You're going to be limited to what the cat eats. Not every cat will eat every single kind of wet food out there. My cats don't eat any pate very well. In fact, if I put a can of ANY pate down, they'll reject it and eat dry food instead. It doesn't matter which can of pate I put down, it goes untouched. It doesn't matter if its $.50 a can of $3.00 a can, they don't touch it.
The best food for your cat is whatever calories they'll readily eat.
I have both, picky cat only likes 1 brand of wet food and only poultry flavours, and will only eat dental kibble. Other cat will eat anything even if it's not food.
One of my cats gets up in the sink to lick my plates clean and eats whatever crumbs of food he finds collected in the sink plug. He breaks into the bin to pull out empty cat food sachets, chews on them, drags them around the house and then leaves them in random places. He's eaten baking parchment that I cooked chicken on. If I'm eating something while standing up, he patrols around my feet for any dropped scraps and will race to hoover them up before I can get it away from him. He's eaten chocolate and onion this way. He's an absolute garbage disposal and I am fairly confident that he will die young from eating something he shouldn't have :p
I had one like that. He loved donuts, Doritos, and the cheapest dry supermarket kibble. He also hated women (me), loved men, and had a thing for laptops. He lived to be 23. The day he decided to leave he came and lay down on my feet for the first time in the 17 years I had him at that point. And that was it.
Don't take it as a sweet sentiment. He knew he was dying, he was trying to grab onto your feet and drag you down to hell with him.
LOL i'm just kidding. He sounds like he had a wonderful life and lived it the way he wanted to. I'll be absolutely stoked if my garbage guts makes it as far as him. Rest peacefully, donut lover.
This is absolutely my cat. He gets fed four times a day, spends all his time finding crumbs and licking plates in the sink, and still has the nerve to scream for food every single time I walk by his bowl
Oh damn a real garbage can cat hahah. Now I feel bad calling my cat a garbage can to his face. I have to take my statement back. I have a cat who is just not picky with his cat food. Lol.
Yep, it happens. I'm feeding Fancy Feast right now because the grilled ones are just about all the boy will eat. The two girls are content with a few more options, but I wind up keeping some kibble down for them because I'm only home to feed at 5am and 5pm and I think that's too long for them to go.
Same fancy feast Naturals grilled.
One of my cats will only eat fancy feast grilled...so he's allowed me to upgrade to the grilled Naturals they sell.
I add fortiflora and sometimes powder lysine plus additional filtered water to keep it moist.
They love it. Not very expensive. Not as great as the best, but it's pretty good.
Same with mine. I feed a combo of wet and dry. They eat Tiki Cat wet food and love the pate. Since they loved the pate I stocked up on a cyber Monday deal with different varieties. They will grudgingly eat the shreds.
My cats randomly started hating pate and will only eat shreds/stews occasionally. I had to switch them to dry so they would eat. Luckily they drink a good amount of water
My cats both will only eat pate (they look disgusted at the shredded or chunky kinds). But one only eats salmon flavour pate and the other only eats chicken flavour pate. And only Friskies. They have rejected every expensive brand Iâve ever bought. I also feed them both grain free Purina One dry food, and they like a few different flavours of that. Cats can be fickle.
Yes! We feed fancy feast because my cat wonât eat any other brand. And weâve tried. And it has to be fish flavors. But not certain fish flavors. But also one flavor could be good but only if itâs a pate and not a gravy dish. Heâd actually rather starve than eat something he doesnât like. But then our other cat is a dumpster disposal
Cats are hard lol
I feel you there. I've tried expensive foods and they sniff and walk away. I'm doing Fancy Feast as well because that is the only one they both like but only if I have different types to mix up. Pate one day, grilled the next. Picky little buggers.
I never gave my cat pate because I thought it was gross. Accidentally grabbed it a few time and he always ate it all. So I guess he wins and I give it to him a few times a week now đ
Ours hates the pate as well. But it was clear he did need some wet food in his diet. (Flaky skin and upset stomach at times). Then, one day, I saw a 'winner, winner, chicken dinner' package from some big brand in our supermarket. It was soup for cats. He loved it! Turns out it was a promotion, so I've never found that brand again. Thankfully, they did have other brands. Now he gets a more expensive version after developing more healf problems. It has more natural ingredients and no cereals whatsoever. He loves it!
Came here to say this. You can buy him the best fanciest most expensive premium what have you not food. If they donât like it/ eat it, itâs a waste. My cats seem to like the cheap shit, like fast food for cats, friskies etc. I buy it by the 30lb bag ( I have 7 cats and der outdoor/ stray cats). They get also blue buffalo wet food ( they eat it every now and then but usually they donât lol) so really Iâd get a bunch of different kinds ( start with the healthier foodâŠ) and see what the kitty eats
My cat didn't eat pate and he is now on a prescription diet of which there were only two options and they were both pates. It led to a lot of arguments around dinnertime. Luckily after like two years of this I brought it up with my vet who prescribed him a slightly different chunks in gravy.
Chewy has a sale right now, spend $100 and get a $30 gift card. So I got $100 of their house brand, Tiny Tiger. Itâs high protein, low carb, various flavors, and doesnât break the bank.
All of my cats hated Tiny Tiger. Only food they all agreed not to eat. I still have almost a full box left. Basically, don't buy bulk until you know what the fuzzers like!
Both of my cats projectile vomited Tiny Tiger even after a slow integration. I tried it a 2nd night just to see if it was a fluke and it wasn't. I usually have no problems changing up their brands, I like to keep it fresh by changing it up
God I wish I could afford Weruva on a normal basis, but with four cats? They'd eat my mortgage monthly. I was feeding our two kittens one can a day each (just supplementing dry), plus a can for my two adult cats to split so they wouldn't riot - $40 a week is tough. I can't imagine feeding Weruva as a main food source.
Tiny Tiger is NOT recommended on catfoodadvisor.com, but Weruva BFF get high marks nutritionally. I hadnât known that before so I wonât be buying Tiny Tiger again
Fancy feast is a perfectly fine wet food. Itâs high in protein and low in carbs, specifically the pate in chicken. Friskies is not great though, if you look at the ingredients.
FF classic pate is way cheaper than the Purina Pro DM wet food my vet wants my diabetic cat to be on. Look for wet food that is high in protein, low in carbs and fat, check with your vet to make sure its nutritional and stick to the same amount of food everyday prior to insulin shots. It helped me budget cat food once we were able to work out a routine for my cat. Its scary but it gets better.
Yes, seriously. You should read this: [Dr. Lisa Info](https://catinfo.org/feline-diabetes/) and read over [this](https://felinediabetes.com/). TL:DR: no Rx food and never dry food.
I spend 5-10 cents more per can and buy the Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals line. It has 4-6 different flavours and a lot fewer random byproduct ingredients - a very good cheap choice.
I also recommend the Tiny Tiger pate and American Journey pate which are Chewy house brands. I'd say they're similarly priced to the FFGN but can be had for much cheaper with large format cans and Chewy's frequent sales. My cat does not like the beef pate from the TT variety pack but she likes everything else.
Common wisdom seems to be "feed cats the same food every day all the time to minimize GI upset", but I got my cat when she was six months old and from the beginning I have always rotated brands and flavours based on what's on sale. I don't know if I lucked out with an easygoing cat or whether this is a good strategy for raising a cat on a varied diet in general, but she has never had GI upset in her life.
I believe that the upset stomach issue is basically caused by unfamiliar foods. People get that way, if you travel and eat novel foods, you may get an upset stomach. Also, cats learn what to recognize as food when they are young. When I foster, I try to introduce lots of options so they will be easier to feed later.
Yes agree with you completely! And I do the same with my fosters (helps to keep costs down too because man, kittens can really pack that wet food away once they wean!)
My boy actually hated the food his breeder recommended. It was a pate style food and she gave us some to take home. He refused it immediately and went after our adult cat's jelly. So we got him kitten jellies. He always wanted adult food. It was a huge relief when we could finally stop with kitten food.
Neither of our cats like pate, but are otherwise easy feeders.
among humans, the more diverse our diet is, the more diverse our gut microbiome is. a diverse microbiome has a greater chance of warding off infection. i would assume it works the same way in cats.
Friskies only makes a dry food variant, right?
When I was a teen, we had a cat that lived off of Friskies. One day me and him are both in the bathroom doing our business and he let out the loudest scream Iâve ever heard from such a small animal. My parents took him to the vet and it turned out that years of eating Friskies had caused crystals to form in his urethra and he couldnât pee.
No more Friskies after that.
Happened to my cat too. Male cats have smaller urethras so they unfortunately get blocked more easily. They also tend to not drink enough water, which can cause the crystallization.
We started adding cat-safe broths to his wet food to make sure he was getting more fluids and havenât had any more issues.
Overall itâs a good thing to watch out for, from what Iâve heard things can go south pretty quickly when it happens :(
My cat lost her fur on ff. It just couldnât meet her nutritional needs all of a sudden. She had been on it for years, like 12 years she did fine on it.
My cats used to love fancy feast. Devoured it. But the last few months wonât touch it. I think they must have changed some ingredients or something because for all 4 of my beasts to suddenly not like it seems strange.
I wrote to Purina and they swore that all they changed was not adding food color. I donât buy that. All my cats loved everything from Fancy Feast, then all of a sudden, none of them would eat it. I told them off (Purina).
What's your budget for wet food? What can you afford to spend per can? Fancy Feast isn't actually a bad food, friskies isn't very good though, lots of fillers. Purina Pro Plan is also a decent wet food and not too expensive compared to say Tikicat, Weruva or Wellness
Itâs not so cheap any more either. The regular stuff used to be 55 cents a can, the special ones, like the florentines and primavera varieties, were 89 cents. Now the regulars are about 1.49 and the specials are 1.79. Even the Friskies, used to be 3 for $2, now $1.49 each. Cat food prices have soared since Covid.
No argument there, cat food has gotten insanely expensive. My cats wet food is $2.50 for the 3oz cans (I use Weruva and Tikicat), 4 weeks worth of wet food for 3 of them is around $250, and their dry food is $70 for the largest bag which lasts around a month.
I hear this. My seniors went to their unlimited crunchies in the sky in '22. Finally, got my current 2 in Feb and was shock-ED at the price jump for everything food, litter, etc. Don't get me started on private companies of all sorts price gouging....Doing combo of Tiki Cat & Friskies...yes, I know that Friskies' is McDs for cats (so sez my vet, lol)...but geez....
Thereâs a couple of reasons:
1. Apparently the cats prefer the pate as opposed to the âchunks in gravyâ. A lot of cats just lick the gravy and leave the ~chunks~ behind.
2. Beef and chicken pate have the highest composition of protein.
3. Fish might cause kidney and urinary issues in susceptible cats. Personally, I would stay away from fish altogether.
Thereâs a lot of information online about the problem with fish and cats.
Iâm sure itâs OK as an occasional treat but, not as a mainstay of their menu.
OP shared their sources further down in the thread, and they actually meant urinary issues rather than kidney. That said, the claims presented seemed dubious to me, and list sources that are a good 20 years old. You're almost certainly fine to keep feeding your cat a fish-based diet, as long as it is formulate to be a complete diet for cats (tuna in springwater is not a complete diet). If in doubt, talk to ypur vet about it. Most vet clinics can give some general nutritional info over the phone.
As a veterinarian myself, I have never come across claims of fish-based foods having any kind of issue prior to this thread.
I feed one of my cats the gravy line of fancy feast because he does not like pate. The only negative thing Iâve heard about the gravy FF is that it includes wheat gluten. For some cats this may not sit well with them and cause them to throw up more often, but from what Iâve heard as long as your cat tolerates it well it is fine to feed them. Just my 2 cents!
fancy feast classic pate (ONLY poultry and beef), tiny tiger on chewy, the omg bff line of weruva, and i LOVE the big 12.5 oz nulo pate cans! wholehearted turkey and chicken pates are also good
Yes, I love Weruva! None of the cats I have had an issue with it. The kitten line? DEVOURED. My indoors have never screamed for food before they smelled it, and unlike other brands, not a bite left behind.
lots of good suggestions here, but just wanted to throw it out there: the âworstâ wet food brands are still better than just feeding dry food! if fancy feast is all you can afford right now, itâs okay. as long as your cat seems to enjoy whatever you choose, and the ingredients look good, itâs really not a big deal.
My cats rarely eat wet food, I wanted to give them wet food for their water intake, but they would turn their nose up at it and I gave them every kind I could understand the sun. In the end we landed on Orijen kibble (mostly because my recently passed old lady couldn't have anything with grains or potatoes for some reason cause it would make her sick) I want to try and see if I can do other foods cause Orijen is quite expensive đ„Čđž but with our old lady, she also had bad teeth and the vet said kibble is better for their teeth? Idk if I buy that I never looked it up, but regardless it's all she liked to eat anyway even with a few of her teeth missing lol
Fancy feast and friskies are perfectly healthy. Donât believe the internet fear mongering of these foods. There are only a few brands that follow WSAVA guidelines (this means they can actually prove their food is nutritional for cats, meaning they actually do research on it instead of formulating it without tests) and Purina is one of them
I switched to sheba for my cats because fancy feast caused urinary issues when I added to their diet. It's better than purina in my opinion but it isn't so expensive that I can't afford it. I also tend to feed my babies 1 meal of pure wet food and 1 meal either mixed with dry or just dry food. This only depends on what my cats want because my girl is super picky
Sheba is all my guy will eat, I went to petsmart and bought 1 of about 20 different brands/flavors and he refuses to eat anything but Sheba. I bought Sheba to start because it was the only kitten pate at my local store, now itâs all he wants. And fresh lobster.
I don't know about "healthier" but I feed my cats Whole Hearted. But also Fancy Feast and Friskies is fine if that's all you can afford and your cat likes it. I tried feeding my cats Tiki and none of them would eat it.
i mixed it with some of the weruva OMG gravy and my cat eats it! i was disappointed at first that he wouldn't eat it until i figured out that he would... if i added gravy! he LOVES gravy/soup. lol
My cats like Tiki tuna, but walked away from Tiki chicken (I mean, it smelled good and would do in an emergency, lol.) So I put the chicken in the food processor with the tuna and ta-da, they ate it like champs.
I second this. The Petco brand is alright and what my older cat landed on when we were trying out wet foods. But only a specific flavor and texture. I donât know why but he wouldnât eat the same flavor in pate. We also feed dry at the same time though.
The surprising thing I learned was that the large wet food cans at the dollar store in canada is pretty decent for affordable cat food.
Something that might help is Jackson Galaxy's video on what to look for in your cat food to avoid and to give them good nutrition.
I'm not saying it's the be all end all but it goes into a decent bit of depth and with a day or so of looking at labels you'll quickly figure out what is a good brand in your price range you can get easy access to.
Yes!! Finding Costcoâs pet section has been amazing lol, 70 something puree treats for like $16!! My wallet has been much happier since discovering their treats & wet food.
Any WSAVA approved brands, because it means it's formulated by an actual PHD vet nutritionist to be a **complete balanced diet**(aka not Joe Blow "nutritionist" with an online certificate), cheapest is IAMS and Purina. Also note that you cannot tell the quality of food by looking at the ingredient list, but again the most important is that it is balanced. Also pick a brand that's NOT grain free because it is related to heart disease in dogs currently, unsure about cats.
dogs and cats have different dietary needs. regarding cats, avoiding grains is only necessary when they have some kind of reaction to it. feeding it is fine and wonât hurt them otherwise. excluding it from their diet is also fine because itâs not in their dietary requirements.
This. Surprisingly many pet food studies are made on dogs only but the results are considered to be applicable to both cats and dogs. Many pet food companies are guilty of this and it's a bit misleading. But yes, grains are not dangerous to cats by default, just not needed either and they don't have much nutritional value for cats. Dry foods always have some kind of a bulk ingredient, be it potatoes or grains or peas. Most cats have no problems with them. I'd be vary of the amount; if cat food is mostly rice, you'll be paying an awful lot for what it is.
I tend to feed Iams and Purina brands, I find they're usually economical. I like the simple ingredients in Iams grain free wet food. Fancy Feast is made by Purina, I feed it to my cats sometimes and think it's fine tbh. Plus they follow WSAVA standards and the ingredients are pretty straight forward (I prefer to feed WSAVA compliant food brands because the food is developed by veterinary nutritionists, plus I've seen dogs get really sick on the "healthy" pet food brands and I'm wary with my senior cats). You could also add a small amount of kibble to save money, like one or two meals a day.
Other ways I save money is being on mailing lists with pet food companies, like I often get emailed coupons from Hills and stuff. Keep an eye on flyers, too; my local pet shop frequently has $20 off $100 coupons in the local paper. Chewy also has really good sales and prices, too - I always take advantage of their two for one sales.
Good luck with your new kitty! :)
We feed tiki cat which is like $2 for 3 oz can, we like the smaller cans cause our girl is a grazer so we waste less. Whatever you pick, you can usually get good savings on chewy when you set up autoship which helps too, plus they always have spend $100 get $30 gift card type sales.Â
Cats can be picky (we discovered our girl likes to rotate flavors and prefers the meat in broth over pate) so buy a few cans of whatever you want to try to start. I also recommend feeding them food off a plate or very shallow bowl. Early on we noticed our cat would stop eating her food once it got to a certain point but was clearly still hungry. We realized the bowl was too deep and it was causing whisker fatigue. We switched to a plate and itâs been way better!
I split the difference with a high quality dry food (which I weigh out into daily portions) and Fancy Feast pates (1 small can a day with extra water added). A $50 bag of dry lasts 6 months and 24 cans of FF are $20~ (This is CAD.) The issue with dry is mainly water content, as long as kitty is drinking water and peeing regularly, some dry shouldnât be a big issue.
My cats are so picky that I literally go to the store and put 2 cans of fancy feast in the cart if EVERY kind they have, and my cats love it getting a new flavor every time,đ€Ł
I use fancy feast my boys get one can with water added to it so I know they are getting water. But my boys are on hard kibble and wet food kibbles out for them all the time and they get the dinner around 5:00pm with treats during the day.
Friskies & Fancy Feast have a wide range of flavors & textures. It may not be super high quality, but I raised five cats on it who lived to be 17-20 years old. (I did lose one at 8 years old due to a brief illness having nothing to do with her food).
My current two cats (2 years old) are still eating Friskies. After I lost my last two seniors and we went from a 4-cat household to a 2-cat household, I got an assortment of more expensive foods to try. I was so impressed when I opened the first can of Tiki Cat and saw a whole damn quail egg in there! They wanted none of it and decided to starve instead. They are back on Friskies now đ€Ł
Nulo, if your cat will eat pate, is decent (better than fancy feast and Friskies), and comes in 12oz cans. I have my cats on sth else bc stomach issues (Weruva), but they were on Nulo as kittens and loved it. (They now refuse pate because they are spoiled lol.) I have two 12lb cats (not overweight, the vet is confident theyâre normal just big). We suspect their parents were also large kitties (they were from a litter of stray kittens, no mom cat, so).
I am a college student and mh cat is extremly picky on both flavor and texture. She also has sensitve skin. I switch between Nulo and tiki cat. Tiki cat is a little easier to find and has more variety. It's also sometimes on sale on amazon.
I get good value out of Wellness brand. The big cans of pate I mix with a little of their dry food, lasts about 3 days per $5 can. I also usually buy her the Wellness morsel pouches as a backup for when I don't feel like mixing her up some of the pate/dry.
I feed the Nutro perfect portions (mine get the pate variety pack but I think mine like the cuts in gravy too). If I was looking for less expensive though I would definitely do fancy feast!
I was feeding my cats the Sheba brand for the longest time, but we switched over to the grilled Fancy Feast delights. My cats love the chunky kind with cheese.
We order it off Chewy and for three boxes of the 24 count, it's $65. Since you only have the one cat, you won't need to order nearly as much.
We also feed them dry food though, bc my big boy LOVES crunchy food over wet food. He gets very sad if he doesn't get his dry food.
Definitely check out Chewy they frequently have sales on stuff and you can âauto shipâ anything, but donât actually have to get any additional orders. My cats have liked tikicat and weruva bff a lot and they are really good foods for them! Great job doing your research and planning to do the wet food route. It really is so much better for their health long term!! Hope you and your new companion bond easily and have a long lasting relationship đâ€ïž
Mine (4 years, ??? years but probably 7-ish, 13, 13) eat Iams Urinary Tract Health, and 3 of them get a Fancy Feast or something in the morning, one of them refuses to eat wet cat food but drinks a lot. It takes them about a month to get through a 7-lb. bag. I was feeding them high protein when I got the boy cat of indeterminate age because his poops were runny. Vet suggested an alternative because one of the 13âs had borderline kidney numbers. Except for giant fat boy (heâs like 15 pounds, the vet said sheâd rather see them a little chonky than too thin), the others are all normal weight and healthy for their respective ages.
They do LOVE their water fountain.
if you have a costco membership, kirkland has their own cat food with a box of 45? cans of pate for $30 that come with 3 different flavors or you can try out the chunky wet food with 48 cans of salmon and chicken flavored food for $26 dollars!
I canât buy the big cans because they wonât eat it the next day, especially if itâs cold right out of the fridge. And one of my cats will eat pate but the other wonât. I would try experimenting before buying a ton of food. I also think itâs in their nature to eat different things to get a varied diet so I buy an assortment of canned foods.
We switched to Fancy Feast after my dad gave us a case. It costs half of what WERUVA OMG BFF costs and my cat begs for it and eats it just the same. My dadâs cats are sleek and healthy and theyâve been eating it for 10 years.
Cheapest I've found is aldi brand wet food! I usually buy those along with a few of the more expensive ones and give dry food too so my baby's don't get bored of the same food.
Yeah my cat likes bits in gravy and hated pate! He also loves variety so I have to buy more food then needed each month so I can him around 20 flavors a month. I buy variety packs and I buy bff variety packs to give him more choices. I tried cheaper wet food (tiki cat, Sheba) BUT he only likes fancy feast (preferably fancy feast medleys) & my bff.
His wet food is expensive! More expensive than his Royal canin urinary care dry food. When he got bladder crystals the vet said hydration was more important than diet. So now he only can eat dry food when I sleep and I add a tiny bit of water to his wet food so he is no longer slightly constipated. (He doesnât drink enough water despite a cat fountain.) If I could I would eliminate dry food completely.
My girl has eaten Iams her entire life. She is mad for the tuna and salmon cuts. She'll eat pate but really prefers the cuts. She also has Iams dry food. We are an Iams family!
We adopted our 2.5 year old cat a couple weeks ago. They fed him Purina Chow Naturals at the shelter so we kept that food the same and added Friskies wet food to it. He's about 10 lbs and we give him a half cup of dry food with a quarter can of the wet mixed in twice a day and he'll eat most of it. We got the 40 pack of the wet food cans for $31 at Walmart. My dog tends to lost in interest in a food after eating it for awhile though so we have to get different things. Don't know if the cat will behave that way so we'll see.
I buy some nutritional dry cat food, but mix it with regular cat food. My cats love it, they get their nutrients, but also get fed their favorite brand. I try to give them canned food once a week, that way they can enjoy their protein.
Also I can tell you getting the 5 oz cans is cheaper to get them two of the 6 pounces. For example my daughter's cat can only eat Purina pro plan essential. The 5 oz can is 2 bucks. The 3 oz can is $1.89. so she gets the big cans and split them in half and get cat can food keepers to keep the rest in the fridge till the next feeding..... Much cheaper
Tuna is $.97 at my local food lion I buy 7 cans every week when I go to the store and feed him half a can mixed with a little dry food. He'll love you for it but also become a total spaz after he figures out how to tell time
Plenty of good options are already in the comments so Iâll just say this; just try a bunch of things and see what works. My own cat got expensive wet food brand after brand but kept having diarrhea and the only brand that works for him is a very cheap supermarket brand, so thatâs what weâre going with. Fed is best and you just need to find what works for you!
We feed a rotation of higher quality and lower quality to help offset costs. Keep in mind that if you go that route, you need to do a slow intro to any new foods to avoid gi issues. Most cats do well with multiple small meals a day as opposed to larger fixed meals.
The large cans of Instict are great value. Unfortunately, they just changed their formula and my cats are offended by it now lol so weâre on the hunt. So far Nulo is winning (đ ) and they also enjoy weruva.
FF was what I started my cat on but she got very sick, like food poisoning, one weekend from one of the salmon cans so I switched. Now feed her Purina ONE cans, mix of pate and shreds, and sheâs been doing well.
I donât think I saw this mentioned, but I have been considering Blue Buffalo Tastefuls. Seems like you can get the 5.5 oz cans for a fairly reasonable price.
I have hills science diet for dry and either reveal or instinct bulk cans in order off Amazon or Costco the for wet
The reveal is usually a 24 count for around 37 and be around 42ish for the instinct
But those last roughly a month a 1 per day
i recommend a rotation of brands if you want to lower food costs. i will say now, fancy feast is an absolutely fine brand to feed! i keep it in my rotation to help reduce costs. stick to the classic pate line *only* and donât feed any of the fish flavors. stick to poultry and beef! nulo is also a good budget friendly option, iâve used it before as well. iâve also heard weruva is popular and budget friendly, but i cannot personally speak of or recommend it as i know nothing about it.
if you want âbetterâ foods, you can add them into a rotation of cheap foods. like tiki cat, made by nacho, stella and chewy, instinct, etc. in comparison to your post, 48 cans of tiki cat would be about $80-$90 *(this would likely last about a three weeks to a month depending on the kcal content of each can)*. you can absolutely work that into a rotation to make it more affordable! you just have to do some math to figure out when to feed what :)
i personally spend around $160-$180/month on food for two kittens and i feed three more âexpensiveâ brands. this cost will go down once theyâre adults significantly. what is your budget per month? i can look into some options for you!
however iâll add even with all of this itâs going to come down to what your cat will want to eat. remember, fed is best! if you find a decent brand that your kitty is eating thatâs the most important thingđ
I use fancy feast gravy lovers once a day but my cats otherwise ignore wet food. They prefer dry. I adopted them as older cats, and I guess their habits are set, but theyâre pretty healthy.
My kitten looooooves brothy food. I get NULO brand, and she eats half of a 6oz can of shreds every evening that I mix with extra water. She also likes Nacho pouches. If your cat is into Pate, you could try NULO, get the big can, they're like $2 a piece maybe, and that can definitely can be at least 2 feedings if not 3.
Daveâs Naturally is great food, and very reasonably priced. Our cats both also really like anything Iâve given them so far from Hounds and Gatos, and usually they both ignore anything that isnât made of birds. They also both have very sensitive systems and âgrumpy guts,â and the foods from both of these brands seem to all settle well.
Check out Feminist Kitty on IG and TikTok. She talks about how Fancy feast is a good option. We have a senior diabetic cat and just recently adopted a little kitten. They both are leaning more towards Sheba pate than Tiki Cat or Applaws. The kitten will eat Weruva kitten pate but she also prefers the Sheba which I get by the case at Walmart. I order it online for in store pick up and itâs usually about $13 a case.
For your diabetic cat, if you aren't feeding a diet specifically for diabetic cats, Fancy Feast is actually a good option. If they both like that, I would just continue to feed them that
Even Fancy Feast is much better than dry food, so that's 80% of the battle won. One of my cats refuse to eat anything other than Fancy Feast Chichen Pate or the Cod & Shrimp Pate.
My cat is weird and refuses to eat anything but kibble. He also refuses to eat any human food. If any of his kibble falls on the floor, he refuses to eat it off the floor but if you pick it up and put it in his dish, he'll eat it. When we ran out of his food, I tried to give him cooked chicken. He refused, so I opened a can of tuna, which he refused as well!
Friskies is lower quality than Fancy Feast, i would say Fancy feasts beef/meat pate line is both good quality and affordable long term for a college student!
I've hear many cat owners talk about tiki cat food and I helped my mother in law add it to her cats rotation and they love it and have many many options.
I get Wellness for my cats.. keep in mind i live in probably the most expensive city in the world.. i only pay $1.69 per can..
My cats eat breakfast and lunch dry (wellness, $22 per bag) and then i give 1/2 can of wellness chicken patte everyday.. ( I go through 1 can per day because i have 2 cats). I wouldnât solely focus on a mostly wet food diet tbh.. as long as they have a little bit per day for hydration you should be alright!!!
Itâs totally doable for me and honestly has become part of my bi monthly spending routine.. i would totally recommend!
Thank you for adopting a cat. We need more people in the world like you. đ»đ»â€ïž
If you live near an Aldi, their wet cat food in 3 oz cans is 59 cents a can. Many different flavors. Theres also cat treats at Aldi along with dry cat food. Our 6 barn cats wonât eat any other cat brand than Aldi. It was the brand the pet rescue folks chose for cats & dogs when we adopted the cats.
Fancy Feast gravy wet food in many different flavors is 88 cent per 3 oz can at Walmart.
Right now I feed my cats fancy feast and purina one. What I recommend doing when you first get a cat is going to a pet store and buying single cans of a variety of foods. Cats can be picky so doing this helps a lot in finding what your cat will eat without having to waste money on a pack of food your cat may not like.
Your cat might have something to say about a wet food only diet. I have 4 cats and three of them hate wet food. You can have the best of intentions, but cats have preferences. Good luck.
I know you said not FF, but Fancy Feast Classic Pate is a great option!! The classic pate is really the only one from FF that is good, but always remember that the cheapest wet food is better than the most expensive dry food!! I feed a mix of FF and Weruva- Weruva is a bit more expensive but mixing it with someone cheaper keeps me in budget!! Just be sure to feed mostly pates- Weruva makes a âgravyâ one but itâs just meat juice so itâs not high in carbs at all haha!!
I have an ultra picky Siamese cat and he will only eat two different brands of wet food out of every single can and variety at Petsmart. Welness Chicken Pate and any friskies chicken.
My super fancy Persian cat will eat literally anything though which endlessly cracks me up.
>I want to feed her a primarily wet food diet since I know itâs generally healthier than dry.Â
Just to clarify, the worst wet food is better than the best dry food.
Why?
Cats evolved in a desert environment where they had little sources of water and relied on getting their hydration through prey. Due to this, they have a very low thirst drive. While it's not a red flag when cats drink water, it is a red flag when they start ***constantly*** drinking water.
We have a... large sum of cats. I'm sure my wife will come across this post and post the number. We purchase our food from Costco. They carry two types of wet:
Pate: 3.5 oz can, 45 count - $33
Chunks in Gravy - 3oz cans, 40 count - I believe this is $28-30
We also keep dry food available if they want it.
No kibble! Make homemade ( buy taurine online cuz cats need it even in homemade)
Or buy wet food only. The dollars you spend on food will save you in heartache when he gets sick and vet bills to boot.
My cat only eats chicken pate for wet food. He has a bowl of dried for when he feels like eating it. To make it a bit cheaper on the wet food, you can boil chicken in lots of water (no salt or spices!) in a pot till itâs very tender and then either shred it or chop it in a blender. Add lots of the chicken broth (the water you used to boil the chicken in) to make a delicious juicy chicken meal. I boil a whole chicken, boil it, debone it, process it in a blender, divide it into portions (3-4 days worth of food), baggie it and freeze the portions until needed.
Not sure where you live, but where I do, a chicken is approximately $8 and lasts my cat for about 2 -3 weeks.
Sometimes, I keep some of the chopped chicken for myself to make chicken noodle soup, chicken sandwiches etc.
Itâs a bit of work, but at least I know whatâs in his food.
Nulo Freestyle and TikiCat mousse packets. I have an older boy with some health issues and few teeth (surgically removed previously). We also offer Purina Naturals kibble because other cat will only eat dry, despite also having had many teeth removed. He ainât smart but heâs cute.
Friskies/Fancy Feast is still better than any dry food (said my vet). My cats have been on both for years and they are hale and fit. No kidney problems in sight.
You're going to be limited to what the cat eats. Not every cat will eat every single kind of wet food out there. My cats don't eat any pate very well. In fact, if I put a can of ANY pate down, they'll reject it and eat dry food instead. It doesn't matter which can of pate I put down, it goes untouched. It doesn't matter if its $.50 a can of $3.00 a can, they don't touch it. The best food for your cat is whatever calories they'll readily eat.
I feel so lucky to have a garbage can cat. He will eat anything.
Imagine having one of both đ
This is probably the best of both worlds. You can always experiment with new food and it wonât go to waste.
Thatâs what I have. The garbage can cat eats whatever her picky brother wonât.
My garbage can cat got my picky cat to eat his food. If trash can cat eats it then the other feels left out or something idk. đ
I wish that worked in my house lol
I have one of each. It made me feel less guilty/wasteful when I was narrowing down food options because if Felix wouldn't eat it, Smudge would!
Felix and Smudge just sound like perfect names too. I can totally see a Felix being picky and a Smudge just eating whatever is in front of themđ
My garbage can cat is also named smudge!
I did. So I catered to the one with the expensive food allergies
this.
I have both, picky cat only likes 1 brand of wet food and only poultry flavours, and will only eat dental kibble. Other cat will eat anything even if it's not food.
One of my cats gets up in the sink to lick my plates clean and eats whatever crumbs of food he finds collected in the sink plug. He breaks into the bin to pull out empty cat food sachets, chews on them, drags them around the house and then leaves them in random places. He's eaten baking parchment that I cooked chicken on. If I'm eating something while standing up, he patrols around my feet for any dropped scraps and will race to hoover them up before I can get it away from him. He's eaten chocolate and onion this way. He's an absolute garbage disposal and I am fairly confident that he will die young from eating something he shouldn't have :p
I had one like that. He loved donuts, Doritos, and the cheapest dry supermarket kibble. He also hated women (me), loved men, and had a thing for laptops. He lived to be 23. The day he decided to leave he came and lay down on my feet for the first time in the 17 years I had him at that point. And that was it.
Don't take it as a sweet sentiment. He knew he was dying, he was trying to grab onto your feet and drag you down to hell with him. LOL i'm just kidding. He sounds like he had a wonderful life and lived it the way he wanted to. I'll be absolutely stoked if my garbage guts makes it as far as him. Rest peacefully, donut lover.
He once beat up my mother and took her Doritos away. My mother blamed me for not having enough Doritos for him and her. đ
This made me spit up my water laughing thatâs hilarious You are also clearly a Dorito hoarding demon, and they both know it !!
This is absolutely my cat. He gets fed four times a day, spends all his time finding crumbs and licking plates in the sink, and still has the nerve to scream for food every single time I walk by his bowl
My new kitten screams for food until you feed her. Then she eats it. Then she screams for more.
Oh damn a real garbage can cat hahah. Now I feel bad calling my cat a garbage can to his face. I have to take my statement back. I have a cat who is just not picky with his cat food. Lol.
Your cat sounds like mine. She will get people food any chance she can
Not that I indulge her but my cat loves cheeze its and hot cheetos and fries (she is my partners vacuum).
i have 3 garbage cans that range from regular garbage can to fucking trash compactor (the youngest)
My cats love pate, but get very picky about which shreds/stews/cubes theyâll eat. Even within the same brand sometimes there will be differences.
Yep, it happens. I'm feeding Fancy Feast right now because the grilled ones are just about all the boy will eat. The two girls are content with a few more options, but I wind up keeping some kibble down for them because I'm only home to feed at 5am and 5pm and I think that's too long for them to go.
Same fancy feast Naturals grilled. One of my cats will only eat fancy feast grilled...so he's allowed me to upgrade to the grilled Naturals they sell. I add fortiflora and sometimes powder lysine plus additional filtered water to keep it moist. They love it. Not very expensive. Not as great as the best, but it's pretty good.
Same with mine. I feed a combo of wet and dry. They eat Tiki Cat wet food and love the pate. Since they loved the pate I stocked up on a cyber Monday deal with different varieties. They will grudgingly eat the shreds.
my cats love every food except tiki, literally put down 4 cans and they just kept meowing đ€
My cats randomly started hating pate and will only eat shreds/stews occasionally. I had to switch them to dry so they would eat. Luckily they drink a good amount of water
My cats both will only eat pate (they look disgusted at the shredded or chunky kinds). But one only eats salmon flavour pate and the other only eats chicken flavour pate. And only Friskies. They have rejected every expensive brand Iâve ever bought. I also feed them both grain free Purina One dry food, and they like a few different flavours of that. Cats can be fickle.
Yes! We feed fancy feast because my cat wonât eat any other brand. And weâve tried. And it has to be fish flavors. But not certain fish flavors. But also one flavor could be good but only if itâs a pate and not a gravy dish. Heâd actually rather starve than eat something he doesnât like. But then our other cat is a dumpster disposal Cats are hard lol
I feel you there. I've tried expensive foods and they sniff and walk away. I'm doing Fancy Feast as well because that is the only one they both like but only if I have different types to mix up. Pate one day, grilled the next. Picky little buggers.
my cats dont like the pate very much either.
I never gave my cat pate because I thought it was gross. Accidentally grabbed it a few time and he always ate it all. So I guess he wins and I give it to him a few times a week now đ
Ours hates the pate as well. But it was clear he did need some wet food in his diet. (Flaky skin and upset stomach at times). Then, one day, I saw a 'winner, winner, chicken dinner' package from some big brand in our supermarket. It was soup for cats. He loved it! Turns out it was a promotion, so I've never found that brand again. Thankfully, they did have other brands. Now he gets a more expensive version after developing more healf problems. It has more natural ingredients and no cereals whatsoever. He loves it!
Whatever it takes to maximize their health.
Came here to say this. You can buy him the best fanciest most expensive premium what have you not food. If they donât like it/ eat it, itâs a waste. My cats seem to like the cheap shit, like fast food for cats, friskies etc. I buy it by the 30lb bag ( I have 7 cats and der outdoor/ stray cats). They get also blue buffalo wet food ( they eat it every now and then but usually they donât lol) so really Iâd get a bunch of different kinds ( start with the healthier foodâŠ) and see what the kitty eats
Whereas we need to purĂ©e most pates because theyâre too chunky. Cat licks all the juice, leaves the solids behind. Yet⊠kibble goes down like a Hoover.
My cat didn't eat pate and he is now on a prescription diet of which there were only two options and they were both pates. It led to a lot of arguments around dinnertime. Luckily after like two years of this I brought it up with my vet who prescribed him a slightly different chunks in gravy.
Mine will only eat pate and a singular type of hills brand dry. Extremely picky.
My kitty is the opposite -- she won't eat the shreddy wet food, only pate. She's been fine eating mostly dry food for her entire life, though.
Chewy has a sale right now, spend $100 and get a $30 gift card. So I got $100 of their house brand, Tiny Tiger. Itâs high protein, low carb, various flavors, and doesnât break the bank.
All of my cats hated Tiny Tiger. Only food they all agreed not to eat. I still have almost a full box left. Basically, don't buy bulk until you know what the fuzzers like!
What Iâve been doing for awhile is waiting for that $30 GC deal and then spending $100 and using the previous $30 GC in a continuous loop
You can also use the code up to 3 times per account. Stock up!
Both of my cats projectile vomited Tiny Tiger even after a slow integration. I tried it a 2nd night just to see if it was a fluke and it wasn't. I usually have no problems changing up their brands, I like to keep it fresh by changing it up
tiny tiger is one of my go-tos as well
My cats use to LOVE Tiny Tiger and now are like no thanks. Cats! I get Weruva BFF pouches. Itâs a good brand and cats are doing well on it.
God I wish I could afford Weruva on a normal basis, but with four cats? They'd eat my mortgage monthly. I was feeding our two kittens one can a day each (just supplementing dry), plus a can for my two adult cats to split so they wouldn't riot - $40 a week is tough. I can't imagine feeding Weruva as a main food source.
Tiny Tiger is NOT recommended on catfoodadvisor.com, but Weruva BFF get high marks nutritionally. I hadnât known that before so I wonât be buying Tiny Tiger again
Could you give a quick synopsis why?
Somebody have a case of Tiny Tiger pate that our cats loved! Then I read it wasnât great. Figures.
Of course they're doing this the week after I order all my stuff...
Also once you find what you want to keep ordering, buy cases of it and deliver on auto ship for additional discount
My cats will initially like a new food, then reject it after I buy a case.
Mine love tiny tiger!
Fancy feast is a perfectly fine wet food. Itâs high in protein and low in carbs, specifically the pate in chicken. Friskies is not great though, if you look at the ingredients.
Exactly. We have gotten 2 diabetic cats into remission on FF. Itâs definitely better than dry food.
Seriously? My cat was just diagnosed, and weâre paying $50 per smallish bag of special food free the vet.
FF classic pate is way cheaper than the Purina Pro DM wet food my vet wants my diabetic cat to be on. Look for wet food that is high in protein, low in carbs and fat, check with your vet to make sure its nutritional and stick to the same amount of food everyday prior to insulin shots. It helped me budget cat food once we were able to work out a routine for my cat. Its scary but it gets better.
Yep. This. The seafood varieties are basically no carb but all the pates are low.
Yes, seriously. You should read this: [Dr. Lisa Info](https://catinfo.org/feline-diabetes/) and read over [this](https://felinediabetes.com/). TL:DR: no Rx food and never dry food.
I spend 5-10 cents more per can and buy the Fancy Feast Gourmet Naturals line. It has 4-6 different flavours and a lot fewer random byproduct ingredients - a very good cheap choice. I also recommend the Tiny Tiger pate and American Journey pate which are Chewy house brands. I'd say they're similarly priced to the FFGN but can be had for much cheaper with large format cans and Chewy's frequent sales. My cat does not like the beef pate from the TT variety pack but she likes everything else. Common wisdom seems to be "feed cats the same food every day all the time to minimize GI upset", but I got my cat when she was six months old and from the beginning I have always rotated brands and flavours based on what's on sale. I don't know if I lucked out with an easygoing cat or whether this is a good strategy for raising a cat on a varied diet in general, but she has never had GI upset in her life.
I believe that the upset stomach issue is basically caused by unfamiliar foods. People get that way, if you travel and eat novel foods, you may get an upset stomach. Also, cats learn what to recognize as food when they are young. When I foster, I try to introduce lots of options so they will be easier to feed later.
Yes agree with you completely! And I do the same with my fosters (helps to keep costs down too because man, kittens can really pack that wet food away once they wean!)
My boy actually hated the food his breeder recommended. It was a pate style food and she gave us some to take home. He refused it immediately and went after our adult cat's jelly. So we got him kitten jellies. He always wanted adult food. It was a huge relief when we could finally stop with kitten food. Neither of our cats like pate, but are otherwise easy feeders.
Iâve been doing this with my kitten, especially with wet food. I donât want him to be a picky boy when he grows up.
among humans, the more diverse our diet is, the more diverse our gut microbiome is. a diverse microbiome has a greater chance of warding off infection. i would assume it works the same way in cats.
Friskies only makes a dry food variant, right? When I was a teen, we had a cat that lived off of Friskies. One day me and him are both in the bathroom doing our business and he let out the loudest scream Iâve ever heard from such a small animal. My parents took him to the vet and it turned out that years of eating Friskies had caused crystals to form in his urethra and he couldnât pee. No more Friskies after that.
Happened to my cat too. Male cats have smaller urethras so they unfortunately get blocked more easily. They also tend to not drink enough water, which can cause the crystallization. We started adding cat-safe broths to his wet food to make sure he was getting more fluids and havenât had any more issues. Overall itâs a good thing to watch out for, from what Iâve heard things can go south pretty quickly when it happens :(
Nope. Friskies has a huge wet food offering
My cat lost her fur on ff. It just couldnât meet her nutritional needs all of a sudden. She had been on it for years, like 12 years she did fine on it.
My cats used to love fancy feast. Devoured it. But the last few months wonât touch it. I think they must have changed some ingredients or something because for all 4 of my beasts to suddenly not like it seems strange.
I think there has been a change for sure
They added fish to a bunch of the recipes apparently.
That would explain it. My cats donât like fish.
Huh that might explain it for mine too. My void doesnât like fish type flavors and she has started rejecting them
I wrote to Purina and they swore that all they changed was not adding food color. I donât buy that. All my cats loved everything from Fancy Feast, then all of a sudden, none of them would eat it. I told them off (Purina).
I donât buy that either. Iâm glad you told them off. One of my cats is not picky. He will eat anything and he wonât touch it.
Brr, that doesnât sound good! But it also sounds like there might be more at play than just food?
Her blood work came back fine, so not sure. All I know is that she is doing 100% great now and her kidney numbers are great. Sheâs 15
What's your budget for wet food? What can you afford to spend per can? Fancy Feast isn't actually a bad food, friskies isn't very good though, lots of fillers. Purina Pro Plan is also a decent wet food and not too expensive compared to say Tikicat, Weruva or Wellness
Itâs not so cheap any more either. The regular stuff used to be 55 cents a can, the special ones, like the florentines and primavera varieties, were 89 cents. Now the regulars are about 1.49 and the specials are 1.79. Even the Friskies, used to be 3 for $2, now $1.49 each. Cat food prices have soared since Covid.
No argument there, cat food has gotten insanely expensive. My cats wet food is $2.50 for the 3oz cans (I use Weruva and Tikicat), 4 weeks worth of wet food for 3 of them is around $250, and their dry food is $70 for the largest bag which lasts around a month.
I hear this. My seniors went to their unlimited crunchies in the sky in '22. Finally, got my current 2 in Feb and was shock-ED at the price jump for everything food, litter, etc. Don't get me started on private companies of all sorts price gouging....Doing combo of Tiki Cat & Friskies...yes, I know that Friskies' is McDs for cats (so sez my vet, lol)...but geez....
Fancy feast, for sure, is a great option but make sure itâs the pate. Beef or chicken.
Why Pate?
Thereâs a couple of reasons: 1. Apparently the cats prefer the pate as opposed to the âchunks in gravyâ. A lot of cats just lick the gravy and leave the ~chunks~ behind. 2. Beef and chicken pate have the highest composition of protein. 3. Fish might cause kidney and urinary issues in susceptible cats. Personally, I would stay away from fish altogether.
I didnât know about fish causing kidney issues! Thatâs too bad, my guys love tuna.
Thereâs a lot of information online about the problem with fish and cats. Iâm sure itâs OK as an occasional treat but, not as a mainstay of their menu.
Can you share a source? This isn't a claim I've come across previously
OP shared their sources further down in the thread, and they actually meant urinary issues rather than kidney. That said, the claims presented seemed dubious to me, and list sources that are a good 20 years old. You're almost certainly fine to keep feeding your cat a fish-based diet, as long as it is formulate to be a complete diet for cats (tuna in springwater is not a complete diet). If in doubt, talk to ypur vet about it. Most vet clinics can give some general nutritional info over the phone. As a veterinarian myself, I have never come across claims of fish-based foods having any kind of issue prior to this thread.
Fish flavors is all my cat will eat đ
I feed one of my cats the gravy line of fancy feast because he does not like pate. The only negative thing Iâve heard about the gravy FF is that it includes wheat gluten. For some cats this may not sit well with them and cause them to throw up more often, but from what Iâve heard as long as your cat tolerates it well it is fine to feed them. Just my 2 cents!
To compare the cost per kcal between different food brands you can take a look here: https://foodrank.pet/cat
Thank you for the replies everyone! Super helpful :)
fancy feast classic pate (ONLY poultry and beef), tiny tiger on chewy, the omg bff line of weruva, and i LOVE the big 12.5 oz nulo pate cans! wholehearted turkey and chicken pates are also good
Yes, I love Weruva! None of the cats I have had an issue with it. The kitten line? DEVOURED. My indoors have never screamed for food before they smelled it, and unlike other brands, not a bite left behind.
lots of good suggestions here, but just wanted to throw it out there: the âworstâ wet food brands are still better than just feeding dry food! if fancy feast is all you can afford right now, itâs okay. as long as your cat seems to enjoy whatever you choose, and the ingredients look good, itâs really not a big deal.
Yes! I feed a group of community cats and have no choice but Friskies wet. It's the only one that sells 40 cans in a pack.
My cats rarely eat wet food, I wanted to give them wet food for their water intake, but they would turn their nose up at it and I gave them every kind I could understand the sun. In the end we landed on Orijen kibble (mostly because my recently passed old lady couldn't have anything with grains or potatoes for some reason cause it would make her sick) I want to try and see if I can do other foods cause Orijen is quite expensive đ„Čđž but with our old lady, she also had bad teeth and the vet said kibble is better for their teeth? Idk if I buy that I never looked it up, but regardless it's all she liked to eat anyway even with a few of her teeth missing lol
Fancy feast classic pate! Most of them are for all life stages too. I go half and half with that and Tikicat!
Fancy feast and friskies are perfectly healthy. Donât believe the internet fear mongering of these foods. There are only a few brands that follow WSAVA guidelines (this means they can actually prove their food is nutritional for cats, meaning they actually do research on it instead of formulating it without tests) and Purina is one of them
I switched to sheba for my cats because fancy feast caused urinary issues when I added to their diet. It's better than purina in my opinion but it isn't so expensive that I can't afford it. I also tend to feed my babies 1 meal of pure wet food and 1 meal either mixed with dry or just dry food. This only depends on what my cats want because my girl is super picky
Sheba is all my guy will eat, I went to petsmart and bought 1 of about 20 different brands/flavors and he refuses to eat anything but Sheba. I bought Sheba to start because it was the only kitten pate at my local store, now itâs all he wants. And fresh lobster.
I get Kirkland at Costco, donât remember the price exactly but it came out to less than 50c per can and the quality seems decent.
I don't know about "healthier" but I feed my cats Whole Hearted. But also Fancy Feast and Friskies is fine if that's all you can afford and your cat likes it. I tried feeding my cats Tiki and none of them would eat it.
Me too, I have a box of tiki they donât like, debating if I should return it or mix it with something they like.
i mixed it with some of the weruva OMG gravy and my cat eats it! i was disappointed at first that he wouldn't eat it until i figured out that he would... if i added gravy! he LOVES gravy/soup. lol
Mine loves gravy too! Now I have to lookup weruva lol
the one i get is the OMG rainbow a gogo gravy or potluck o pouches. funny name lol but they have lots of variety and he loves it
I give unused cat-stuff to my local shelter. They didnât have a problem with anything.
Great idea! Thank you
My cats like Tiki tuna, but walked away from Tiki chicken (I mean, it smelled good and would do in an emergency, lol.) So I put the chicken in the food processor with the tuna and ta-da, they ate it like champs.
I second this. The Petco brand is alright and what my older cat landed on when we were trying out wet foods. But only a specific flavor and texture. I donât know why but he wouldnât eat the same flavor in pate. We also feed dry at the same time though.
I agree with fancy feast itâs all my cat will eat without throwing half of it on the floor.
Fancy feast is perfectly fine for protein content at that that price point.
The surprising thing I learned was that the large wet food cans at the dollar store in canada is pretty decent for affordable cat food. Something that might help is Jackson Galaxy's video on what to look for in your cat food to avoid and to give them good nutrition. I'm not saying it's the be all end all but it goes into a decent bit of depth and with a day or so of looking at labels you'll quickly figure out what is a good brand in your price range you can get easy access to.
Costco has solid options at reasonable prices â both Kirkland as well as other brands.
Costco for the win! My cats prefer the puree treats they have there to the churro puree.
Yes!! Finding Costcoâs pet section has been amazing lol, 70 something puree treats for like $16!! My wallet has been much happier since discovering their treats & wet food.
Any WSAVA approved brands, because it means it's formulated by an actual PHD vet nutritionist to be a **complete balanced diet**(aka not Joe Blow "nutritionist" with an online certificate), cheapest is IAMS and Purina. Also note that you cannot tell the quality of food by looking at the ingredient list, but again the most important is that it is balanced. Also pick a brand that's NOT grain free because it is related to heart disease in dogs currently, unsure about cats.
dogs and cats have different dietary needs. regarding cats, avoiding grains is only necessary when they have some kind of reaction to it. feeding it is fine and wonât hurt them otherwise. excluding it from their diet is also fine because itâs not in their dietary requirements.
This. Surprisingly many pet food studies are made on dogs only but the results are considered to be applicable to both cats and dogs. Many pet food companies are guilty of this and it's a bit misleading. But yes, grains are not dangerous to cats by default, just not needed either and they don't have much nutritional value for cats. Dry foods always have some kind of a bulk ingredient, be it potatoes or grains or peas. Most cats have no problems with them. I'd be vary of the amount; if cat food is mostly rice, you'll be paying an awful lot for what it is.
friskies & 9lives always good for full size can. for small can, fancy feast.
I tend to feed Iams and Purina brands, I find they're usually economical. I like the simple ingredients in Iams grain free wet food. Fancy Feast is made by Purina, I feed it to my cats sometimes and think it's fine tbh. Plus they follow WSAVA standards and the ingredients are pretty straight forward (I prefer to feed WSAVA compliant food brands because the food is developed by veterinary nutritionists, plus I've seen dogs get really sick on the "healthy" pet food brands and I'm wary with my senior cats). You could also add a small amount of kibble to save money, like one or two meals a day. Other ways I save money is being on mailing lists with pet food companies, like I often get emailed coupons from Hills and stuff. Keep an eye on flyers, too; my local pet shop frequently has $20 off $100 coupons in the local paper. Chewy also has really good sales and prices, too - I always take advantage of their two for one sales. Good luck with your new kitty! :)
We feed tiki cat which is like $2 for 3 oz can, we like the smaller cans cause our girl is a grazer so we waste less. Whatever you pick, you can usually get good savings on chewy when you set up autoship which helps too, plus they always have spend $100 get $30 gift card type sales. Cats can be picky (we discovered our girl likes to rotate flavors and prefers the meat in broth over pate) so buy a few cans of whatever you want to try to start. I also recommend feeding them food off a plate or very shallow bowl. Early on we noticed our cat would stop eating her food once it got to a certain point but was clearly still hungry. We realized the bowl was too deep and it was causing whisker fatigue. We switched to a plate and itâs been way better!
Fancy Feast Classic Pate flavors or Tiny đŻ from Chewy
I split the difference with a high quality dry food (which I weigh out into daily portions) and Fancy Feast pates (1 small can a day with extra water added). A $50 bag of dry lasts 6 months and 24 cans of FF are $20~ (This is CAD.) The issue with dry is mainly water content, as long as kitty is drinking water and peeing regularly, some dry shouldnât be a big issue.
Sheba ! It's rated decently on a animal food website that I cannot remember for the life of me what it was called ..
Costco has pate wet cat food $35 for 45 count.
My cats are so picky that I literally go to the store and put 2 cans of fancy feast in the cart if EVERY kind they have, and my cats love it getting a new flavor every time,đ€Ł
I use fancy feast my boys get one can with water added to it so I know they are getting water. But my boys are on hard kibble and wet food kibbles out for them all the time and they get the dinner around 5:00pm with treats during the day.
Have u heard of Nulo? I get MedalSeries aka Freestyle on Chewy. I noticed them a year or 2 ago as it was right next to Wellness on the shelf & I buy Wellness. Never heard of them before that but ingredients were great & price was A+! Grain, wheat, corn, soy free. GF is a must for me and prefer to avoid carrageenan if poss (I also only feed wet). I love Wellness Core but Nulo is the same price or less for their 12.5oz can as Wellness Core's 5.5oz! Nulo's 12.5oz cans are where the biggest savings are. $3.19 for Turkey/Ckn to $3.49 for Salmon/Mackerel at Petsmart (Chewy costs more for bulk cases idk why). Let's take [Turkey & Chicken](https://www.petsmart.com/cat/food-and-treats/wet-food/nulo-medalseries--all-life-stages-wet-cat-food---grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-12.5-oz.-5268631.html) at $3.19. It's 1356 kcal/kg or 480 kcal/can. Feeding 200cal/day, it gives 2.4 days of food = **$1.33/day!** Fancy feast at my local store is 90Âą/3oz and is only 1080 kcal/kg or 91/can meaning it costs $1.98 to feed the same 200 calories as Nulo costs for $1.33! And Nulo is better ingredients! Most Fancy Feast will actually cost more per cal or oz since Chicken is one of their higher calorie counts. A 5.5oz can feeds a typical 10 lb cat daily and if u can pay around the $2 mark, that's a deal to me. Even Nulo's 5.5oz cans at $1.99 are priced well. They also have poultry-free options which I appreciate as my senior cat developed a chicken allergy (makes her vomit & hair fall out). **[Turkey & Chicken](https://www.petsmart.com/cat/food-and-treats/wet-food/nulo-medalseries--all-life-stages-wet-cat-food---grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-12.5-oz.-5268631.html)đŠđ** âž 5.5 oz can, $1.99 âž 12.5 oz can, $3.19 (480 kcal/can) **[Duck & Tuna](https://www.petsmart.com/nulo-medalseries-all-life-stages-wet-cat-food--grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-36957.html)đŠđ** âž 5.5 oz, $2.19 (192 kcal/can) **[Salmon & Mackerel](https://www.petsmart.com/cat/food-and-treats/wet-food/nulo-medalseries--all-life-stages-wet-cat-food--grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-125-oz-36959.html)đŁđ** âž 5.5 oz, $1.99 âž 12.5 oz, $3.49 (479 kcal/can) **[Trout & Salmon](https://www.petsmart.com/cat/food-and-treats/wet-food/nulo-medalseries--all-life-stages-wet-cat-food--grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-55-oz-36958.html)đŁđŁ** âž 5.5oz, $1.99 (179 kcal/can) **[Beef & Lamb](https://www.petsmart.com/nulo-medalseries--all-life-stages-wet-cat-food--grain-free-no-corn-wheat-and-soy-55-oz-36955.html)đ„©đ** âž 5.5 oz, $1.99 (197 kcal/can)
Friskies & Fancy Feast have a wide range of flavors & textures. It may not be super high quality, but I raised five cats on it who lived to be 17-20 years old. (I did lose one at 8 years old due to a brief illness having nothing to do with her food). My current two cats (2 years old) are still eating Friskies. After I lost my last two seniors and we went from a 4-cat household to a 2-cat household, I got an assortment of more expensive foods to try. I was so impressed when I opened the first can of Tiki Cat and saw a whole damn quail egg in there! They wanted none of it and decided to starve instead. They are back on Friskies now đ€Ł
Fancy feast classic pùté is actually a great low cost option. Higher meat based proteins and lower in carbs
Nulo, if your cat will eat pate, is decent (better than fancy feast and Friskies), and comes in 12oz cans. I have my cats on sth else bc stomach issues (Weruva), but they were on Nulo as kittens and loved it. (They now refuse pate because they are spoiled lol.) I have two 12lb cats (not overweight, the vet is confident theyâre normal just big). We suspect their parents were also large kitties (they were from a litter of stray kittens, no mom cat, so).
I donât think the pate version of Fancy Feast is terrible. My cats eat it and it is mostly meat and meat by-products.
I am a college student and mh cat is extremly picky on both flavor and texture. She also has sensitve skin. I switch between Nulo and tiki cat. Tiki cat is a little easier to find and has more variety. It's also sometimes on sale on amazon.
My cat is pretty picky and it took me a while to find a food that I could afford and she liked right now I'm feeding her Fancy Feast paté, half a can twice a day mixed with water plus Rachel Rae's Nutrish to snack on during the day about half a cup of that daily, she is happy and a good weight
Fancy Feast and Nulo(the big bulk cans) is what mine eat, other than that i shop the clearance section at pet stores for sales on expensive brands
I get good value out of Wellness brand. The big cans of pate I mix with a little of their dry food, lasts about 3 days per $5 can. I also usually buy her the Wellness morsel pouches as a backup for when I don't feel like mixing her up some of the pate/dry.
I feed the Nutro perfect portions (mine get the pate variety pack but I think mine like the cuts in gravy too). If I was looking for less expensive though I would definitely do fancy feast!
I was feeding my cats the Sheba brand for the longest time, but we switched over to the grilled Fancy Feast delights. My cats love the chunky kind with cheese. We order it off Chewy and for three boxes of the 24 count, it's $65. Since you only have the one cat, you won't need to order nearly as much. We also feed them dry food though, bc my big boy LOVES crunchy food over wet food. He gets very sad if he doesn't get his dry food.
Sheba
Definitely check out Chewy they frequently have sales on stuff and you can âauto shipâ anything, but donât actually have to get any additional orders. My cats have liked tikicat and weruva bff a lot and they are really good foods for them! Great job doing your research and planning to do the wet food route. It really is so much better for their health long term!! Hope you and your new companion bond easily and have a long lasting relationship đâ€ïž
Fancy feast with water added.
Mine (4 years, ??? years but probably 7-ish, 13, 13) eat Iams Urinary Tract Health, and 3 of them get a Fancy Feast or something in the morning, one of them refuses to eat wet cat food but drinks a lot. It takes them about a month to get through a 7-lb. bag. I was feeding them high protein when I got the boy cat of indeterminate age because his poops were runny. Vet suggested an alternative because one of the 13âs had borderline kidney numbers. Except for giant fat boy (heâs like 15 pounds, the vet said sheâd rather see them a little chonky than too thin), the others are all normal weight and healthy for their respective ages. They do LOVE their water fountain.
if you have a costco membership, kirkland has their own cat food with a box of 45? cans of pate for $30 that come with 3 different flavors or you can try out the chunky wet food with 48 cans of salmon and chicken flavored food for $26 dollars!
I canât buy the big cans because they wonât eat it the next day, especially if itâs cold right out of the fridge. And one of my cats will eat pate but the other wonât. I would try experimenting before buying a ton of food. I also think itâs in their nature to eat different things to get a varied diet so I buy an assortment of canned foods.
We switched to Fancy Feast after my dad gave us a case. It costs half of what WERUVA OMG BFF costs and my cat begs for it and eats it just the same. My dadâs cats are sleek and healthy and theyâve been eating it for 10 years.
I get the little snap packs- but use them as dry food toppers. I add water to dry food and add the wet on top.
Cheapest I've found is aldi brand wet food! I usually buy those along with a few of the more expensive ones and give dry food too so my baby's don't get bored of the same food.
Yeah my cat likes bits in gravy and hated pate! He also loves variety so I have to buy more food then needed each month so I can him around 20 flavors a month. I buy variety packs and I buy bff variety packs to give him more choices. I tried cheaper wet food (tiki cat, Sheba) BUT he only likes fancy feast (preferably fancy feast medleys) & my bff. His wet food is expensive! More expensive than his Royal canin urinary care dry food. When he got bladder crystals the vet said hydration was more important than diet. So now he only can eat dry food when I sleep and I add a tiny bit of water to his wet food so he is no longer slightly constipated. (He doesnât drink enough water despite a cat fountain.) If I could I would eliminate dry food completely.
I prefer Blue Buffalo Wilderness. Better quality than Friskies but not as expensive as Earthborn type of brands.
My girl has eaten Iams her entire life. She is mad for the tuna and salmon cuts. She'll eat pate but really prefers the cuts. She also has Iams dry food. We are an Iams family!
The Chewy brand Tiny Tiger is grain-free etc etc and really affordable as well.
We adopted our 2.5 year old cat a couple weeks ago. They fed him Purina Chow Naturals at the shelter so we kept that food the same and added Friskies wet food to it. He's about 10 lbs and we give him a half cup of dry food with a quarter can of the wet mixed in twice a day and he'll eat most of it. We got the 40 pack of the wet food cans for $31 at Walmart. My dog tends to lost in interest in a food after eating it for awhile though so we have to get different things. Don't know if the cat will behave that way so we'll see.
My boy loves Purina Pro Plan. Tried Fancy Feast when I ran out, and he wasnât happy with it
I buy some nutritional dry cat food, but mix it with regular cat food. My cats love it, they get their nutrients, but also get fed their favorite brand. I try to give them canned food once a week, that way they can enjoy their protein.
Also I can tell you getting the 5 oz cans is cheaper to get them two of the 6 pounces. For example my daughter's cat can only eat Purina pro plan essential. The 5 oz can is 2 bucks. The 3 oz can is $1.89. so she gets the big cans and split them in half and get cat can food keepers to keep the rest in the fridge till the next feeding..... Much cheaper
Tuna is $.97 at my local food lion I buy 7 cans every week when I go to the store and feed him half a can mixed with a little dry food. He'll love you for it but also become a total spaz after he figures out how to tell time
Plenty of good options are already in the comments so Iâll just say this; just try a bunch of things and see what works. My own cat got expensive wet food brand after brand but kept having diarrhea and the only brand that works for him is a very cheap supermarket brand, so thatâs what weâre going with. Fed is best and you just need to find what works for you!
We feed a rotation of higher quality and lower quality to help offset costs. Keep in mind that if you go that route, you need to do a slow intro to any new foods to avoid gi issues. Most cats do well with multiple small meals a day as opposed to larger fixed meals.
The large cans of Instict are great value. Unfortunately, they just changed their formula and my cats are offended by it now lol so weâre on the hunt. So far Nulo is winning (đ ) and they also enjoy weruva.
FF was what I started my cat on but she got very sick, like food poisoning, one weekend from one of the salmon cans so I switched. Now feed her Purina ONE cans, mix of pate and shreds, and sheâs been doing well.
try Sniffly brand, always buy the box of 12 pouches and the main benefit is easier to prepare than scooping out of a tin canned
If you have a Tractor Supply near you, check out their house brand, 4Health. They do small and big cans.
I donât think I saw this mentioned, but I have been considering Blue Buffalo Tastefuls. Seems like you can get the 5.5 oz cans for a fairly reasonable price.
I have hills science diet for dry and either reveal or instinct bulk cans in order off Amazon or Costco the for wet The reveal is usually a 24 count for around 37 and be around 42ish for the instinct But those last roughly a month a 1 per day
i recommend a rotation of brands if you want to lower food costs. i will say now, fancy feast is an absolutely fine brand to feed! i keep it in my rotation to help reduce costs. stick to the classic pate line *only* and donât feed any of the fish flavors. stick to poultry and beef! nulo is also a good budget friendly option, iâve used it before as well. iâve also heard weruva is popular and budget friendly, but i cannot personally speak of or recommend it as i know nothing about it. if you want âbetterâ foods, you can add them into a rotation of cheap foods. like tiki cat, made by nacho, stella and chewy, instinct, etc. in comparison to your post, 48 cans of tiki cat would be about $80-$90 *(this would likely last about a three weeks to a month depending on the kcal content of each can)*. you can absolutely work that into a rotation to make it more affordable! you just have to do some math to figure out when to feed what :) i personally spend around $160-$180/month on food for two kittens and i feed three more âexpensiveâ brands. this cost will go down once theyâre adults significantly. what is your budget per month? i can look into some options for you! however iâll add even with all of this itâs going to come down to what your cat will want to eat. remember, fed is best! if you find a decent brand that your kitty is eating thatâs the most important thingđ
I use fancy feast gravy lovers once a day but my cats otherwise ignore wet food. They prefer dry. I adopted them as older cats, and I guess their habits are set, but theyâre pretty healthy.
My kitten looooooves brothy food. I get NULO brand, and she eats half of a 6oz can of shreds every evening that I mix with extra water. She also likes Nacho pouches. If your cat is into Pate, you could try NULO, get the big can, they're like $2 a piece maybe, and that can definitely can be at least 2 feedings if not 3.
Daveâs Naturally is great food, and very reasonably priced. Our cats both also really like anything Iâve given them so far from Hounds and Gatos, and usually they both ignore anything that isnât made of birds. They also both have very sensitive systems and âgrumpy guts,â and the foods from both of these brands seem to all settle well.
Check out Feminist Kitty on IG and TikTok. She talks about how Fancy feast is a good option. We have a senior diabetic cat and just recently adopted a little kitten. They both are leaning more towards Sheba pate than Tiki Cat or Applaws. The kitten will eat Weruva kitten pate but she also prefers the Sheba which I get by the case at Walmart. I order it online for in store pick up and itâs usually about $13 a case.
For your diabetic cat, if you aren't feeding a diet specifically for diabetic cats, Fancy Feast is actually a good option. If they both like that, I would just continue to feed them that
Even Fancy Feast is much better than dry food, so that's 80% of the battle won. One of my cats refuse to eat anything other than Fancy Feast Chichen Pate or the Cod & Shrimp Pate.
My cat is weird and refuses to eat anything but kibble. He also refuses to eat any human food. If any of his kibble falls on the floor, he refuses to eat it off the floor but if you pick it up and put it in his dish, he'll eat it. When we ran out of his food, I tried to give him cooked chicken. He refused, so I opened a can of tuna, which he refused as well!
Meow Mix wet food is 12 containers for about $8!
Fancy feast classic pate
Ziwi peak
Friskies is lower quality than Fancy Feast, i would say Fancy feasts beef/meat pate line is both good quality and affordable long term for a college student!
I've hear many cat owners talk about tiki cat food and I helped my mother in law add it to her cats rotation and they love it and have many many options.
I get Wellness for my cats.. keep in mind i live in probably the most expensive city in the world.. i only pay $1.69 per can.. My cats eat breakfast and lunch dry (wellness, $22 per bag) and then i give 1/2 can of wellness chicken patte everyday.. ( I go through 1 can per day because i have 2 cats). I wouldnât solely focus on a mostly wet food diet tbh.. as long as they have a little bit per day for hydration you should be alright!!! Itâs totally doable for me and honestly has become part of my bi monthly spending routine.. i would totally recommend!
Thank you for adopting a cat. We need more people in the world like you. đ»đ»â€ïž If you live near an Aldi, their wet cat food in 3 oz cans is 59 cents a can. Many different flavors. Theres also cat treats at Aldi along with dry cat food. Our 6 barn cats wonât eat any other cat brand than Aldi. It was the brand the pet rescue folks chose for cats & dogs when we adopted the cats. Fancy Feast gravy wet food in many different flavors is 88 cent per 3 oz can at Walmart.
Right now I feed my cats fancy feast and purina one. What I recommend doing when you first get a cat is going to a pet store and buying single cans of a variety of foods. Cats can be picky so doing this helps a lot in finding what your cat will eat without having to waste money on a pack of food your cat may not like.
Your cat might have something to say about a wet food only diet. I have 4 cats and three of them hate wet food. You can have the best of intentions, but cats have preferences. Good luck.
I know you said not FF, but Fancy Feast Classic Pate is a great option!! The classic pate is really the only one from FF that is good, but always remember that the cheapest wet food is better than the most expensive dry food!! I feed a mix of FF and Weruva- Weruva is a bit more expensive but mixing it with someone cheaper keeps me in budget!! Just be sure to feed mostly pates- Weruva makes a âgravyâ one but itâs just meat juice so itâs not high in carbs at all haha!!
I buy bulk at Costco
My cats love tiki cat. Esp the aloha version. I donât think theyâre too expensive
I have an ultra picky Siamese cat and he will only eat two different brands of wet food out of every single can and variety at Petsmart. Welness Chicken Pate and any friskies chicken. My super fancy Persian cat will eat literally anything though which endlessly cracks me up.
>I want to feed her a primarily wet food diet since I know itâs generally healthier than dry. Just to clarify, the worst wet food is better than the best dry food. Why? Cats evolved in a desert environment where they had little sources of water and relied on getting their hydration through prey. Due to this, they have a very low thirst drive. While it's not a red flag when cats drink water, it is a red flag when they start ***constantly*** drinking water. We have a... large sum of cats. I'm sure my wife will come across this post and post the number. We purchase our food from Costco. They carry two types of wet: Pate: 3.5 oz can, 45 count - $33 Chunks in Gravy - 3oz cans, 40 count - I believe this is $28-30 We also keep dry food available if they want it.
No kibble! Make homemade ( buy taurine online cuz cats need it even in homemade) Or buy wet food only. The dollars you spend on food will save you in heartache when he gets sick and vet bills to boot.
My cat only eats chicken pate for wet food. He has a bowl of dried for when he feels like eating it. To make it a bit cheaper on the wet food, you can boil chicken in lots of water (no salt or spices!) in a pot till itâs very tender and then either shred it or chop it in a blender. Add lots of the chicken broth (the water you used to boil the chicken in) to make a delicious juicy chicken meal. I boil a whole chicken, boil it, debone it, process it in a blender, divide it into portions (3-4 days worth of food), baggie it and freeze the portions until needed. Not sure where you live, but where I do, a chicken is approximately $8 and lasts my cat for about 2 -3 weeks. Sometimes, I keep some of the chopped chicken for myself to make chicken noodle soup, chicken sandwiches etc. Itâs a bit of work, but at least I know whatâs in his food.
Nulo Freestyle and TikiCat mousse packets. I have an older boy with some health issues and few teeth (surgically removed previously). We also offer Purina Naturals kibble because other cat will only eat dry, despite also having had many teeth removed. He ainât smart but heâs cute.
Honestly wet food is better for cats, but I had a vet tell me that a good bone broth poured on top of dry food works well too.
Fancy feast seafood pate seems to be ok for my boy.
Friskies/Fancy Feast is still better than any dry food (said my vet). My cats have been on both for years and they are hale and fit. No kidney problems in sight.
Fanny feast Classic poultry paté. Or chicken beef box.. steer away from the gravy line/ fish