# How to feed a wet food diet on a budget



## Arkadia (Apr 11, 2011)

Hi guys,

Right now I'm feeding three cats 80g each of wet food a day (2.8oz), with dry food for breakfast and lunch (I don't measure the amount of dry, naughty me). 

I've read about wet food diets being better for cats and I only want the best for my babies (raw is not an option right now) but I have a big issue - I live in Australia. And Australian cat food is EXPENSIVE.

For reference, the seemingly best quality food I can find available in Australia is ZiwiPeak, which costs $3.40 for 6.3oz. You might be more familiar with the price of Hills Science Diet: A 5.5oz can of Hills costs $2.35. The cheapest acceptable looking food I can find is Eagle Pack Holistic Select at $1.85 per 5.5oz can, but I do have some reservations about this food.

So I have some questions:

How do those of you on a budget feed wet food diets? I'd like advice on things like rotating foods, what ratio of best to average foods to give, and any tips you can give me on how to make the most of the wet food for the least amount of money (so to speak - I don't plan on skimping on/starving my kitties ). 

I'd also like some advice on what portions you're giving to your cats when feeding wet food only - how many oz a day do you give them? 

As it stands, with my 3 cats I'm probably going to be spending an average of $8 a day on wet food, or $56 a week. *cringe* Any advice on what I can do to get the most bang for my buck while still giving my cats the best possible nutrition would be so much appreciated!


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## MinkaMuffin (Apr 1, 2011)

Eek! That's terrible. It's about $0.75 a day to feed my kitty. >__<

Hopefully someone here has some good ideas.


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## Arkadia (Apr 11, 2011)

MinkaMuffin said:


> Eek! That's terrible. It's about $0.75 a day to feed my kitty. >__<
> 
> Hopefully someone here has some good ideas.


Thank you for your reply  Unfortunately, the prices I found are actually the best prices I found online after over a dozen hours of research and comparisons, and I'm not even including the delivery fee in my cost estimates  Considering the Australian dollar is currently worth more than the US dollar, I really feel like I'm getting kicked in between the legs on this one :\


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## yellowdaisies (Jan 25, 2011)

Yikes, those are some HIGH prices!

Can you order from Amazon without the shipping being too expensive? I know there is an Amazon UK, but I don't know about Australia...Amazon has a lot of cat foods, at least here. 

My cats are still kittens, so they eat a LOT. We've recently transitioned Spencer to all canned, because he was getting chubby. Lily still eats some dry, but it's grain free. Eventually I plan to feed them all can. 

The cheapest way I have found to feed canned is buying Wellness 12 oz cans. Bigger cans= less $ per ounce. But I don't know if you have a way to get Wellness...

As for how much they eat per day, I'm still trying to figure that out!! Someone else can advise you better, I'm sure..


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## MinkaMuffin (Apr 1, 2011)

I just noticed that I completely ignored the second part of your thread >__<

As far as ratios go, if you feed half a can a day, that will really cut down on cost; then its just figuring out how much dry you need to supplement it.

For 5.5 or 6oz cans, 1 - 1 1/2 per day is usually about right. You really have to experiment to find the perfect amount.


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## Fyreflie (Mar 5, 2011)

We've had the same issue with our cats--we want to feed them wet, and preferably grain-free, but have a hard time affording at least 6 bucks a day (Wicket is 13-14 lbs, so getting at least 1.5 cans --5.5oz--a day and the kitten eats about the same, sometimes more, because he's growing and ravenous all the time!) just on food....

We did a few things: 

1) since Nature's Instinct seems to be the brand of grain-free they prefer, we order a case of the cheapest (chicken & something) they make, costs about 57 dollars for 24 cans. 

2) We also order a case of the Preference food from Amway, it's not grain free but doesn't seem to have a lot of crap in it, and no "by product" listings on the label. I bought an Amway IBO membership so I just order it from myself and save a few dollars a case that way. It's about 20 bucks for a case of 24 at membership price

3) we supplement all of that with either cans of grain-free/high-end from the petstore that are on sale or with cheap supermarket/petstore brands that have the least amount of crappy ingredients (grain low on the list, no "by products"--even the crappy brands seem to have differences from flavour to flavour, and we can usually find one that lists a real meat as a first ingredient). If we see them on sale....we buy tons and tons! 

4) Large (13oz-ish) cans are usually cheaper per oz than smaller ones, so we buy those when we can!

The dry food that we occasionally feed is grain-free (Nature's Variety again) and very high protein/fat so we feed less of it when we do feed it. In between, we keep it in the fridge to keep it "fresh" for longer. It's about 25 dollars a bag but that lasts months! If we're feeding the "crappy" wet food I tend to mix in a bit of the grain-free dry, although they haven't been loving that trick lately! 

Finally, we feed a combo of grain-free and cheap food every day, about half-half. 

Between all of those things we've been able to bring down our costs from 6-8 dollars a day to 3-ish.


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## doodlebug (May 13, 2006)

If you're feeding only wet food...on average an adult 10 lb cat needs one 5.5-6 oz can per day. That's a starting point, to be adjusted as needed, but it shouldn't be significantly different. Ideally an all wet diet is the best, but reality often intrudes...whether it's due to financial reasons, convenience or the cat's preference.

I currently feed 1/3 of a 5.5 oz can for breakfast (per cat), the same for dinner and 1/8 cup dry for bedtime snack. Add a couple tablespoons of water to the wet food and you'll make up for the water missing from the dry. 

I assume your reservations about the Holistic Select are the grains/carbs? There are significantly less carbs in the HS wet food than any kibble you can find. If your cats don't have any issues digesting grains, this may not be the best choice, it's certainly not a bad one. I feed it as part of my rotation of about 12-14 different foods and my cats really like it. 

I'm not surprised about the Science Diet and HS prices, after all it's being imported. But the Ziwi Peak price is crazy. I always thought it was high here because it was being imported from NZ, but seeing as you're "neighbors" with a lot of economic ties I would have thought the price would be significantly lower there. A reasonable price for ZP here is about $2.65-2.75.


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## Arkadia (Apr 11, 2011)

yellowdaisies said:


> Yikes, those are some HIGH prices!
> 
> Can you order from Amazon without the shipping being too expensive? I know there is an Amazon UK, but I don't know about Australia...Amazon has a lot of cat foods, at least here.
> 
> ...


 Unfortunately Amazon doesn't ship pet food here and we don't have an Australian Amazon site, nor do we have Wellness here. The largest premium cat food cans I've been able to find have been the 5.5oz cans, which really sucks. Thanks for trying to help!



MinkaMuffin said:


> I just noticed that I completely ignored the second part of your thread >__<
> 
> As far as ratios go, if you feed half a can a day, that will really cut down on cost; then its just figuring out how much dry you need to supplement it.
> 
> For 5.5 or 6oz cans, 1 - 1 1/2 per day is usually about right. You really have to experiment to find the perfect amount.


 Right now I'm feeding a half can a day to each cat and supplementing with dry, but I feel like I should be giving a lot less dry and a lot more wet. I was thinking 1 can a day should be good for them, so I'm glad to hear you supporting this too. 



Fyreflie said:


> We've had the same issue with our cats--we want to feed them wet, and preferably grain-free, but have a hard time affording at least 6 bucks a day (Wicket is 13-14 lbs, so getting at least 1.5 cans --5.5oz--a day and the kitten eats about the same, sometimes more, because he's growing and ravenous all the time!) just on food....
> 
> We did a few things:
> 
> ...


Thanks so much for your post, this is exactly the kind of information I was hoping to hear about! I'm going to have to try going to different pet stores, most around here are even pricier than the prices I listed above and have very little variety, but perhaps I can find some sales if I keep an eye out. 

Thanks for the tip on half-half quality and cheaper food - I'd been wondering how to do it and this sounds like a good compromise. 




doodlebug said:


> If you're feeding only wet food...on average an adult 10 lb cat needs one 5.5-6 oz can per day. That's a starting point, to be adjusted as needed, but it shouldn't be significantly different. Ideally an all wet diet is the best, but reality often intrudes...whether it's due to financial reasons, convenience or the cat's preference.
> 
> I currently feed 1/3 of a 5.5 oz can for breakfast (per cat), the same for dinner and 1/8 cup dry for bedtime snack. Add a couple tablespoons of water to the wet food and you'll make up for the water missing from the dry.
> 
> ...


Thanks a lot for your post! I appreciate the info on portion amounts, you give me confidence that it's doable. I'm glad to hear your opinion on the Holistic Select - you're right that I was worried about the grain amount, although I didn't take note of the carbs (I've only just started learning about proper cat nutrition) and so thank you for letting me know about that (especially that kibble contains more a lot more). I'm a lot more confident in putting it in my rotation now, and really compared to 99% of the brands I can find that do wet food, it seems to be a really good food overall (certainly better than the Science Diet crap I'm currently feeding them). 

I was also really surprised about the ZiwiPeak pricing in Australia. I found a website in New Zealand selling the cans for $1.80 each (what I wouldn't give to live in NZ right now, with such cheap and great cat food), so it seems insane that the prices are so marked up here. I contacted the New Zealand pet store about importing, but the price of shipping will be over $30 and apparently I need some kind of meat import permit which costs over $100. So it's back to the drawing board on that.

I'd be curious to hear what the Australians on this site are feeding their cats and where they're sourcing it from - I assume there are at least a few Australians here? Come out, come out, wherever you are 

Really it's probably cheaper to go raw, but I'm going to have to wait until I get my own place and regular access to the supermarket for that. Moving out can't come soon enough.


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## OctoberinMaine (Sep 12, 2006)

I know what you mean about costs of good quality food being high, although it sounds like yours are much worse there. I was lucky to find a good quality 5.5-ounce can for only 59 cents here in the U.S. 

At any rate, I decided early on that if serving a good quality food means scrimping in other cat-related areas, like buying fewer toys, changing the litter a little less often, etc., then it's a tradeoff worth making. I think it all starts with good quality food, and the rest is icing on the cake, at least where finances are concerned.


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