The tins are pate food; so are the pouches though you pay considerably more money to have it in a pouch with some unnecessary extras, such as dandelion. Still, my cats love those pouches too but certainly the tins are the sensible option.

All of the good quality food is pate food - though some like Pfotenliebe may be more of a mince quality. Just because they are pate doesn't mean that they don't contain any less moisture; actually the pate food contains very similar amounts of moisture to food in gravy or jelly - just that those are cheap, not very nutritious fillers that you pay good money for.

Re the shops. There are loads of German online petshops that sell quality cat food but not many ship to the UK and ship at affordable prices (and have other handy things like paypal. Because the UK is currently not part of a certain banking agreement or something we have to pay international transfer charges, which not only makes it a pain in the derriere but an expensive one to boot).

Two really good shops are

Hundefutter Katzenfutter Tierzubehör günstig kaufen • www.fuettern-mit-spass.de - accept paypal, have good, bulk-buying deals on Macs and other foods, post to the UK for 9.50 euro for 30kg (from mid-January; currently their postage charge is at 15 euro). Very friendly, very quick and very reliable.

Floyds Pfotenshop - accept paypal, and their postage charge is 10 euro something. They are often low on stock or are awaiting delivery but you can email the owner Daniela and she will help you with most things. Bulk buying discounts only on certain products. Also very quick and very reliable.

Hey Hobbs! Tabitha and Poppy loved the Mac's you sent and when I get paid on the 9th I'll be looking to place an order and I think I'd like to get them some more. Do you think 800g tins would be the best value? Based on feeding requirements it'd need to last 48 hours when they're adults (approx). Would you say it would keep that long? They'll be 6 months old when the order arrives.

Thanks!

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Quick update I ordered some Macs from Floyds yesterday. I opted to use Paypal and the checkout was a little difficult, so I went on to Facebook and got a quick response, so if anyone has trouble confirming their order - turn off the google page translation. It immidiately worked.

The Bozita arrived today from ZP, but all the information is in other languages. My kitten was 3.1kg on the 11th Dec when she had a check at the vets, how much of the Bozita should I feed her a day.

The link Hobbs supplied gave a recommendation for a 4kg cat. My kitten is 7 months old.

Did you get the tins or the tetrapaks?

For tins the guidelines are


Weight of cat (kg) Daily portion (g)
2-3 200-300
3-4 300-400
4-5 400-500
5-6 500-600
6-7 600-700

Remember though that as long as they are getting good quality food kittens really shouldn't have access to food restricted (different story for supermarket food that is full of filler)

Actually, the feeding guidelines are on zooplus, e.g. here for the tetrapaks in jelly: Bozita Chunks in Jelly, 6 x 370 g: Great Deals on Bozita Cat Food at zooplus

It was the tetra paks I got the variety selection. Thank you once again.

I am still leaving her some dry Natures Harvest down but she is only eating a few grammes during the day, but definitely weeing a lot more this last week since switching to wet food.

The Macs has been dispatched from Floyds so that shoud be here in a few days and also ordered an automatic feeder for lunch time- we should then be set

Well the Animonda, Smilla and Bozita arrived today - Put a bit of Smilla down for them to try and they're absolutely loving it!! Great to see they don't turn their noses up at pate food - have never seen them so enthusiastic

Now fingers crossed for no dodgy tums... They were fed whatever food was available at the shelter, so hopefully this hardened up their tums a bit

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Basil & Sybil

So they love Smilla and Animonda, gave them a bit of Bozita this morning and they have both turned their noses up at it! Cats are strange creatures, but lovely of course

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Basil & Sybil