny freezer. It's going to be awhile before I can improve their feed the way I want to I think I'm stuck with dry food, canned food a couple times a week, and giving them a little raw whenever we have chicken or steak for dinner. They may not have a high thirst drive, but between the 4 of them, they go through a 2-quart water dispenser in about 2 days, as well as steal from our glasses every chance they get. Apparently, sneaking up and dipping paws in water glasses for licking is tons of fun. 

If I can't afford to really switch to raw (and my boyfriend keeps telling me I'm insane and that feeding raw is unnecessary, since he's had many cats in his life and all did perfectly fine on dry food (outdoor cats are typically mousers, hello!!)), and considering that I spend roughly $16 a month on dry food and an additional $7-$8 (unless there's a sale, then I pay less) on Friskies wet Indoor (Ellie REFUSES to touch anything pate), would it be worth it to pick up chicken and give it to them once or twice a week as an evening meal? And I've always been told not to let cat's get at chicken bones 'cause they could kill them. How does that work? One last question: the cats are only used to getting a couple raw tidbits whenever we get chicken or steak for supper, so would it be safe to suddenly give them a full meal of raw chicken or would I want to ease them into it to avoid things like diarrhea? How would I go about that? 

I realize asking these things might make me come across as a little stupid, but things that would be common sense to most people aren't always so apparent to me. 

 

[Willowy]

Try to get as much canned food into them as possible . The Friskies Indoor formulas are more expensive (and higher in carbs, I think), I've found that the Friskies Treasures formulas seem to be an acceptable alternative for the picky kitties, and don't cost extra. I mix it into the paté flavors they don't really like :lol3:.

If you're only doing part-time raw, skip the bones. Raw chicken bones are thin and flexible, it's cooked bones that are really dangerous (brittle and splintery), but some kibble-fed kitties have trouble digesting bones (kibble lowers the stomach acidity or something like that) so it's best to do without. It's probably better to just offer a few bites more frequently instead of doing a whole meal less frequently.

 

[Willowy]

Oh, and improving their kibble quality would be a good thing. . .maybe no kibble is really good, but some are less bad than others . Purina Indoor is really high in carbs and low in meat content. If you're stuck with that price point, try Purina Naturals (it's in a green bag). It's nothing special but at least has chicken meal as the first ingredient and has no artificial coloring. And is higher in protein. It costs about the same as regular Cat Chow, maybe a teensy bit more.

Next price step up, I would probably recommend Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul (yes, it's a dumb name :tongue2. You might have to look around to find a supplier, but I hear some grocery stores carry it, too. I paid around $23 for an 18-pound bag. 4Health (sold at Tractor Supply) would be better than Purina, I think it's about $20 for an 18-pound bag. Taste of the Wild is grain-free and is about $27 for 16 pounds. If you look online, you can sometimes find better prices.

 

[layitdown]

I've been feeding my cat, Ricky bobby, an exclusively raw diet for almost over 2 1/2 years and I've found a great way to save money, on chicken at least. It might not work for everyone but it's definitely worked and helped me.
If you and your family eat chicken and you cook at home a lot, consider buying a whole fryer or broiler chicken instead of pre-cut chicken. This is what I do. I cut up the chicken at home myself, so when I'm done cutting the chicken I have 2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 legs and 2 thighs of course. I cook meals for DH and I with this. What's leftover is a lot of good stuff that can be fed to kitties. On the frame of the chicken, you'll have a little bit of thigh meat that you'll be able to cut off, white meat from the breast section, kind of like tenderloins I guess. Most whole chickens you can buy at the grocery store come with gizzards, liver, and the neck in a little bag inside the cavity of the chicken. Then on the upper back area, there's a few good quality raw meaty bones with a good amount of meat on them. then on the inside of the cavity, on the lower back, there's some organs you can scoop out, it's not a lot on the chicken I get, but it's something. I like skinless breasts, so there's a little bit of skin to add some fat to his meals. I make sure i get the percentage ratios correct, as far as meat, bone, liver, organs. But this helps out a lot, I never have to buy additional chicken liver or chicken RMB's. this of course doesn't make up his whole diet, I feed other meats and buy chicken thighs for him, but as far as the chicken I feed him, I'm able to get a lot from the same bird i feed DH and myself with. I hope all of this makes sense. You can find how to's and videos for cutting up a whole chicken online. It took me a little while to get the whole thing down, but now that I've got the hang of it, I can have the whole chicken cut up and seperated into "human" and "kitty" food within 10-15 minutes. I use chicken or meat shears, it's a lot easier and quicker to cut that way for me. I then separate kittie's food into indivdual baggies with meat in one baggie, RMB's in another, Liver in another and organs in another, weigh, label, and freeze them. I've found this not only save's on kitty food, but the main meat DH and i eat is chicken, so buying a whole chicken and cutting it up myself has proved to be cheaper than buying, say, a pack of skinless, boneless breasts. I've been doing this for 2 years and it's worked out wonderfully for me. Yeah, it might be a little bit more work, but I find it's definitely worth it. Feel free to ask questions, anyone, or message me if you need help figuring out how to cut the chicken. After a while, you really do get the hang of it and are able to cut that chicken up like a pro!

 

[Willowy]

I haven't found whole chicken to be any cheaper than boneless cuts, especially considering the high percentage of bone. Where do you find whole chickens for a good price?

 

[layitdown]

Yeah, this may not work or make sense to everyone, but it's just something I've found works for me. The chicken DH and i like to eat is a brand from Walmart actually, called Harvestland. It tastes "cleaner" to us than any other grocery store chicken we've tried but is a little more expensive than other brands. And DH kind of refuses to buy any other brand, lol. I just came up with some numbers from what I've got in my head and fridge . A typical whole chicken from that brands cost around $7 and I've able to get 40 oz of meat for DH and I, bone included for legs, thighs, and wings. And on average about 10 oz of food for kitty, if i'm recalling that correctly. So about 50 oz of food on that bird for DH, myself, and kitty combined. That comes out to about $2.24 per pound of meat/food. Of course that's just an estimate based on averages. I like my breasts skinless and boneless, but typically like to cook dark meat and wings with the bone in. so it typically doesn't matter if the bone is in or not because aside from breasts I would be buying bone-in meat anyway. It's been so long since i've been doing it this way, I can honestly not recall prices for precut chicken. But i'm probably in a different situation than others, since we're stuck on this brand of chicken and it's a rare occasion that we buy any other brand. You got me thinking though, I may have to rethink my strategy and look at prices of precuts or different brands and do some math. The thing is, now my cat doesn't like other grocery store brands of chicken, at least the actual meat and neck. I've tried buying different chicken that's on sale for him, and he doesn't like it. Can't blame him though, that stuff smells compared to what he's used to... IDK we're just stuck on this brand. So yeah, this may not work for everyone, but it's worked for us and may give others some ideas.

 

[layitdown]

Someone can also apply this same principle/strategy to raw cat food feeding and use that whole chicken to feed only kitty. For someone who's household isn't stubbornly

brand specific like mine, say you can find a whole chicken on sale for .89 a pound, that what it is at one of my local grocery stores right now. That means a 5 lb chicken costs $4.45. From that 5 lb chicken, according to the amount of meat I'm used to cutting, you can get 50 oz of meat, bones, organs, and some fat for kitty, round that down to 3 lbs. You can get 3 lbs of chicken for kitty at $1.48 a lb. I think that's pretty decent. You just have to keep in mind from that bird you're getting muscle meat(gizzards included), RMB's, liver and a tiny bit of other organs and think about what other things you need to buy to make sure your balancing their diet. Just another idea for anyone who think this may be a cheaper route for chicken.