Having been unemployed for 6 months, the time has come to tighten the belt. The cats must eat either dry food or some generic/supermarket brand of wet food. Even raw (or especially raw, I don't know, the prices of meat are making my head spin) is too expensive for me right now. The little voice in my head is telling me that any wet food is better than dry food, especially with one of the boys having had FLUTD.

Today I bought a can of food so generic you can't even find it on the internet. It still seems better than its counterparts in that price range (0.18 EUR/100 g - about the best I can afford). I knew I would find the standard 4% non-information on the ingredient list but could someone please tell me what is the worst thing that could have legally and realistically been put in that food? I would write to the manufacturer but that would involve snail mail, because that's the only customer service contact they left on the can. So what's driving the price down? Feathers? Cat and dog carcasses? Bats? Could this food somehow hurt my cats if it was a mainstay of their diet for indefinite time? It passed the taste test with flying colours, for what it's worth (can't say that about any other cheap food I bought except, of course, Whiskas).

Poilux

pâté with beef (there are three more flavours, rabbit, chicken and lamb)

Complete food for cats

Ingredients: meat and animal by-products (of which minimum 4% beef), mineral substances. Preserved with CEE additive (EWG-Zusatzstoff in the German label)

Average analysis: crude protein 10%, crude fat 5.5%, crude fiber 0.3%, moisture 81%, crude ash 2.5%

Vitamins: A 2000 IU/kg, D3 250 IU/kg, E 10 mg/kg

Made in France

And here are some of my calculations:

Dry matter:
protein 52,6%,
fat 28,9%,
carbs 3,7%,
fiber 1,6%,
ash 13,1%

Calories in 100g: 84,5
of which
calories from protein: 35 (41,4%)
calories from fat: 47 (55,6%)
calories from carbs: 2,5 (2,9%)

What about Asda's TopLife Chicken Dinner? Similar to Bozita, but a touch less meat in the chunks. Not super-cheap, but a little more spent on food might save you an awful lot more spent on vet's bills. I appreciate your situation though, and wish you luck.

Oh that's quite pricey, over 1 pound per day (I've just consulted Hobbs' wet food thread... not that I live in the UK, I was just curious what choices you guys have over there!) Thanks for the good wishes though I will try to give them raw treats when possible, but I do need some sort of complete food as the main part of their diet... and with 7 cats, even a small difference in price matters. I just can't decide which is better (or worse, to be exact), some cheap no-name wet food or well known but not top quality dry food (it would probably be Hill's Science Diet because I can buy it in bulk and be given a discount by the place where I shop).

what about zooplus.co.uk

if you buy in bulk it works out to pennies a day! We do huge shops get a discount and then it lasts age so no keep poppin out for food etc

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Oh I have read wonderful things about zooplus. However, they don't ship outside of the EU, and even if they did, with shipping costs (and customs+VAT, which cost an arm and a leg, i.e. 30% of what you paid to the website, shipping included) online orders are not a viable solution for me. (It's good you mentioned it though, someone in my financial situation who can order from zooplus might read this thread and find all the suggestions useful, so keep them coming )

You might want to check the Food A-Z sticky and I want to say that Hobbs, our resident food guru, always tells people that any wet food is better than the best dry. Apologies if I've bungled that, but it sticks in my mind. Hopefully Hobbs will be along shortly to confirm or correct

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My babies
Aber, Ragnar, Kelso (the corgi trio), Daisy (our rescue mystery-mix puppy), Ellie, Henry, Gwennie, Jezebel (the kitty quartet), Blake, Chaucer, Molly and Milton (the kittens), and Bingo the African Grey parrot

Over the Bridge:
Pippin: 1/6/08-17/5/11
Freja: 11/8/10-30/10/10
Kirby: 11/8/10-1/11/10

"Praise liberty/The freedom to obey/It's a song that strangles me/Well, don't cross the line" Billie Joe Armstrong

Just a thought, and quite possibly a daft one, but is there anyone that could order from Zooplus for you (or another pet website) and then send it on??

Not sure whereabouts you are or whether there would still be tax & customs charges.

There would, unfortunately, because I'm not in the EU (Serbia), so taxes and customs still apply. Which is a shame because at zooplus they have much better quality foods at much lower prices than anything I can find in shops here. Smilla for example, the food seems good and costs so little!

As above, I would definitely stick to the wet food. As you already seem to be aware, most people would argue that a cheap wet food is still better than a high quality dry food. Have a read of the link below for more information on that argument:

Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition :: healthy cat diet, making cat food, litter box, cat food, cat nutrition, cat urinary tract health

The only thing I would add is to mix up the brands and flavours as best you can to ensure a complete and balanced diet, I suspect this may be even more important with the budget brands.

The macro nutrient profile you listed for the food seems reasonable, most importantly did your boys eat it?

Can you get hold of "classic cat" tins they are in most supermarkets, its better quality than most generic tins as its made by butchers but its also good for a tight budget